African American Change And Continuity

I do believe that any obstacle or disadvantage can turn into something good. I know this because people learn from their mistakes. Some people give up or lose hope when they are encountering an obstacle. Anything can be make up by thinking or a wise decision.

During my early years of school, I remember being taught white accomplishments and wondering if blacks and other people of color had made any significant contributions to today's world. I noticed that television consist of all white people. Throughout my research paper I hope to cover certain aspects of African American heritage. Aspects such as blacks making up the largest minority group in the United States, although Mexican-Americans are rapidly changing that. The contributions blacks have provided to our country are immeasurable. Unfortunately though rather than recognizing these contributions, white America would rather focus on oppressing and degrading these people. As a consequence American

Slavery began in the late 16th century to early 18th century. Africans were brought to American colonies by white masters to come and work on their plantations in the South. They were treated harshly with no payments for all their hard work. In addition, they lived under harsh living conditions, and this led to their resistance against these harsh conditions. The racism towards the African Americans who were slaves was at its extreme as they did not have any rights; no civil nor political rights.

From 1800-1884, The Market Revolution was a big part of the nation. Developments in technology – railroads, and canals – and manufacturing – the Cotton Gin, and Lowell System – brought both positive social changes – such as the role women played in society – and economic changes, like the opportunity for all to work.

Still between 1865 and 1876, there was a culture identity crisis for African Americans. We cannot explain the roots of African American culture without

African Americans have endured many trials and tribulations over the centuries. Our people have suffered from war, violence, and anguish simply because of the color of our skin. Our history has been so blatantly missing from textbooks and the K-12th grade educational atmosphere. Our educational system continues to neglect the history of our African American ancestors and fail to provide them with the educational resources to inform them of our past and allow them to learn about the true origins of our culture. We have made many significant contributions to the world but those have also been highly ignored as well.

Over the course of this semester, I was introduced to many people, ideas, writings, and discussions that sparked my interest and enlightened me on African American history. However, I feel like this was just the beginning of my journey of learning the history of my people, as there is still so much out there to be brought to the surface. Prior to taking this course, I was always ignorant on the topic of African American history and simply made the connection to slavery. Additionally, I was unaware of other black activist, movements, and struggles that I had the chance to witness for the first time in this class. I came to a realization of how deprived of this information I was, because other historic events have been deemed more important. A quote that stuck with me throughout the course that was made by Arthur Schomburg was, “... African history and negro history, are the missing pages of world history”.

Context: Following the reconstruction era and the introduction of the industrial culture, businesses grew large and powerful, as did their owners and became some of the most influential. The growing production of steel and oil allowed for many businesses to grow and therefore impact Americans life. Big business controlled the government through corruption, controlled the economy that affected many workers lives, and created many different labor conditions that would make change in the society through the constant labor rights. Thesis: Big influence Paragraph 1: Political (Doc 2) With the rise of big industries in politics such as Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company, there came consequence for the people .

The world of ex-slaves changed drastically in some ways but in others, it stayed very similar depending on where they eventually settled. And settled was the key because the ex-slaves now had the ability to move freely about the country as they never had before. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery and for this reason, Black Americans could research what had happened to family members that were sold during the slave years. There were many who were reunited with the help of the Freedmen’s Bureau and through newspapers, although many others never found their loved ones. Even so, they were now free to marry and keep their families intact without the fear of separation from overseers or slave owners.

“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.

From the 1920’s to the mid 1930’s a literary, intellectual, and artistic movement occurred that kindled the African Americans a new cultural identity. This movement became known as the Harlem Renaissance, which is also known as the “New Negro Movement”. With this movement, African Americans sought out to challenge the “Negro” stereotype that they had received from others while developing innovation and great cultural activity. The Harlem Renaissance became an artistic explosion in the creative arts. Thus, many African Americans turned to writing, art, music, and theatrics to express their selves.

The African American community has sat at the end of a discriminatory lens from the moment they set foot in the United States. For that reason, black communities have undergone the process of community building to ensure that all members feel a sense of belonging.

The African American experience is one that is quite different from other racial/ ethnic groups. The majority of the first African American came over, unwillingly, on ships from various African countries. They were brought to America by white, European settlers to be used as slaves in an order to plant and harvest their crops and make money for the white man. This racial group was treated as if they were property and not people. However, with the ending of the American Civil War, African Americans gained freedom, freedom that not all white American were quite ready to handle. After gaining their freedom came the need for education, jobs and suffrage rights. Now in America this racial group has come a long way, having elected its first African American present for two terms, yet still there are many issues that are very prevalent. This racial group has been fighting their way to equality since the birth of this nation. African Americans have experienced an array of conflict, violence, stereotypes, prejudice acts, and discrimination against them throughout their history in America.

African Americans have been through so much since being uprooted from their home in Africa. Most people do not understand what happened to African Americans and they understand what they had to go through to be where they are today. It went from being kings in the comfort of their home to being thrown on a boat packed like sardines to be forced to work in the fields. The trip was a massacre itself because many did not make it due to the treatment from others. African Americans have always been treated like outsiders and it took many people to sway the perception of others to be where they are today. Through all the ups and downs African Americans persevered and made it out the struggle. African Americans has always been treated badly all groups of people and they always looked down on African Americans. Throughout the history involving African American, it showed the constant inferiority treatment. African Americans were slaves years ago, people still look at blacks as less important than other people. Slavery has a huge impact on our society today because people are still bias and unfair towards African Americans, most African Americans are still living in poverty and don’t have proper education beyond high school which is why they don’t have the equal opportunity for jobs. African Americans still continue to sit in the shadow behind white people.

Do Americans owe their wealth to their black fellow American citizens, whose ancestors were slaves? Initiated by Congressman John Conyers (Detroit, MI.), this heated debate is further revved up by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a national correspondent for The Atlantic and an American writer, who authored a broad claim through introducing the true story of Clyde Ross, a current resident of the Lawndale, Chicago (Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2014).