A Reflection of the Treatment of African Americans in the 1920's and 30's

During the 1960’s African Americans were abused, considering they were black consequently, terrible living conditions affected all African Americans, for example Oigbokie was abused in a historically black college in Alabama. Oigbokie Said due to the fact that African Americans wear Kente cloth it doesn't confirm that they happen to be African. African vs. African American is an article written by Tracie Reddick and it’s a descriptive writing. Yeshitela is from St. Petersburg and there are no cultural differences between Africans and African Americans. In 1990 the income of an African who migrated to America was higher than African Americans.

Roosevelt had to fulfill his most important campaign promise, the new deal. “If the new deal is a success, a friend told Roosevelt in 1933, you will be remembered as the greatest American president. If I fail, Roosevelt replied, I will be remembered as the last one. “ (“FDR”) Roosevelt moved to put the government itself on a budget, freeing up federal dollars for relief and reform measures. (www.pbs.org) He boosted the morale by making the sale of beer and wine legal. FDR also launched a congregation of recovery endeavors, which were dubbed “alphabet soup” programs for the acronyms that identified them. The civilian conservation Corps (CCC) put 2.5 million men to work on conservation and reforestation projects. (Stolley, 86) FDR believed that the assembling of the National Recovery Administration was the most important legislation of the early New Deal. “The NRA was meant to stop wasteful competition, encourage better regulated pricing and selling policies and provide for higher wages and shorter hours throughout the American business community.” (Alsop, 123) During the Farm crisis, President Roosevelt initiated the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA). This financed farmers for limiting the size of their crops. It assisted to make the farming community more solvent, also at the same time reducing the massive surpluses that had run down produce prices. (Alsop, 124) The most popular New Deal ideas

Many African Americans moved to the north during The Great Migration, according to “Priceonomics,” after the war because the northern states were more accepting and the north also offered them more opportunities for jobs and to pursue the lives they wanted. Immigration fell after World War I and many of the northern entrepreneurs went to the southern states and recruited African Americans to work for them, using the appeal of the north being more accepting and of more money. In the poem, “I Too” by Langston Hughes, he stated, “Tomorrow,/ I’ll be at the table/ When company comes./Nobody’ll dare/ Say to me,/ ‘Eat in the kitchen,’/ Then.” Many African Americans were able to pursue their dreams in art, literature, music, and stage performance during The Harlem Renaissance, after they moved to the northern states. The poem describes what it was like after The Great Migration for African Americans, since they were living in a more accepting place. They were able to live more freely than when they were in the

During reconstruction the United States was divided on social issues, presidential campaigns were won and loss on these issues during this period. The struggle for development of African Americans and how they initiated change in political, economic, educational, and social conditions to shape their future and that of the United States. (Dixon, 2000) The South’s attempts to recover from the Civil war included determining what to do with newly freed slaves and finding labor to replace them. The task of elevating the Negro from slave to citizen was the most enormous one which had ever confronted the country. Local governments implemented mechanisms of discrimination to combat citizenship

35) As Hoovers administration continued its business backing policies African Americans drifted towards Democrats. This accompanied a rapid urbanization that rose the percentage of African Americans living in cities from forty four percent to fifty percent in just 9 years, from 1930 to 1939. (Trotter, pg. 11) Seventy five percent of African Americans lived in the South, where Southern Democrats had oppressed and opposed African Americans since the end of the Reconstruction in the early 1870’s. (Americans at War) Despite the bad blood between African Americans and Democrats, they drifted in large numbers towards ‘the left’ as Roosevelt and his administration began to administer the “New Deal”. The New Deal was a series of programs and agencies set up to help the United States recover from the Depression. Over 20 million Americans sought assistance from agencies and programs such as Social Service. (Trotter, pg. 8) Many of these were African Americans, but over sixty percent of African Americans received no benefits from the New Deal due to a propensity towards racism in many of the local distributers of aid. (Trotter, pg. 11) According to labor laws supported by Roosevelt and the Democrats, it was not required to pay African Americans minimum wage. Roosevelt also refused to sign an anti-lynching bill into law, allowing lynching to remain legal in many Southern states, due to Roosevelts need of the Southern Democrats to maintain power in the Senate and

Chapter two discusses the inequality, brutality, and disfranchisement done to African Americans. This chapter also displayed the change African Americans made when they realized enough was enough. Ella Ree Jones was a student at Alabama State Teachers College in Montgomery, AL, who acted in the same way Rosa Parks made famous 13 years later. Jones was feeling confined that day but was told to give her seat up for a white man. She refused and argued she was already halfway on the bus where blacks were assigned. The bus driver called the police and they took Jones to City Hall. When they arrived at City Hall the officers beat her with a pipe, kicked her repeatedly, one officer took her head and propelled it into a brick wall, and then pushed her into her cell. Jones was fined and was still obscure on what she had done wrong.

Many African Americans had moved north during the Great Migration to escape conditions in the south, but found that discrimination was still prevalent in northern cities. African Americans not only had difficulties finding jobs, but still felt the stigma of being black. Living within the time of legal discrimination, many African Americans soon realized that though they may have escaped the violence of the south, they still had to deal with the challenges and setbacks of being black in America. The Great Migration began in the 1910s and 1920s during World War I. The second wave of migration of Blacks to the north and west began in the 1940s during and after World War II (Alexander, 1998, p. 352). With the war going on, many black people found jobs due to the numerous openings of those fighting in the war. But once the war ended, white soldiers came back, finding blacks filling their jobs and wanting them back. Black men had particularly difficult times finding jobs; “they were the last to be hired or accepted in the unions and were the first to be let go during the Depression” (Dyer, 2001). Not only did the new immigrants face tension with whites over jobs, but also with Northern blacks, who believed that the migrants “threatened their social, economic and political security” (Tolnay 1997, p.1216).

The 1920’s was a time for advancement, full of many influences that have effected times today including the development of the organization the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People or, NAACP. In the August of 1908 in the city of Springfield, Illinois a two day riot of several thousand white citizens ensued due to the rising of racial equality (“Springfield Race Riot”). This riot resulted in the death of two elderly African Americans by lynching along with innocent people being shot, stores being looted and, homes being burned (“Springfield Race Riot”). The creators of the NAACP took this event along with our nation's history as a cry for help and need for racial justice. The beginning of the 20th century was full of new idea’s but the NAACP organizers knew that it was lacking racial justice.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek” Barack Obama. The question is always asked does the media reflect the reality of society, or does society try and imitate the reality shown by the media? There are a number of stereotypes associated with African Americans in our society such as African American men are athletes, rappers, criminals, deviant, streetwise, uneducated, and unemployed just to name a few. African Americans in the media have changed through the years. The history of African Americans on TV or minorities in general is hampered by the racial conflicts and segregation that are embedded in American society. Historically, black actors have been grouped stereotypically and assigned to comedy. This has often been traced to the genre of black minstrelsy that was popular in the early 20th century.

Imagine being treated differently or discriminated against for having brown eyes, while everyone else has blue eyes, and even segregated or separated for being different. Do you think it would be right not to be considered human beings for not being the same as the others? Something similar happened in the United States a few decades ago. In the book of A Lesson Before Dying, by Earnest Gaines; it describes very specifically how blacks lived, and how they survived in that period of time. This book is about a black man who is sentenced to death for supposedly killing a white man and a teacher is listed to help him die with dignity. After I read the book and watched the movie, I got to a strong conclusion

The New Deal was a group of government programs and policies established under president Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s; the New Deal was designed to improve conditions for people suffering during the Great Depression. When the New Deal was taking place African American voters drifted to the democratic party, especially in the northern cities. It also strengthened African American support for the Democratic party.

April 12, 1961 marked the tightening of the tensions between African American slaves and the free white man. The American civil war was fought to keep the peace between the Industrial north and the rural south. The south decided to leave the Union out of the fear they would lose their economic power, the slave labor force. Eventually this fear would become reality four years later when they lost their fight. The slaves were freed and given the same rights as the white men and women living in America. The slaves, who have never been free before in their lives, didn't know or practice their rights to their full potential.

In a time where morality blinded Americans to the true source of social problems, African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans were not afforded the equitable treatment that was afforded to others. Prejudice was rampant during this time and there was a blunted interest in reforms for anyone who was non-European due to ideologies. At this time there were reports from anthropologists identified individuals from England and Germany descent being "biologically superior" indicating that other races were inferior (Jansson, 2015, p. 125). Also, with the belief of the manifest Destiny, Anglo-Saxons were to develop a Utopian society through the will of God (Jansson, 2015, p. 126). These were just some of the beliefs that further created

“The Harlem Renaissance was a time where the Afro-American came of age; he became self-assertive and racially conscious… he proclaimed himself to be a man and deserving respect. Those Afro-Americans who were part of that time period saw themselves as principals in that moment of transformation from old to new” (Huggins 3). African Americans migrated to the North in great numbers to seek better lives than in the South as the northern economy was booming and industrial jobs were numerous. This movement brought new ideas and talents that shifted the culture forever. Black writers, such as Langston Hughes, used their work to claim a place for themselves and to demand self-respect in society. Poems that Langston Hughes wrote captured the essence of the complexity of a life that mixes joy and frustration of black American life through the incorporation of jazz and blues in order to examine the paradox of being black in mostly white America, the land of the not quite free.

Throughout his life, Langston Hughes wrote multiple poems that were the resounding thoughts of African Americans in the United States. He echoed the strong sentiments of dissatisfaction among the Black population. The 20th century had not only experienced economic panic and near-depression, but was also witness to the strained relationships between Americans due to civil unrest of Black Americans and the subsequent changes that