Maya Angelou grew up in a time when there was many racial conflicts and segregation particularly against African Americans. In the nineteenth chapter of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings titled “Champions of the World” , Angelou indirectly addresses the conflicting relations between whites and African Americans. Angelou most notably describes these relations in paragraphs 16, 17 and 28. In paragraphs 16 and 17, Angelou describes the people’s reactions to the way the fight between Joe Louis and Carnera was going. Joe Louis, who was representing-as she describes-all the Negroes around the world, was losing.
Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton discussed the possibility of a women's rights convention when they were prevented from speaking at an anti-slavery convention in London in 1840. However, after the Civil War, some of the suffragettes were outraged when black men got the vote but not white women. Susan B. Anthony wrote indignantly about: "Patrick and Sambo and Wong Tong making laws for the daughters of Adams and Jefferson, women of wealth and education". As with the suffragette movement in the UK, there was a strong class element to the struggle. The suffragette movement gained strength in America after black men got the vote (though most southern black men were effectively disenfranchised by literacy laws, the poll tax, threats and intimidation etc).
How far has the importance of Martin Luther King’s role in the Civil Rights movement been exaggerated? In the 1950s and 60s, black Americans were victim to severe and brutal racist discrimination, particularly in the southern states, where segregation was “de Jure” ( by law), the ‘Jim-Crow’ laws made sure that everyday facilities such as buses, parks and schools were segregated, with different services for black and white people and where black people were violently threatened to prevent them from voting (for example in Mississippi, any black people who tried to vote faced intimidation and even lynching , this resulted in only five per cent of the black population there registering to vote.). In the north, things were a little better, in the sense that there were laws in place to prevent the amount of legal discrimination of that in the south, however, the discrimination in the North was De Facto, these laws could not control people’s racist attitudes and racism was still an everyday experience for black people; for example in the ghettos, discrimination in employment opportunities resulted in the formation of ‘Ghettos’ where, in some parts, black Americans lived in poverty stricken communities together, in the only housing that they could afford, shabby houses in dire conditions. Throughout the country, black Americans were not given the same educational and employment opportunities as white people and they lived in fear, not only of the daily racist abusers, but also from the police officers who were supposed to protect them, in fact the police often took part in racist killings and white juries almost always acquitted whites of killing blacks. However, amongst all this racism, brave Americans emerged who struggled in the fight for black civil rights and an end to this racism, one of these people being the Baptist minister, Martin Luther King.
They faced different issues related to segregation with one of the most important was the segregation to do with education. This affected all levels of education, starting with elementary schools to university level. Black children were forced to enrol at a black only school even if a white school was closer. An example of this was in 1954 with the Brown vs Board decision. This matter was taken to the Supreme Court where it was reasoned that it was illegal to turn away students just because they were black.
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”.
Maya Thomas Black Power Movement Black Power: Politics of Liberation Kwame Ture and Charles Hamilton began their book, Black Power: Politics of Liberation, with their first contention, that overt and institutionalized racism is rooted in colonialism. Unlike European colonization, here the colonized individuals were imported to these shores. Once emancipated, black people, continue to be colonialized through the manipulation of politics. They go on to elaborate how whites continue to use politics to institutionalize racism in education, voting, housing, jobs and other areas of life. They take the reader through pivotal moments in the South and North to enumerate the chain of events that lead to the achievements and failures of the African-Americans in society.
The situation of African American people in the USA has been a disputable issue since the abolition of slavery. The treatment of African American people, who were excluded from the rights and rules of the mainstream society, began the fight for equality within the African American society. One of the most remarkable African American authors is Toni Morrison. Toni Morrison’s novels represent the issues of class distinction among African American people and their individual characters represent different life-styles, personalities and destinies. They also focus on the issues of the underclass of women in the male-dominated African American society.
Angela Davis was born January 6, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama to two highly educated parents, both of whom where educators themselves. As it was for all black Americans, Angela’s childhood was faced with much humiliation of racial segregation. Racial segregation existed throughout the United States. Angela was born amid Jim Crow Laws: “where state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans” (Wikipedia).
Even when it is decided that he did not really mean what he said he runs into a lot of students at school who now hate him, especially after his family decides to sue the school. His "friends" were the ones who goaded him on and now they abandon him. Ugly Girl is sort of a punk-type girl, studs in her ears, tall, big (but not fat), and very, very independent. She calls herself Ugly Girl, though, it is not the other students that are doing that. She will stand up to anyone and anything, warrior-women Ugly Girl, as she puts it.
Reflection on Racial Minorities and Schooling When I was in second grade, I found it hard to believe that racial minorities were not easily welcomed in the United States and received different treatment than I did. During a weeklong unit about racial segregation between blacks and whites, I participated in an experiment in which my teacher devoted one day to giving preferential treatment to all the blonde haired students in my class. As a brunette, I unfairly witnessed my teacher ignoring my questions and providing snacks to all my blonde friends. The moment my teacher refused my request to go to the bathroom, I broke out in tears. While I kept reminding myself that her intentions were purposeful, I struggled to accept that black children actually experienced the harsh realities of this treatment.