Slave Mentality In The 1930s Essay

702 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: African Americans in the reconstruction era

The 1930s was a rough period of time in the U.S, with segregation and discrimination running wild in the south. The slaves had just been freed and the mentality of the southerners was still of slavery. They also like to keep themselves socially elevated above everybody else so that they could run the show in the south during the hard times. The discrimination shown by the whites to the minorities groups in the south in the 1930s was unjust, unfair, and socially wrong because the whites thought they were superior, socially dominate, and they wanted to keep the slave mentality. The whites believed that they were superior during this time. “It is better to lynch a few innocent blacks than to leave white women terrorized” (Wormser 61). This is …show more content…

“In Arkansas and Alabama, convicts are forced to work through the winter without shoes” (Wormser 76). The slaves would have had to work through the winter with little clothing also. This was common though because people wanted to keep the slave mentality that was just taken away from them. “That there is not an inn between Washington and Montgomery, a distance of more than a thousand miles, that will accommodate me to a bed or meal” (Rapier). The whites still thought of themselves as higher than the slaves too. They were “better” than others but in reality were treating them very harshly. This is wrong just because you can not be better than someone else if you are that harsh, mean, cruel, or unfair to them. This shows why the discrimination shown by the whites during the 1930's was unjust, unfair, and socially wrong. It is because they thought they were superior, dominate, and they had a slave mentality.
The Whites wanted to keep the old lifestyle of slavery and an easy life for them. When something major changes in life for the worse, it would be better back to normal right? Normally people go for the way that worked and so when slavery was abolished the whites took a turn for the worse. If the people that wanted slavery just wanted things to go back to normal would that be socially wrong? It depends on the treatment, if the slave is being treated as a person

Show More
Related

  • Jim Crow Laws Essay

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    Equality is something that should be given to every human and not earned or be taken away. However, this idea does not present itself during the 1930’s in the southern states including Alabama. African Americans faced overwhelming challenges because of the thought of race superiority. Therefore, racism in the southern states towards African Americans made their lives tough to live because of disparity and inhumane actions towards this particular group of people.

    Read More

  • Slave Life In The Antebellum South Analysis

    1492 Words  | 3 Pages

    1. The insight that each of these sources offers into slave life in the antebellum South is how slaves lived, worked, and were treated by their masters. The narratives talk about their nature of work, culture, and family in their passages. For example, in Solomon Northup 's passage he describes how he worked in the cotton field. Northup said that "An ordinary day 's work is considered two hundred pounds. A slave who is accustomed to picking, is punished, if he or she brings less quantity than that," (214). Northup explains how much cotton slaves had to bring from the cotton field and if a slave brought less or more weight than their previous weight ins then the slave is whipped because they were either slacking or have no been working to their

    Read More

  • To Kill A Mockingbird Should Be Banned In Schools Essay

    604 Words  | 2 Pages

    Students today should be informed about the racials tensions and struggles that black people faced in the 1930s. To Kill A Mockingbird explains the difficulties of the racial divides of that time. In the book there were several different racial

    Read More

  • Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry

    430 Words  | 1 Pages

    Overall, life in the 1930s for the black people was very difficult as they were pressured and pushed around as if they were animals.

    Read More

  • A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest J. Gaines

    1012 Words  | 3 Pages

    While we all would agree that racism is immoral and has no place in a modern society, that was not the case in the U.S. in the 1940s. At the time African Americans were treated as second-class citizens, it was made near-impossible for them to vote, and they were discriminated in many ways including in education, socially and in employment. It was a time in which segregation and racism perforated the laws and society, a time in which African Americans were “separate but equal,” segregation was legal and in full force. Apartheid was also everywhere from the books to in society. Blacks were not truly seen as equal as they were seen the the lesser of the two and it very much felt that way. Blacks were oppressed in many ways including having unreachable requirements to vote, such regulations included literacy tests, poll taxes, and elaborate registration systems, but it only started there.

    Read More

  • How Did Emmett Till Dehumanized

    702 Words  | 2 Pages

    Blacks were treated unjustly due to the Jim Crow laws and the racial stigmas embedded into American society. Under these laws, whites and colored people were “separate but equal,” however this could not be further from the truth. Due to the extreme racism in the United States during this time period, especially in the South, many blacks were dehumanized by whites to ensure that they remained inferior to them. As a result of their suffering from the prejudice society of America, there was a national outcry to better the lives of colored people.

    Read More

  • 18th Century Republicanism: Struggles for Equality and Rights

    683 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many White laborers resented having to compete against slaves. These standards and combined with other acknowledgement of slavery lead to the establishment of antislavery societies. Many North states started becoming lenient toward Africans and enslaved individuals, states such as Vermont and Pennsylvania emancipated slavery during the late 1700’s as they saw it as unconstitutional. Although blacks became free, many faced systematic discrimination such as being excluded from voting, juries, militia duties, and being revoked rights of full citizenship. This later created segregation and denied black access to a quality education.

    Read More

  • Racism In The 1900's

    809 Words  | 2 Pages

    Racism was a serious issue from the 1870’s to the 1900’s and seemed to be never ending. During this time, white people thought they were superior to all other races. They believed that all other races were inferior to them and treated them as if they were. They were brutal and nasty to them just because they were not the same race as them. During this time, the two major groups that were targeted were the Native Americans, African Americans, and Filipinos.

    Read More

  • The Need For Slavery In The American Colonies

    894 Words  | 2 Pages

    Farming, sewing, and taking care of livestock were just a few responsibilities that were left to slaves during the 1600's. White families received all of the benefits from the work done, yet they rarely had to lift a finger, unless it was to correct a slave. Today's generation reads about slavery and regards it as morally wrong. While I agree that slavery was one of America's greatest wrongdoings, it paved the way for America as we know it today.

    Read More

  • Alienation And Discrimination: Of Mice And Men

    779 Words  | 2 Pages

    The 1930s was a time period in which racial discrimination played a vital role in the lives of minorities.

    Read More

  • African Americans In The 1930s Essay

    473 Words  | 1 Pages

    “There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads- they couldn’t be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s word, the white always wins. They’re ugly, but these are the facts of life” (Lee 252). The 1930’s were a tough time for the American people and even tougher for the African Americans. African Americans were subject to profound neglect even before the Great Depression so when time came for recovery, respect, and fair trial of court the African Americans were consigned to oblivion. African Americans were so greatly discriminated against there would have been no point in representing them or trying to stick up for them because people's range of vision was blocked by a common consensus

    Read More

  • Slavery’s Dehumanizing Effects on American Slaves and Slaveholders

    1652 Words  | 4 Pages

    In order to justify keeping an entire race of people enslaved, slaveholders claimed that blacks were inferior to whites, placing them on the same level as livestock and other animals. “There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all subjected to the same narrow examination” (73). The fact is, whites are not naturally superior over blacks. Therefore, slaveholders used a variety of contrived strategies to make their case that blacks were inherently inferior to whites. To...

    Read More

  • Racism In To Kill A Mockingbird

    749 Words  | 2 Pages

    Being African American in the 1930’s, how free you were was determined by the half you lived in - the North or South. In that time period there was a significant amount of racism, segregation, and prejudice occurring. However, racism was on a whole different level in the South than it was in the North of the United States. In the North colored people had rights like freedom of speech, but in the South they had no rights. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird the author, Harper Lee, did a wonderful job of vividly portraying how Negro’s lived in the South, particularly in the state of Mississippi in Maycomb county. In the society of Maycomb white folk hated the blacks. For many people racism changed their life dramatically. The grass really was greener on the other side for colored folks - the North. For Calpurnia, Tom Robinson, and Mr. Dolphus Raymond racism dramatically affected their lifestyle.

    Read More

  • Essay On Fear Of Slave Education

    698 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the years of slavery, education was an extremely controversial issue among these individuals. The entire nation's economy depended heavily upon the free labor of slaves, which made so many oppose the idea of abolition. The main fear in the education of slaves was that they would revolt; and the southern economy would collapse, therefore, causing detrimental effects on the country's economy as a whole. Despite slave owners' attempts at limited or no education for their slaves, due to their fear of slave rebellion, these individuals overcame the cycle of dependence, but not without the teaching initiated from their ancestors.

    Read More

  • Modern Day Slavery Essay

    1371 Words  | 3 Pages

    The word “slavery” brings back horrific memories of human beings. Bought and sold as property, and dehumanized with the risk and implementation of violence, at times nearly inhumane. The majority of people in the United States assumes and assures that slavery was eliminated during the nineteenth century with the Emancipation Proclamation. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth; rather, slavery and the global slave trade continue to thrive till this day. In fact, it is likely that more individuals are becoming victims of human trafficking across borders against their will compared to the vast number of slaves that we know in earlier times. Slavery is no longer about legal ownership asserted, but instead legal ownership avoided, the thought provoking idea that with old slavery, slaves were maintained, compared to modern day slavery in which slaves are nearly disposable, under the same institutionalized systems in which violence and economic control over the disadvantaged is the common way of life. Modern day slavery is insidious to the public but still detrimental if not more than old American slavery.

    Read More

More about Slave Mentality In The 1930s Essay

Open Document