Racial Discrimination

Throughout history, people have discriminated on others to varying degrees. Discrimination has had various motives including religion, class, wealth, and in the case of the United States, race. Racial discrimination on African people in North America started when white slave traders kidnapped people living in Africa and brought them to what would become the United States. This discrimination started with the intent to make monetary gains, but over centuries developed into a deeply rooted hatred for black people. White hatred for black people in the South in the 1950’s was debatably the worst our country ever saw. Since then, our country has changed policies and laws in an attempt to lessen the presence of racism in the United States. Have the

The average black family with a parent who attended college’s average income went up by over $3000 from 1974 to 1976 (Marable 151). In the South, black, husband-wife families earned 90% of what their white counterparts earned, and in the North and West, black, husband-wife families actually outearned white families in 1976 (Marable 151). This data shows that there were tremendous reforms in the black elite, but the government reforms struggled to help black people who did not have formal educations, or did not have families with two

They enforced desegregation of schools in the South, and gave African Americans a chance to receive a quality education like white children of this time. This education could then be used by them to get into colleges and earn higher paying jobs, therefore escaping poverty and one aspect of systematic racism. The measures our government took during the civil rights movement to improve the quality of life for minorities had a positive impact on the people of the United States.

This topic was interesting to me because when I have heard about the civil rights movement, I have always heard about how it was a great watershed moment in American history. I felt it was important to check whether or not it actually had a positive impact on the people it was intended to help. It’s important to do this because if we as a society take the things the media says about history as 100% fact, we will have had the wool pulled over our eyes by mass