White and Black
Race Relations US
I decided to write about the race relations between whites and black in the United States. I chose this topic because I think it is one of the most interesting parts of American history. Though it was filled of mistreatment and tragedy, I believe it is one of the most inspiring. Several movies were made about true stories that revolve around race relations. I think these movies are the most inspiring because it shows how people can come together to ensure the rights that every human being deserves to have. It shows the strength of a large number of people with a cause. A cause that sets the path to the future. Though the journey may be long and hard, it will never be impossible. This long story through the history of the United States is full of hardships and death, but that just makes it all the more inspiring.
Throughout history of the United States, people with dark skin were always treated unfairly by people with white skin. Beginning as early as 1502, people from Africa were traded and sold as slaves by European slave traders. They shipped approximately 11 to 16 million slaves to the Americas. During slavery, slave grown cotton was a huge part of the United States, accounting for over half of the exports. The cotton was sold and used in the northern textile industry and made up to 70 percent of the cotton used in british mills. Because of this high use of cotton, slaves were very popular and constantly traded. In 1820 the Missouri Compromise banned slavery north of the south boundary of Missouri. Giving freedom to slaves in the North. On July 2, 1839, the Amistad held 53 African slaves that revolted against their captors, killing everyone except the navigator. The ship sailed to Long Island, N.Y. There was several protests against slavery, causing the underground railroad, where they smuggled slaves into the north where a black slave was made free.
An African American woman by the name of Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in 1849 and became a famous leader of the underground railroad, smuggling slaves to their freedom. In 1861 the Confederacy is founded when the South secedes from the Union, causing the Civil War between the Confederacy and the Union. The Confederacy fighting for slavery, and the Union fighting for slavery to be abolished. On January 1, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It declared the freedom of slaves in the 10 rebellious states, applying to 3 million of the 4 million slaves in the United States during that time. It didn’t outlaw slavery, because the proclamation wasn’t passed by congress. It also didn’t grant citizenship to ex-slaves or compensate the owners. It couldn’t be enforced where the rebellion was taken place, causing the escaped slaves to be returned to their masters or held in camps as punishment. The Emancipation Proclamation angered white southerners, but lifted the spirits of African Americans, later ending up in their freedom.
In March 1865 Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau that protected the rights of newly emancipated blacks. The Civil War finally ended on April 9, 1865 and only five days later, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre as he attended the play, Our American Cousin on April 14,1865. He was the first American president to be assassinated. Things seemed to be going down hill. In May of that same year the Ku Klux Klan was formed in Tennessee by dismembered Confederates. The clan still hated African Americans and weren’t afraid to show it. The members made white costumes. A white robe, a mask, conical hats, all designed to strike fear in the hearts of blacks they terrorize. You could be attacked and run to the sheriff to ask for help, but realize that the sheriff and all those people that should have helped you were members of the klan you needed protection from. On December 6, 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”, was established, prohibiting slavery all throughout the United States.
In 1865-1866 Black codes were passed by Southern states, restricting the rights of newly freed slaves. Reconstruction acts were passed, changing the former Confederacy into five military districts and guaranteeing the civil rights of freed slaves, in 1867. The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, defining citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment gave freedom and citizenship to all that were born in America even if they were born slaves.This overruled the Dred Scott case, in which stated that blacks were not citizens. Howard University's law school became the country’s first black law school in 1869. In 1870 The fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was written and established, giving blacks the right to vote like real citizens. In that same year Hiram Revels of Mississippi was elected the country’s first African-American senator. Gradually their rights are emerging from the depths of injustice. Reconstruction ended in 1877 in the south, causing the federal attempts to supply basic civil rights to black to erode and disappear. Tens of thousands of African Americans migrate from southern states to Kansas in 1879.
Just as there is a college for blacks there must be a college for African American women. Spelman College became the first college for African American women. Education starts to increase in 1881, near the time Spelman College was founded. Booker T. Washington founded the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama in 1881. His school became one of the leading schools of higher learning for African Americans. In 1882 The American Colonization Society was founded by Presbyterian minister Robert Finley in western Africa. The society relocates and immigrates blacks to Africa as an answer to the slavery problem and the incompatibility of the races. 12,000 slaves were voluntarily relocated at the next forty years. In 1896 the Plessy v. Ferguson caused the racial segregation to become constitutional by the Supreme Court. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is founded in New York in 1909 by prominent black and white intellectuals. It was led by W.E.B. Du Bois. It served as the country’s most influential African-American civil rights organization. It is dedicated to political equality and social justice.
Marcus Garvey established the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914, specifically to influence blacks to take pride in their race and lift up their spirits. It created a sense of worldwide unity among blacks. In the 1920s the Harlem Renaissance flourished. The literary, artistic, and intellectual movement caused a new cultural identity for the blacks. As culture began to grow, injustice grew with it. Nine black young adults were charged of having raped two white women. They had slim evidence but the southern jury sentenced them to death. The Supreme Court overturned their convictions twice, each time Alabama would try again, finding them guilty. In a third trial, for of the boys were freed, but five were sentenced to long prison terms. Just like most activities, famous sports were run by the whites, leaving it hard for blacks to become famous athletes. But that all changed when in 1947, a black man by the name of Jackie Robinson, broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier when he signed up for the Brooklyn Dodgers. After this amazing integration for U.S. baseball, war continued to plunder. It wasn’t until World War II that President Harry S. Truman issues an executive order integrating the U.S. armed forces.
Gradually things are becoming integrated till on May 1, 1954 racial segregation in schools becomes unconstitutional. In August of 1955 A young black boy by the name of Emmett Till was brutally murdered for supposedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. Two white men were charged with the crime and were determined innocent by an all-white jury. They later boasted about killing the young boy, causing a public outrage and sparking the civil rights movement. In the 50s and 60s, people with coloured skin were separated from the people with white skin. To white people, they caught different diseases like a different species. They weren’t allowed to use the same bathrooms as white people, so they used one that was labelled as coloured. They weren’t even allowed to attend the same school. White schools were more funded than black schools, causing a slow education for African Americans. There was an unfairness to the way the black people were treated, and a lot of people could see that. Citizens started to get tired of the unfairness of the treatment of blacks. One person in specific was Rosa Parks. On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks got on a bus. Going against what blacks were forced to do, she sat at the front of the bus. African Americans were always forced to sit at the back of the bus. At a bus stop, a white man entered the bus. With no other seats left Rosa Parks was going to be forced out of her seat at the front to give it to the white man. Rebelling against the rules, and fighting for her right, she refused to give up her seat. She was then arrested, sparking the Montgomery bus boycott. This protest became very successful and lasted just over a year, which marked the emergence of Martin Luther King Jr.
Nine black students were chosen on September 24, 1957 to integrate into an all white school. They were blocked from entering by the orders of Governor Orval Faubus. Federal troops and the National Guard were then called to intervene on behalf of the students. These students were then called ‘The Little Rock Nine’. But that one school being integrated started a long line of integrated schools. Four black students in Greensboro, North Carolina began and sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter on February 1, 1960. These continuous events sparked up a similar and nonviolent number of protests all throughout the South. Along these protests the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was found in April of that same year, providing young blacks placements in the civil rights movement. In the spring and summer of 1961, student volunteers began taking bus trips through the South. Their intent was to test out new laws that prohibit segregation in travel facilities. Through that experiment, several travel groups, the “freedom riders”, were attacked by several angry mobs. The volunteers were made up of 1,000 people both black and white. The University of Mississippi got their first black student on October 1, 1962 by the name of James Meredith. President Kennedy sent 5,000 federal troops after a riot broke out in protest of this achievement.
Martin Luther King was arrested and jailed in 1963 at an anti-segregation protest in Birmingham, Alabama. He wrote a letter from Birmingham jail that advocated nonviolent civil disobedience. On August 28 there was a march on Washington for Jobs and Freedom that was attended by about 250,000 people. It was the largest demonstration ever seen in the nation’s capital. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I have a Dream” speech that built up extreme momentum. That single march built up strength for civil rights legislation. At the University of Alabama Vivian Malone and James Hood registered for classes despite the governor George Wallace physically blocking their way. But of course when we take one step forward there is always something that forces us to step back. Four young black girls attended sunday school and were killed by bomb explosions at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. That church was a popular location for civil rights meetings. Riots erupted in Birmingham that lead to two more deaths of black youths on September 15, 1963.
The journey must continue, so on July 2, 1964 President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. It prohibited discrimination of all kinds based on race, colour, religion, or national origin. In August of that same year the bodies of three civil-rights workers were found. The investigation ended with the Klu Klux Klan being the culprits. James E. Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner had been working to register black voters in Mississippi and became the victims of the KKK in the end. In October Martin Luther King Received the Nobel Peace Prize, and Sidney Poitier won the Best Actor Oscar for his role in Lilies of the Field. He was the first African American to win the award. State troopers violently attacked peaceful demonstrators led by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. on March 7, 1965 as they tried to cross the Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Fifty marchers were hospitalized on the now known day called “Bloody Sunday”. The police used the tormenting and cruel acts of tear gas, whips, and clubs against them. This march specifically became the catalyst for fighting for voting rights act five months later. Congress finally passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It made it easier for Southern blacks to register to vote. There were literacy tests, poll taxes, and other such requirements that were used to restrict black voting, but were made illegal on August 10. In six day of rioting, a black section of Los Angeles, 35 people were killed and 883 were injured on August 11-16.
Things are finally starting to get better. In 1967 President Johnson appointed Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. He became the first black Supreme Court Justice. The Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that prohibited interracial marriage was unconstitutional. Sixteen states that had that rule were forced to change and revise them. Just as things are turning out okay, something tragic happens. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. It was a terrible tragedy, and large numbers of people mourned for the loss of this great leader. But the fight for equal rights wasn’t over yet. On April 11, not long after Martin Luther King’s death, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. It prohibited discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing. Authority began to be open more to different races and Shirley Chisholm became the first black female U.S. Representative. She was a democrat from New York and was elected in November and served from 1969 to 1983.
In 1972 the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis experiment ended. It began in 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service's 40-year experiment on 399 black men in the late stages of syphilis was described as an experiment that used human beings. They used the black men like lab rats for a science experiment to determine how long it take syphilis to kill someone. This was definitely a terrible thing to put 399 human beings through. They treated this large number of men like their lives didn’t even matter. They were sons, maybe fathers and husbands, but that didn’t seem to matter.
Accomplishments began to grow in numbers and it all started with the first African American to go to space. Guion Bluford Jr. took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the space shuttle challenger on August 30, 1983. This experience gave hope to the blacks that were fighting for their equal rights. The next accomplishment was evidence of a beating of an African-American Rodney King on April 29, 1992. It caused the first race riots in decades in south-central Los Angeles after a jury acquitted four white police officers for the videotaping of Rodney being beaten. Achievement after achievement began to emerge. In 2001 Colin Powell became the first African American U.S. Secretary of State. Next Halle Berry became the first African American woman to win the Best Actress Oscar in 2002. She earned the statue for her role in Monster’s Ball. Denzel Washington won the Best Actor award for his role in Training Day, making it the first year that African-Americans won both the best actor and actress Oscars. On June 23, 2003 the Grutter v. Bollinger was the most important affirmative action decision since the 1978 Bakke case. The Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan Law School’s policy, ruling that race can be one of many factors considered by colleges. It is used when selecting their students because it furthers an interest in obtaining educational benefits that come from a diverse student body. Condoleezza Rice became the first black female U.S. Secretary of State in 2005. In Parents v. Seattle and Meredith v. Jefferson, affirmative action suffered a setback when the divided court ruled 5 to 4. They decided that considering race when assigning students to schools is unconstitutional.
In 2008 Senator Barack Obama, a democrat from Chicago, became the first African American to be nominated as a nominee for president. On November 4 Barack Obama became the first African American president after he beat Senator John McCain. In 2009 Barack Obama became the first African American president and the country’s 44th president. Though people disagreed with his position, I don’t think it was because of his race. Most of those that disagreed were of the republican party. Others just didn’t think he would be a good president.
As you can see throughout history things have gotten better. But things that have been good aren’t always permanent. Recently a new Pew Research Center created a Poll. Polls from 2007 to 2009 the positive responses increased seven percentage points, to 76 percent. But ever since 2009 the share of black respondents who had a positive view of race relations had dropped twelve points becoming only 64 percent. White respondents had a positive response increase at three percentage points from 2007 to 2009, but it decreased five percentage points from 2009 to 2014. 70 percent of black respondents thought police did a terrible job of treating racial and ethnic groups equally. Just 25 percent of whites say they do a bad job.
The shooting of an African-American by the name of Michael Brown occurred on August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. He was only 18 years old and was fatally shot by Darren Wilson a 28 year old white police officer of the Ferguson Police Department. This caused large numbers of riots that targeted the police department and the relationship between their law enforcement and African Americans. Michael was walking with his friend Dorian Johnson, down the middle of the street shortly after stealing a box of cigarettes from a convenience store. Wilson drove up and told them to move to the sidewalk. An argument between Brown and Wilson struggled through the window of the police car until Wilson’s gun was fired. Brown and Johnson ran in different directions with Wilson in pursuit of Brown. He fired several more times. In the entire argument Wilson fired a number of twelve shots. Brown was hit by six with the last being the fatal shot. Witnesses were unsure of whether Brown had his hand raised or whether he was walking over to Wilson when the final shots were fired. This sparked up more rioting. This is evidence that even though we came a long way, there is still a large journey to go. The way we treat races isn’t yet perfect because there is still anger fueled by grudges buried deep within our past. The one thing I don’t understand is the mistreatment between other races. We are all human beings bound to the same fate. We live and we die. I don’t think it matters what you believe in or what you look like. A person is a person no matter what race, culture, gender, or religion.
Economy progress has stalled. Between 2000 and 2011, black median household income fell from 64% to 58% of the white figure. There is now an alarming wealth gap. In 2005 white families’ median net was worth 11 times that of blacks. In 2009 it was 20 times more. Blacks are beginning to fare poorly. Large numbers struggle in school. The average black 17-year-old reads and manipulates numbers about as well as a white 13-year-old. The law has it out to get them. By the age of 30-34 on black man in ten is behind bars. White men is one in 61 behind bars. The traditional black family has collapsed since King’s day. In the 1960s it was thought a crisis that nearly 25% of children were born out of wedlock. Today it is 72%, for whites 29%, and most of these children are raised by mothers who are alone, no relationships. The causes of this is usually the stress and effects of racism. Black schools are underfunded, employers overlook black job applicants and the criminal justice system is biased against blacks. If this is correct the best medicine may be more funding for inner-city schools, sterner enforcement of anti-discrimination laws and better training for cops and judges. It is possibly unlikely that racism has grown worse in the past decade. If you express a racist opinion in America today it becomes a career-ending mistake. Any firms caught discriminating are punished by courts. Polls suggest that racism is dwindling, the young are far less prejudiced than the old. The obstacles created by racism are anything but impossible to get through. The median earnings for white and black women with college degrees are about the same.
The legacy of discrimination if hard to get rid of. Perhaps the only way that the government can stop racism is not head on, but through helping to get through the flaws of the government that hurt blacks more than whites. The biggest flaw of the justice system is not that it is biased, but that is is brutal. Instead of tearing families apart by locking up non-violent drug offenders, it’s far better to give minor criminals of all races ankle tags, drug treatment, and guidance to find a job. Black parents prefer charter schools because self-destructive culture norm is almost non-existent in private schools. The government can’t do very much about the collapse of black families, but school and prison reforms should help. Role models like Barack Obama inspire black men partly because he has a wife and daughters he treasures and respects. America has a shameful past, but gradually it is fading through the better actions of others. Skin colour is not as big of a deal as it was in the past. This path will never be easy, and will never end. All we can do is fight through it with all we’ve got.
John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. gave their lives to receive equal rights between races. It is something that we should honour in every way possible. If someone is willing to die for this kind of cause we should try our best to keep it shiny and new. We’re losing the sense of equality that these strong authority figures gave us. The taste of it leaving a bitter taste of mistreatment and death. In my old schools I have never seen any African-American student get mistreated. We were all equal. I never saw them as a different race or a different creature. I saw them as who they are, people. I never noticed their dark skin, or their dark hair, I only noticed their personalities and their kindness. Never once did I see them get bullied, instead I see them get accepted. It’s hard for me to believe that someone out there in a different place is suffering because they are being mistreated or they have lost someone dear to them just because of the colour of their skin or what they believe in. It shouldn’t matter what church you go to, or whether you even attend a church. It also shouldn’t matter how you look or what gender you were born into. As human beings we deserve to be on even ground. No skyscrapers or Eiffel towers. We all should be on a flat land full of rights that all human beings were born with.
Race Relations US
I decided to write about the race relations between whites and black in the United States. I chose this topic because I think it is one of the most interesting parts of American history. Though it was filled of mistreatment and tragedy, I believe it is one of the most inspiring. Several movies were made about true stories that revolve around race relations. I think these movies are the most inspiring because it shows how people can come together to ensure the rights that every human being deserves to have. It shows the strength of a large number of people with a cause. A cause that sets the path to the future. Though the journey may be long and hard, it will never be impossible. This long story through the history of the United States is full of hardships and death, but that just makes it all the more inspiring.
Throughout history of the United States, people with dark skin were always treated unfairly by people with white skin. Beginning as early as 1502, people from Africa were traded and sold as slaves by European slave traders. They shipped approximately 11 to 16 million slaves to the Americas. During slavery, slave grown cotton was a huge part of the United States, accounting for over half of the exports. The cotton was sold and used in the northern textile industry and made up to 70 percent of the cotton used in british mills. Because of this high use of cotton, slaves were very popular and constantly traded. In 1820 the Missouri Compromise banned slavery north of the south boundary of Missouri. Giving freedom to slaves in the North. On July 2, 1839, the Amistad held 53 African slaves that revolted against their captors, killing everyone except the navigator. The ship sailed to Long Island, N.Y. There was several protests against slavery, causing the underground railroad, where they smuggled slaves into the north where a black slave was made free.
An African American woman by the name of Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in 1849 and became a famous leader of the underground railroad, smuggling slaves to their freedom. In 1861 the Confederacy is founded when the South secedes from the Union, causing the Civil War between the Confederacy and the Union. The Confederacy fighting for slavery, and the Union fighting for slavery to be abolished. On January 1, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It declared the freedom of slaves in the 10 rebellious states, applying to 3 million of the 4 million slaves in the United States during that time. It didn’t outlaw slavery, because the proclamation wasn’t passed by congress. It also didn’t grant citizenship to ex-slaves or compensate the owners. It couldn’t be enforced where the rebellion was taken place, causing the escaped slaves to be returned to their masters or held in camps as punishment. The Emancipation Proclamation angered white southerners, but lifted the spirits of African Americans, later ending up in their freedom.
In March 1865 Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau that protected the rights of newly emancipated blacks. The Civil War finally ended on April 9, 1865 and only five days later, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre as he attended the play, Our American Cousin on April 14,1865. He was the first American president to be assassinated. Things seemed to be going down hill. In May of that same year the Ku Klux Klan was formed in Tennessee by dismembered Confederates. The clan still hated African Americans and weren’t afraid to show it. The members made white costumes. A white robe, a mask, conical hats, all designed to strike fear in the hearts of blacks they terrorize. You could be attacked and run to the sheriff to ask for help, but realize that the sheriff and all those people that should have helped you were members of the klan you needed protection from. On December 6, 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”, was established, prohibiting slavery all throughout the United States.
In 1865-1866 Black codes were passed by Southern states, restricting the rights of newly freed slaves. Reconstruction acts were passed, changing the former Confederacy into five military districts and guaranteeing the civil rights of freed slaves, in 1867. The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, defining citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment gave freedom and citizenship to all that were born in America even if they were born slaves.This overruled the Dred Scott case, in which stated that blacks were not citizens. Howard University's law school became the country’s first black law school in 1869. In 1870 The fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was written and established, giving blacks the right to vote like real citizens. In that same year Hiram Revels of Mississippi was elected the country’s first African-American senator. Gradually their rights are emerging from the depths of injustice. Reconstruction ended in 1877 in the south, causing the federal attempts to supply basic civil rights to black to erode and disappear. Tens of thousands of African Americans migrate from southern states to Kansas in 1879.
Just as there is a college for blacks there must be a college for African American women. Spelman College became the first college for African American women. Education starts to increase in 1881, near the time Spelman College was founded. Booker T. Washington founded the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama in 1881. His school became one of the leading schools of higher learning for African Americans. In 1882 The American Colonization Society was founded by Presbyterian minister Robert Finley in western Africa. The society relocates and immigrates blacks to Africa as an answer to the slavery problem and the incompatibility of the races. 12,000 slaves were voluntarily relocated at the next forty years. In 1896 the Plessy v. Ferguson caused the racial segregation to become constitutional by the Supreme Court. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is founded in New York in 1909 by prominent black and white intellectuals. It was led by W.E.B. Du Bois. It served as the country’s most influential African-American civil rights organization. It is dedicated to political equality and social justice.
Marcus Garvey established the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914, specifically to influence blacks to take pride in their race and lift up their spirits. It created a sense of worldwide unity among blacks. In the 1920s the Harlem Renaissance flourished. The literary, artistic, and intellectual movement caused a new cultural identity for the blacks. As culture began to grow, injustice grew with it. Nine black young adults were charged of having raped two white women. They had slim evidence but the southern jury sentenced them to death. The Supreme Court overturned their convictions twice, each time Alabama would try again, finding them guilty. In a third trial, for of the boys were freed, but five were sentenced to long prison terms. Just like most activities, famous sports were run by the whites, leaving it hard for blacks to become famous athletes. But that all changed when in 1947, a black man by the name of Jackie Robinson, broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier when he signed up for the Brooklyn Dodgers. After this amazing integration for U.S. baseball, war continued to plunder. It wasn’t until World War II that President Harry S. Truman issues an executive order integrating the U.S. armed forces.
Gradually things are becoming integrated till on May 1, 1954 racial segregation in schools becomes unconstitutional. In August of 1955 A young black boy by the name of Emmett Till was brutally murdered for supposedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. Two white men were charged with the crime and were determined innocent by an all-white jury. They later boasted about killing the young boy, causing a public outrage and sparking the civil rights movement. In the 50s and 60s, people with coloured skin were separated from the people with white skin. To white people, they caught different diseases like a different species. They weren’t allowed to use the same bathrooms as white people, so they used one that was labelled as coloured. They weren’t even allowed to attend the same school. White schools were more funded than black schools, causing a slow education for African Americans. There was an unfairness to the way the black people were treated, and a lot of people could see that. Citizens started to get tired of the unfairness of the treatment of blacks. One person in specific was Rosa Parks. On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks got on a bus. Going against what blacks were forced to do, she sat at the front of the bus. African Americans were always forced to sit at the back of the bus. At a bus stop, a white man entered the bus. With no other seats left Rosa Parks was going to be forced out of her seat at the front to give it to the white man. Rebelling against the rules, and fighting for her right, she refused to give up her seat. She was then arrested, sparking the Montgomery bus boycott. This protest became very successful and lasted just over a year, which marked the emergence of Martin Luther King Jr.
Nine black students were chosen on September 24, 1957 to integrate into an all white school. They were blocked from entering by the orders of Governor Orval Faubus. Federal troops and the National Guard were then called to intervene on behalf of the students. These students were then called ‘The Little Rock Nine’. But that one school being integrated started a long line of integrated schools. Four black students in Greensboro, North Carolina began and sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter on February 1, 1960. These continuous events sparked up a similar and nonviolent number of protests all throughout the South. Along these protests the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was found in April of that same year, providing young blacks placements in the civil rights movement. In the spring and summer of 1961, student volunteers began taking bus trips through the South. Their intent was to test out new laws that prohibit segregation in travel facilities. Through that experiment, several travel groups, the “freedom riders”, were attacked by several angry mobs. The volunteers were made up of 1,000 people both black and white. The University of Mississippi got their first black student on October 1, 1962 by the name of James Meredith. President Kennedy sent 5,000 federal troops after a riot broke out in protest of this achievement.
Martin Luther King was arrested and jailed in 1963 at an anti-segregation protest in Birmingham, Alabama. He wrote a letter from Birmingham jail that advocated nonviolent civil disobedience. On August 28 there was a march on Washington for Jobs and Freedom that was attended by about 250,000 people. It was the largest demonstration ever seen in the nation’s capital. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I have a Dream” speech that built up extreme momentum. That single march built up strength for civil rights legislation. At the University of Alabama Vivian Malone and James Hood registered for classes despite the governor George Wallace physically blocking their way. But of course when we take one step forward there is always something that forces us to step back. Four young black girls attended sunday school and were killed by bomb explosions at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. That church was a popular location for civil rights meetings. Riots erupted in Birmingham that lead to two more deaths of black youths on September 15, 1963.
The journey must continue, so on July 2, 1964 President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. It prohibited discrimination of all kinds based on race, colour, religion, or national origin. In August of that same year the bodies of three civil-rights workers were found. The investigation ended with the Klu Klux Klan being the culprits. James E. Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner had been working to register black voters in Mississippi and became the victims of the KKK in the end. In October Martin Luther King Received the Nobel Peace Prize, and Sidney Poitier won the Best Actor Oscar for his role in Lilies of the Field. He was the first African American to win the award. State troopers violently attacked peaceful demonstrators led by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. on March 7, 1965 as they tried to cross the Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Fifty marchers were hospitalized on the now known day called “Bloody Sunday”. The police used the tormenting and cruel acts of tear gas, whips, and clubs against them. This march specifically became the catalyst for fighting for voting rights act five months later. Congress finally passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It made it easier for Southern blacks to register to vote. There were literacy tests, poll taxes, and other such requirements that were used to restrict black voting, but were made illegal on August 10. In six day of rioting, a black section of Los Angeles, 35 people were killed and 883 were injured on August 11-16.
Things are finally starting to get better. In 1967 President Johnson appointed Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. He became the first black Supreme Court Justice. The Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that prohibited interracial marriage was unconstitutional. Sixteen states that had that rule were forced to change and revise them. Just as things are turning out okay, something tragic happens. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. It was a terrible tragedy, and large numbers of people mourned for the loss of this great leader. But the fight for equal rights wasn’t over yet. On April 11, not long after Martin Luther King’s death, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. It prohibited discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing. Authority began to be open more to different races and Shirley Chisholm became the first black female U.S. Representative. She was a democrat from New York and was elected in November and served from 1969 to 1983.
In 1972 the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis experiment ended. It began in 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service's 40-year experiment on 399 black men in the late stages of syphilis was described as an experiment that used human beings. They used the black men like lab rats for a science experiment to determine how long it take syphilis to kill someone. This was definitely a terrible thing to put 399 human beings through. They treated this large number of men like their lives didn’t even matter. They were sons, maybe fathers and husbands, but that didn’t seem to matter.
Accomplishments began to grow in numbers and it all started with the first African American to go to space. Guion Bluford Jr. took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the space shuttle challenger on August 30, 1983. This experience gave hope to the blacks that were fighting for their equal rights. The next accomplishment was evidence of a beating of an African-American Rodney King on April 29, 1992. It caused the first race riots in decades in south-central Los Angeles after a jury acquitted four white police officers for the videotaping of Rodney being beaten. Achievement after achievement began to emerge. In 2001 Colin Powell became the first African American U.S. Secretary of State. Next Halle Berry became the first African American woman to win the Best Actress Oscar in 2002. She earned the statue for her role in Monster’s Ball. Denzel Washington won the Best Actor award for his role in Training Day, making it the first year that African-Americans won both the best actor and actress Oscars. On June 23, 2003 the Grutter v. Bollinger was the most important affirmative action decision since the 1978 Bakke case. The Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan Law School’s policy, ruling that race can be one of many factors considered by colleges. It is used when selecting their students because it furthers an interest in obtaining educational benefits that come from a diverse student body. Condoleezza Rice became the first black female U.S. Secretary of State in 2005. In Parents v. Seattle and Meredith v. Jefferson, affirmative action suffered a setback when the divided court ruled 5 to 4. They decided that considering race when assigning students to schools is unconstitutional.
In 2008 Senator Barack Obama, a democrat from Chicago, became the first African American to be nominated as a nominee for president. On November 4 Barack Obama became the first African American president after he beat Senator John McCain. In 2009 Barack Obama became the first African American president and the country’s 44th president. Though people disagreed with his position, I don’t think it was because of his race. Most of those that disagreed were of the republican party. Others just didn’t think he would be a good president.
As you can see throughout history things have gotten better. But things that have been good aren’t always permanent. Recently a new Pew Research Center created a Poll. Polls from 2007 to 2009 the positive responses increased seven percentage points, to 76 percent. But ever since 2009 the share of black respondents who had a positive view of race relations had dropped twelve points becoming only 64 percent. White respondents had a positive response increase at three percentage points from 2007 to 2009, but it decreased five percentage points from 2009 to 2014. 70 percent of black respondents thought police did a terrible job of treating racial and ethnic groups equally. Just 25 percent of whites say they do a bad job.
The shooting of an African-American by the name of Michael Brown occurred on August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. He was only 18 years old and was fatally shot by Darren Wilson a 28 year old white police officer of the Ferguson Police Department. This caused large numbers of riots that targeted the police department and the relationship between their law enforcement and African Americans. Michael was walking with his friend Dorian Johnson, down the middle of the street shortly after stealing a box of cigarettes from a convenience store. Wilson drove up and told them to move to the sidewalk. An argument between Brown and Wilson struggled through the window of the police car until Wilson’s gun was fired. Brown and Johnson ran in different directions with Wilson in pursuit of Brown. He fired several more times. In the entire argument Wilson fired a number of twelve shots. Brown was hit by six with the last being the fatal shot. Witnesses were unsure of whether Brown had his hand raised or whether he was walking over to Wilson when the final shots were fired. This sparked up more rioting. This is evidence that even though we came a long way, there is still a large journey to go. The way we treat races isn’t yet perfect because there is still anger fueled by grudges buried deep within our past. The one thing I don’t understand is the mistreatment between other races. We are all human beings bound to the same fate. We live and we die. I don’t think it matters what you believe in or what you look like. A person is a person no matter what race, culture, gender, or religion.
Economy progress has stalled. Between 2000 and 2011, black median household income fell from 64% to 58% of the white figure. There is now an alarming wealth gap. In 2005 white families’ median net was worth 11 times that of blacks. In 2009 it was 20 times more. Blacks are beginning to fare poorly. Large numbers struggle in school. The average black 17-year-old reads and manipulates numbers about as well as a white 13-year-old. The law has it out to get them. By the age of 30-34 on black man in ten is behind bars. White men is one in 61 behind bars. The traditional black family has collapsed since King’s day. In the 1960s it was thought a crisis that nearly 25% of children were born out of wedlock. Today it is 72%, for whites 29%, and most of these children are raised by mothers who are alone, no relationships. The causes of this is usually the stress and effects of racism. Black schools are underfunded, employers overlook black job applicants and the criminal justice system is biased against blacks. If this is correct the best medicine may be more funding for inner-city schools, sterner enforcement of anti-discrimination laws and better training for cops and judges. It is possibly unlikely that racism has grown worse in the past decade. If you express a racist opinion in America today it becomes a career-ending mistake. Any firms caught discriminating are punished by courts. Polls suggest that racism is dwindling, the young are far less prejudiced than the old. The obstacles created by racism are anything but impossible to get through. The median earnings for white and black women with college degrees are about the same.
The legacy of discrimination if hard to get rid of. Perhaps the only way that the government can stop racism is not head on, but through helping to get through the flaws of the government that hurt blacks more than whites. The biggest flaw of the justice system is not that it is biased, but that is is brutal. Instead of tearing families apart by locking up non-violent drug offenders, it’s far better to give minor criminals of all races ankle tags, drug treatment, and guidance to find a job. Black parents prefer charter schools because self-destructive culture norm is almost non-existent in private schools. The government can’t do very much about the collapse of black families, but school and prison reforms should help. Role models like Barack Obama inspire black men partly because he has a wife and daughters he treasures and respects. America has a shameful past, but gradually it is fading through the better actions of others. Skin colour is not as big of a deal as it was in the past. This path will never be easy, and will never end. All we can do is fight through it with all we’ve got.
John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. gave their lives to receive equal rights between races. It is something that we should honour in every way possible. If someone is willing to die for this kind of cause we should try our best to keep it shiny and new. We’re losing the sense of equality that these strong authority figures gave us. The taste of it leaving a bitter taste of mistreatment and death. In my old schools I have never seen any African-American student get mistreated. We were all equal. I never saw them as a different race or a different creature. I saw them as who they are, people. I never noticed their dark skin, or their dark hair, I only noticed their personalities and their kindness. Never once did I see them get bullied, instead I see them get accepted. It’s hard for me to believe that someone out there in a different place is suffering because they are being mistreated or they have lost someone dear to them just because of the colour of their skin or what they believe in. It shouldn’t matter what church you go to, or whether you even attend a church. It also shouldn’t matter how you look or what gender you were born into. As human beings we deserve to be on even ground. No skyscrapers or Eiffel towers. We all should be on a flat land full of rights that all human beings were born with.