The American Civil War, and the ‘Restoration’ period (1966-1977) that followed saw many of the Southern State’s de jure segregation repealed, however as quickly as they had disappeared, they began to re-emerge after the North’s troops were sent home. The first major act against racial segregation came in 1896, in the Plessey vs Fergusson case, where the Supreme Court stated that ‘separate but equal’ facilities did not violate the 14th Amendment, which stated that all American citizens were to be treated equally. After a time, in 1950, segregation was challenged, again, this time by the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured Peoples). In the court case that followed, several families from Claredon County took the Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas to court. After a state court claimed it was outside of its jurisdiction, the case was taken to the Supreme Court.
In “The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America,” written by Colin G. Colloway indicates that the Treaty of Paris of 1763 was the cause of American Revolutionary War. In this document, American territory changed hands in any treaty ever before. Settlers and Frontiers as long with Indians and Europeans all endured to adapt to new situations, boundaries, government and restrictions. It focuses on the sociological involvement of the war, and how it affected the different populations, both directly and indirectly. Also the document presents the triumphs and tragedies of the epic struggle on a continent placing them in a larger context in France and Great Britain global conflict.
The term race is usually referred as a way to categorize people based on their cultures and physical traits. Racism is the belief that humanity is divided into stratified genetically different socks called races; according to its adherent’s racial differences make one group superior to another. Throughout history, for hundreds of years, the Black race has been considered inferior to Caucasians. African Americans had to go through slavery, segregation, and racial comments of hatred; and they are still fighting for equality. That was in the 1800s and 1900s, and yet in 2009 Black people still have to face the discrimination.
After Lincoln’s re-election in November 1864 Lincoln pressed for the Congressional approval for the measure (the “Thirteenth Amendment”) and it was passed on 31st January 1865. Being free was not enough for former blacks however to be true citizens of the United States, they needed an organisation that would protect their rights, and so in March 1865 Congress created the Freedmen’s Bureau, which set up public schools, provided aid to the poor, secured equal rights for white Unionists and blacks in the courts, negotiated labour contracts between freedmen and their former masters etc. “The death rate among freedmen was reduced, and sanitary conditions improved.” To see just what a leap this was, one has only to look back at the ante-bellum period, when Southern leaders were able to protect their sectional interests during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, preventing the insertion of any explicit anti-slavery position in the Constitution, and at the
Motivated by the dream of a world with only one race, the KKK used violence and moves above the law to support their cause. (Evans) The Ku Klux Klan began almost by accident during the rebuilding process after the civil war in the Southern United States. The southern people suffered from the effects of the great war. Many of them lost their homes and plantations, many also lost friends and loved ones to the war. The original Ku Klux Klan was formed, in April 1866, as a social organization for ex-confederates in Pulaski, Tennessee.
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. Thus, the Civil War begun and it was during this time which Lincoln issued the Emancipation of Proclamation and freed the slaves in the United States. “In July of 1862 Congress passed a Confiscation Act, which enabled the freeing of slaves of those fighting in the Union.” (142) This is stating that any black that fought with the Union became a free man. The Union used this as a way of recruiting more blacks to fight in order to
The fourteenth Amendment (1868) gave citizenship rights to all people bon in the USA and was an attempt to assure the rights of previous slaves. Furthermore the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) gave all citizens voting rights regardless of their race. However these rights were never fully enforced, although progress was made toward racial inequality, even in the south. Between 1890 and 1910, southern states introduced legal segregation which was achieved by passing local laws which denied black Americans from using the same facilities e.g. educational, health care, cinemas, etc.
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.
Concrete Responses The essays included present a compelling but biased study within the context of class, race and gender. History shows racism has been clearly practiced in the past; however much has been done to correct the unbridgeable and immutable differences in race, gender and class status in the United States. Rothenberg emphasizes, in the collection of essays, past views of Euro-Americans’ superiority in intelligence and abilities over darker skinned races. Throughout the history of the United States, discrimination against race and gender has been documented thus creating various classes according to race and gender. Racism has been defined as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2010).
What is racism? Racism can be defined in a variety of ways. I am going to define it as a discriminatory belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others which fuels subjectivity in laws that deny individuals unalienable rights based on identity. It is a blot on society that has plagued mankind over hundreds of years. It has defragmented human society.