To what extent were African Americans treated as ‘second class citizens’ in the states between 1940 and 1946? Second class citizen is a person who is systematically discriminated against within an area despite their legal residency. African Americans were discriminated against not only socially, but also within economics and politics. The blacks were always targeted as a scape goat during issue like the Depression due to the Wall Street Crash. They were the first ethnic groups to feel the cuts being made to save money and ensure that the whites had the best standard of living.
4.1 1. because they already had equal rights, by doing this they showed there support for the blacks and In doing this, they agreed their threatmeant was totally inhumane. 2. they were racist and weren’t used to blacks being treated equal 3. the people are curiousto what is happen, as well as anger and amazement. 4.3 1. blacks weren’t usually allowed to be served but they had vip cards. 2. He was completly out numbered and had no idea what to do, this made him uneasy as he could not to resort to violence.
As expressed by Dr. Leary, most African Americans seem to have internalized a sense of shame and believe that they are not good enough. An individual with such low self-esteem and self-worth ability to function in society is therefore lessened. This internalized sense of shame led most black people to look down on their own appearance. When an individual has strong black features such as a big nose, full lips, defined facial structure, kinky hair and dark skin, they are generally not considered attractive by other blacks. Dating back to slave days, when the lighter skinned slaves (women) were used as house slaves and darker skinned slaves were sent to work outdoors.
The collective nature of Black communities still predominated as opposed to the white "capitalist market economies of competitive, individual, industrial and monopoly capitalism." It is at this stage that the split begins that will later affect the African-American community. Black women were forced to remain in the work force due to substandard wages available to Black men. The urbanization of America and the massive migration north of Blacks in the early twentieth century resulted in a large number of Black women, some 60%, haveing been relegated to domestic work for white families. Black men often only able to find work in manufacturing centers allowed for two income Black families and a small but growing Black middle class.
Race has always been attached to history primarily to the person’s color and the relationship between race and their social status. Although there were many white Americans that welcome the idea of having African Americans as equals, others did not agree to the change. They let their ignorance, racism, and self-interest to continue and spread their ideas of racial division to everyone around them. However, governments in the south, where ninety percent of blacks lived, barred them of their constitutional rights through poll taxes, limitations on registration, and literacy tests. Southern state governments also created legislation that restricted and controlled the lives of the ex-slaves, known as the “Black Codes”.
When the civil war ended in 1865, slavery was abolished, and black-white relations in the South entered a new era. The southern system of race relations that ultimately followed after the Civil War was designed partly to keep control of black labour that was institutionalized under slavery. Also, it was intended to eliminate any political or economic threat from the black community. This system grew to be highly oppressive, slavery left a strong tradition of racism in the white community. The system of race relations that replaced slavery in the South was segregation, also called the Jim Crow system .
Minorities in America pursued on finding the “whiteness” in order to be placed on a higher-class level since “whiteness became a sense of property” for them . “Whiteness protected one against being an object of property” since it “insured greater economic, political, and social security” .The racial hierarchy placed individuals into certain classes based on their color, whites being the highest and the rest on the bottom. The minorities in the bottom felt insecure and found it unfair that whites received the highest ranks in society thus causing unrest between racial groups. However, even though certain minorities were passed as white, the government, which was ruled by the superior Anglo-Saxons, determined their status level in society. Nevertheless, they were definitely not in the same status level as
By the turn of the century, segregation was firmly in place, there was competition between the races and diminishing African American to second class citizens. Mays of the jobs that were available went to the whites and blacks that had skills or a profession they was generally used to serve black clients. African American they were barred from serving on juror duties and they got a much stronger punishment than the whites for the same crime. As the Jim Crow law made things harder to change so did social norms. Those living in the south always addressed white southerners as mister, miss, and ma’am even those who had no social norms.
Some of the women who were involved into sexual relations with their owners gave birth to children, but such facts did not help the women and their children to get free, instead, slave owners would sell away such women, giving them no chance to see their families again. Sexual exploitation had another very serious impact on black families, as men, husbands, could not protect their wives from being involved into sexual relationship with slave owners. Women could be sexually harassed or raped by their owners, while nobody could protect them, because all slaves were punished severely for even the smallest faults they
How far is it accurate to describe black Americans as second class citizens in the years 1945-55? Between the years of 1945-55, African Americans were certainly treated as second class citizens. They were segregated from the rest of society and the majority of segregation took place in the southern states. This was where black slaves had been transported to in the seventeenth century and were treated as inferior human beings. Because the USA is such a huge country, the individual states of America had a lot of power to run their own state and introduce new laws.