Here, the discriminatory practices of the pre-Civil War period were reborn anew through laws meant to disenfranchise African Americans and the Supreme Court ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson. Though government agencies like the Freedmen’s Bureau were designed to help combat some of these problems, they lacked the expertise and the funding to do so. Coupled with the growing apathy of northerners to the plight of newly-freed slaves, it was clear that racial relations in the south would gradually worsen and worsen, coming to a head only with the actions of Civil Rights supporters in the 1950s and 1960s, thus demonstrating the long-term impact of these changes.
The events that took place during the Civil Rights Movement were unjust and left a large impact on the African Americans. The Civil Rights Movement was one of the most significant movements to take place in American history. African Americans were faced with equality issues and were “judged by the color of their skin, [not] by the content of their character,” (Source 3). They were deprived of jobs, education, voting rights, economic opportunities, and most importantly, their freedom and rights as a citizen of the United States of America. After being freed from slavery, the blacks thought they had achieved their freedom, but soon realized that was only the beginning.
She used her good and bad past experiences as influences for her works. The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement of blacks that helped changed their identity. Creative expression flourished because it was the only chance blacks had to express themselves in any way and be taken seriously. World War I and the need for workers up North were a few pull factors for the migration and eventually the Renaissance. A push was the growing discrimination and danger blacks were being faced with in the southern cities.
After the 13th amendment was passed, there was a severe shortage of workers on plantations and they needed help. The black codes were partially created because of economic worries of not having labor in the south. They helped reconstruction because it ensured that wealthy southern landowners would have a cheap and steady workforce they needed, because some of the codes forced African Americans to sign contracts that required them to work for meager wages. The government was also scared that the freed slaves would try to get revenge on their owners. The black codes helped regain control and inhibit the freedoms over the freed slaves, prevent black uprisings, ensure the continued and steady supply of cheap labor, and maintain segregation and white supremacy.
They experienced de facto segregation as oppose to the de jure segregation they’re fellow black people faced in the south; though the treatment in the north was better there were still race riots and much racial tension. The Harlem Renaissance was explosive. It brought much attention to the reality black people faced on a daily basis. The renaissance shed light on how harsh life was for the African American and the traumatic feelings that they suffered. Without the Harlem Renaissance the struggles of the black American during the times of racial tensions may not have been thrust out into the light and shown as broadly as it was.
Du Bois. These creative black artists made an influence to society in the 1920’s and an impact on the Harlem Renaissance. The Great Migration was the movement in which 6 million African Americans from the South traveled to the North for more work opportunities. The South treated them harshly in terms of segregation and work opportunities. After World War I, segregation policies known as Jim Crow Laws were enforced in the South and forced the blacks to contribute to the sharecropping system.
The Harlem Renaissance emerged amid social and intellectual upheaval in the African American community in the early 20th century. Several factors laid the groundwork for the movement. A black middle class had developed by the turn of the century, fostered by increased education and employment opportunities following the American Civil War (1861-1865). During the Great Migration, hundreds of thousands of black Americans moved from an economically depressed rural South to industrial cities of the North to take advantage of the employment opportunities created by World War I. As more and more educated and socially conscious blacks settled in New York's neighborhood of Harlem, it developed into the political and cultural center of black America.
With racism still rampant leaving economic opportunities, scarce, creative expression was available to African Americans in the early 20th century. During the Harlem renaissance, they were the great migration. It was the end of the American Civil war, in 1965 was in increased opportunity for African Americans in education and employment. This made the first black middle class in America. In 1866, racial equality delivered a crushing blow when Plessy v. Ferguson declared racial segregation acceptable.
As African Americans migrated north, they developed their own culture in Harlem, New York. As African Americans settled in Harlem, their American Dream transformed from an idea of freedom into a dream where they could remember their history as a race and achieve racial equality in their careers, education, and entertainment. The first advancement in the free Negro history was when they were released from slavery’s grasp through the Civil War and Emancipation Proclamation. While the Civil War was not only about the questioned ethics of harboring slaves, it was one of the driving forces that fueled the war, and led to many people giving their lives to either protect or condemn slavery. About 620,000 people lost their lives fighting for freedom in the Civil War, which is equivalent to the city of Baltimore, Maryland's entire population (Civil War Facts).
During the Great Migration, an influx of African Americans fled to Northern cities from the South wishing to flee oppression and the harshness of life as sharecroppers. They brought about a new, black social and cultural identity- a period that later became known as the Harlem Renaissance. Originally the Harlem Renaissance was referred to as the “New Negro Movement” (Reader’s Companion.) It made a huge impact on urban life. The Harlem Renaissance played a major role in African American art, music, poetic writing styles, culture and society.