Essay On Racial Segregation In America

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The African Americans were forced to come to the USA; they were not immigrants by choice. They were discriminated against, made slaves of and treated like animals, or maybe even worse. Looking back, it is hard to imagine that human beings could be responsible for such cruelty, and to think that racial segregation was legal until 60 years ago. More so it is a terrifying thought that it took almost two hundred and fifty years before it was made illegal to hold humans as slaves, in the USA. America has a dark history of slavery, but after 1863 vassalage was abolished. Even so this did not stop the racism; unjust treatments and racial segregation was still a part of every colored man’s life. It was still legal to treat African Americans as if they were worth less. In public places blacks were separated from whites in that the black areas were in much worse conditions than the white’s. Sidewalks where no blacks could walk, seats on the busses where they couldn’t sit, and toilets where only whites could go,…show more content…
King began the speech, by referring to Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in which he claimed the “Negros” would be free. Dr. King proclaims in the speech that this is still not a fact. In quotation: “One hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.” In this paragraph he uses metaphors to emphasize the situation. By saying that they are still manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination he is stating that even though they are not slaves, they are still prisoners of an unfair community. He exclaims how they are a small, poor “island” in a “vast ocean of material prosperity”. The opportunities are there, but not in reach if your skin is of a color other than
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