It was much harder for blacks to get a job, and there employment position could be described as ‘the last to be hired, the first to be fired’. African Americans faced discrimination almost in every job, and they earned less, often due to the poor educational opportunities. The voting rights were different in the North from the South. In the North, almost all African Americans could vote. In the South however, the blacks were disfranchised, since the state governments introduced literacy tests, tests on the knowledge of constitution and Poll taxes, which African Americans had trouble with, because of poor education and financial problems.
According to Du Bois the prejudices of white people elicit “self-questioning, self-criticism, and lowering of ideals” among black people. The internalization of anti-black sentiment from the outside world thus begins to shape the black American experience. Through the concept double consciousness DuBois becomes better able to explore the social problems he studied in his earlier work “The Philadelphia Negro”. Double consciousness also creates an element of conflict within the black American, as they struggle (often unsuccessfully) to reconcile their identity as a black person and as an American citizen. Dubois cites the example of the black artisan in “The Souls of Black Folk”.
88 tracts had at least 1% African American population, and only 4 were above 50%, with none being above 61%. Spear also describes how African Americans were discriminated against during the turn of the 20th century. He tells of how real estate agents were often told by whites in a neighborhood to not sell to African Americans. If African Americans were already living in a ‘white neighborhood’, whites often attempted to band together and buy out the African Americans, and if that failed, they sometimes resorted to intimidation. It was also very difficult for an African American to get a job as anything but an unskilled laborer.
In What Ways Did Black Americans Secure Improved Civil Rights: 1945-1964? Black Americans had often been looked down upon by White Americans and always suffered racial prejudice. Their struggle for equal racial rights had begun from the end of slavery in 1865, only until the late 1960’s did significant improvement was made. Following the events and ending of World War II, Black Americans began what would become known as the Civil Rights Movement. In 1951, the father of a black student named Linda Brown sued the Board of Education because a white school had prevented Brown from attending a school which was only seven blocks away, compared to the segregated black school she was attending which was more than seven blocks away from her home.
For example: Race would define an African American but ethnicity would tell us where he and his ancestors come from. There is more attention given to race an ethnicity in our daily lives than we can imagine, in newspapers or in politics. People get hired or discriminated against because of their race. I can relate to this because, after the 9/11 attack, some of my family friends who were Muslims were called in for questioning and even lost their jobs because no one wanted to keep Muslims and any one who looked like them i.e. south east Asians as employees.
They would co-operate with any willing whites, migrate to the North or West, protest politically and would follow accommodationism. Even today, the African American population within Caucasian neighborhoods had still only risen by about 5%. The Latinos now have a higher social rank than the African Americans. Slavery The 13th amendment on January 1st, 1865 abolished slavery within the USA, this was supposed to help equalise the two races. But after they were “released” they had nothing to do, they had grown up having structure, being told what to do; now they are lost.
Marriage in the African American Community Marriage in the African American community is almost null and void. The divorce and separation rate in the African American community is at an all time high. This is to some extent due to the value of marriage in the African American community changing. More and more of African Americans are being raised in single family homes. African American women are not getting married for love anymore.
After a while, there were less people who had good credit and were eligible for a mortgage. In order for mortgage brokers, lenders, investment bankers, and investors to continue to make their money, they needed people who were going to buy houses or else they would not be able to maintain their large amounts of income. They decided to accept unqualified mortgage applicants. This added risk to the mortgage and made it inevitable that the homeowners would default on their mortgage resulting in the house foreclosing where the investment banker could then put the house up for sale. This cycle continued to happen which caused houses to lose their value bringing down the other houses around them.
All over the south racism was still going on. But this time it was going on illegally. There were riots in the north in places like Chicago, Detroit and New York. The white race had been angered at the ‘preferential treatment afforded to African Americans.’ Although there were riots against the well being for black people there were other groups who protested for black people. The Double V campaigned for hypocrisy of the discrimination in America and the segregated lines.
When neighborhoods began integrate, whites began to leave, fearing house value depression. Real estate agents would use the fear of blacks to drive whites to sell their homes quickly and then sell the homes at higher rates to minorities. This transformation from a predominantly white community to predominantly minority community was known as blockbusting. Even if whites weren’t racist they knew from a financial standpoint that they would lose money by living in a community with black people. White people controlled the assets and took them with them wherever they went.