These black codes prohibited interracial marriages, the ownership of guns or liquor, congregation in large groups and had curfews for these freedmen. Furthermore, these black codes forced the freedmen to sign annual work contracts that were offensive and offered only in the agricultural f... ... middle of paper ... ...n a way of life in the south. In conclusion, the Reconstruction was overall ineffective for giving real rights to African Americans. In effect, all of these outcomes only gave the white an advantage and gave African Americans a difficult way of life. As for the social structure in the south, they ended up getting things their way, winning themselves back into domination of southern state control.
In the “Caged Bird” Angelou’s comparison to the caged bird was African-Americans in the society they were living in. She symbolized the bird with African-Americans experiences. In the second stanza the poem states “But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing”. This is comparison to African-Americans in their society. When African- Americans were enslaved they use to sing songs to uplift their spirits because that’s all they could do.
Maya Angelou's writing career began during the late 1950's, around the same period when the Civil Rights Movement began to take place. Maya's known for one f her most famous poems, I Know Why The Cage Birds Sing. This poem is basically talking about how the birds in the cage are the African Americans/Blacks, where they have no freedom. "The free bird leaps on the back of the wind/and floats downstream till the current ends/And dips his wings in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky. "(Angelou, 1-3) In the beginning , of this poem Maya Angelou is using the free bird to refer to the white people because they have all the rights and the blacks are stuck in "the cage" with no rights or freedom.
Around 1876, Jim Crow Laws came into effect and demonstrated a system of segregation which separated the blacks and whites, primarily in public facilit... ... middle of paper ... ...ivil Rights Movement, a large social movement, paved the way for changes in black freedom and how the blacks would be viewed. Many whites grew more hostile towards the African Americans because they had been granted their freedom. People who were once viewed as only a piece of property, now had rights under the law, making them equal to the people who once owned them. The Civil Rights Movement was a fight between both races to see who was the stronger race and if the whites would be able to maintain their power. The whites had everything under control until the blacks began to realize as a citizen, they had rights as well.
Although they considered themsleves members of the country, they were not treated as true citizens of America should be. At the end of slavery, and the end of the poem, the narrator says "I, too, am America". Before, all they could do to make themselves feel like an equal part of the country was to sing the anthem and 'sing' of their hopes. But now, they were America. At first, when they were slaves, they could only hope to be treated equally, and therefore dream of America, but now they actually were true citizins.
Around 1900 the situation for blacks was dire. They suffered extreme discrimination and were frequently the victims of violence in the South. Blacks could not vote and their career opportunities remained limited. White society excluded blacks from equal participation in many areas of public life; they wanted to keep blacks in a position of economic, political, social and cultural subservience. After the Civil War, the USA offered civil rights and laws privileges to African-Americans.
When the Constitution was created the writers believed that all men should be created equal. Not until almost a hundred years later were African Americans freed from slavery. Even after they had been granted citizenship, African Americans were treated unfairly and unequally. Roughly, another hundred years later, African Americans were still blamed for people's problems and were persecuted. In the Southern United States, people were still unwilling to fully accept African Americans in their society and this shows in "To Kill A Mockingbird" because of the attitudes portrayed during Tom Robinson’s trial.
Although, clear most of African Americans remained in a bond, the growth of free black communities in America was raised by the War for American to be free. In 1807 everyone had to stop having slaves. “ Soc... ... middle of paper ... ...d to rest. Instruments that they used to punish slaves and keep within limits are: the iron collar,or even slaves chains. But not all states wanted it to be slaves, the Southern states wanted it and the Northern states didn't.
Slave songs, called spirituals, were sung to express emotions and experiences. The slaves sang about their everyday lives, and their hopes, fears, dreams, and complaints. The desire for freedom was evident in songs such as “Run to Jesus, Shun the Danger” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” which encouraged escape, while others encouraged sabotage. For the slaves, openly resisting the slave system was dangerous because of the punishment for opposition. Slave owners even banned drumming because they feared an uprising or of secret messages being delivered amongst the slaves ("Slave Resistance at Work.").
However, in the novel Twain still depicts the picture of just hope bad the black people still had it during because of the difference in their skin color. Slavery could have easily been done away with but when the white people living in the south decide to enact laws using the excuse of their safety against the new free black slaves the black people view this as immoral and discriminatory and even opt to act on it. Even though the time setting of the novel was when slavery had already been abolished, the black people living in the South of the state dint have it any easy being black and Twain sets his novel a few decades back to give the readers a clear honest picture of the nature of racism and slavery at the time. The book is set in the late 19th century in a rural part of the state along the Mississippi river where the main dominants in the society are the white people who look down at the African American living in the area and treat them with a lot of cruelty and discrimination. The main character in the story is Jim Crow who Twain uses a representatio... ... middle of paper ... ...elty that the African Americans are forced to live with simply because of the fact that they are black.