After the emancipation of slavery in the 1800’s, African Americans have struggled to be treated with the same equal rights as Europeans. Even with the laws that were pasted to protect African Americans there were states that ignored and created new laws to overturn the laws to protect African Americans. The ignorant of Europeans who denied African Americans the equal rights the laws stated they deserved. African Americans decided to stand up for themselves by developing non violent protest movement to fight for the equal rights of African Americans. ("Civil Rights Movement") Martin Luther King Jr. became the leader of the non violent protest movement in the 1950’s.The development of Martin Luther King Jr. in this era started when an African American woman named Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.
There were eleven States of America that were slave states, as they held slaves in a large ratio; they named themselves as “Confederates of America” while the other side was named as “The Union” (Valley of the shadow). The Union was comprised of all the Free States of America in which, there were no trend of keeping slaves and also there was no slave trade along with some slave states. According to the Union, the slave States that were fighting against the abolition of slavery were the Rebels, as they challenged the authority and equality of human beings. According to James B. Griffin, he was not ready to change his life style because of the subjugation of North. The officer informs through his correspondence with his wife through his letters that he has a number of slaves that are appointed do various chores related to plantation and household (McArthur and Burton 1996).
In “Letter from Birmingham City Jail”, King talks about how African Americans were treated differently due to the color of their skin. Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mohandas Gandhi all have used civil disobedience whether it was to help fight for racial justice or to free their country from Britain’s rule. To begin with, Gandhi, King, and Thoreau’s approach to civil disobedience included the power of an individual. In “Civil Disobedience” Thoreau says, “I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least’; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe: ‘That government is best which governs not
Many died to hands of whites for their participation in these rebellions. Whites of the Southern states tried hard to keep slavery the way it was but with the steady growing number of free educated blacks in the Northern states grew the desire for slaves to obtain the same. In the North, blacks were able to obtain an education, work as well as own their own stores. Eventually, Abraham Lincoln got into office and many Southern Whites believed he sided on the abolishment of slavery so they made their states separate from that of the Northern portion of the United States. Lincoln supported the Union, which were the Northern States which held free blacks, and gave the Confederate States an ultimatum to join back with the Union or war will begin.
However the positive effects of slavery ending did not come without consequences. During that time period of Reconstruction, African Americans faced many hardships in the movement towards their own cultural rebuilding. Although it was good that slavery came to an end, it was also a bittersweet time. After the Civil War southern states entered into what it now known as the Reconstruction Era, in which they worked to return the Confederacy to the Union and rebuild the southern economy. With the ending of the Civil War the Thirteenth Amendment was passed, abolishing slavery and giving African Americans a chance to also rebuild their lives now as freedmen.
Although each of them had their own perspectives, their main objective was the same. Reparations in this society can be defined by stating that the U.S. government needs to make a formal apology to blacks for the damage caused by the transatlantic slave trade due to social and economic consequences in the United States. Advocates also feel the U.S. government owes the black people. Blacks remain behind due to many things, the most important being slavery. The Constitution, until recently, did not apply to blacks; blacks feel they deserve payments from 310 years of slavery, destruction to their minds and culture.
One factor why historians believe slavery was abolished was because of the actions of white, middle-class campaigners such as Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce. Granville Sharp was involved in many court cases, helping black people from being treated badly by their owners and he stopped them being made to go back to their home land in the West Indies. Sharp managed to get judges to agree that masters of slaves could not force a slave to go out of Britain. Sharp did not manage to get slavery or the slave trade abolished, but he had started the campaign against slavery. A black youth who was queuing for free medical help, with a badly swollen head,
However, even after its abolishment, blacks were still kept in slavery and were treated poorly and unequal to other, white Americans. This abuse was much more common in the Southern states due to the more racist nature of the white people who lived there and the fact that the Southern states had originally fought to keep Black Slavery legal. Soon after the Civil War was won by the Northern States, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment were brought into congress. The thirteenth amendment stated that all Slavery must end in America; the fourteenth amendment stated that everyone living on American soil should gain citizenship and the fifteenth amendment stated that all citizens should gain the right to vote. These amendments could be considered as vital moves towards black equalities, if they had worked.
Race Relations after the Civil War 3 The way white Southerners made it difficult on former slaves in the South was to create what was called “Black Codes”. These codes were laws made by southern states to try to ensure their way of life could not be infringed on in the wake of the passing of the 13th amendment which outlawed slavery. Examples of such codes varied from state to state. However, the message was clear to the former slaves that they were still unequal. Examples of these laws are as follows: 1.
This would mean an entirely different lifestyle for African Americans. There was still racism going on, but no African American was considered a slave. By ending slavery this forced the south to find a new way of supporting themselves and working their cash crops. In 1863 President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation meaning that all people that were held as slaves within the United States shall be forever set free. But this did not end slavery in the nation.