African American Hardships Essay

The essay that I am presenting today is “Strivings of the Negro People” by W.E.B Dubois. This essay was written in as an article in the Atlantic Monthly in 1987, but before I get to essay, I would like to give some background information about Mr. Dubois. Both scholar and activist, W.E.B. Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He studied at Harvard University and, in 1895, became the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard. He wrote extensively and was the best known spokesperson for African American rights during the first half of the 20th century. Du Bois co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. He died in

African American Studies is a very complex subject. To confuse African American studies with black history is a common occurrence. African American studies is much deeper and more profound than just Black history alone. There are many unanswered and unasked questions among the Black American culture which causes confusion and misunderstanding in modern day society. In unit one there were many themes, concepts, and significant issues in the discipline of Africana studies. Both W.E.B Du Bois and Vivian V. Gordan touched on many concerns.

The article Being Poor, Black and American: The Impact of Political, Economic, and Cultural Forces written by William Julius Wilson is about the struggles and inequalities African Americans living in poverty encounter. Wilson discussed political, economic and cultural forces that have an impact on American impoverished communities. The author suggested the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina brought the media and world attention to poverty in the United States. Prior to Katrina, the author believes Americans did not focus or sympathize with poor communities. This unsympathetic attitude stems from the belief that people are poor because they did not work hard enough, or are not doing anything to get out of that situation. After Katrina, Americans started to notice and care about the impoverished communities because the hurricane was a natural disaster and out of their control. Overall, the author explains how politics, economics and cultures forced many families into poverty, and diminishes the idea that people live in poverty because of their own shortcomings.

Though social problems affect a wide variety of people from all races, classes, and cultures; minorities, specifically African Americans, encounter social problems on a multi-dimensional basis. Poverty, employment rates, discrimination, and other social problems strike African Americans in such a way that it is nearly impossible to separate them; each individual has different background, socially and physically, that would determine in which order his or her social problems need to be solved. Impoverished blacks in the inner city may have difficulty finding or keeping jobs, while others may have jobs, but face troubles with work discrimination that prevent them from moving upward .Underemployment, workplace inequalities, and unbalanced

The majority of the slaves were employed in agricultural areas in the South. By the mid-19th century, a large number of slaves worked in urban areas as well, and about 5% worked in more industrial occupations. The hours of the slave workers were long. The average life expectancy of African slaves was at least 12% lower than whit Americans in 1850 and the infant mortality rate was 25% higher for slaves. Oftentimes slave marriages and families dissolved due to separation. This concept is horrible when you take under consideration that family was the entire basis of African culture.

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.

African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated; that is 60% of 30% of the African American population. African Americas are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites. “Between 6.6% and 7.5% of all black males ages 25 to 39 were imprisoned in 2011, which were the highest imprisonment rates among the measured sex, race, Hispanic origin, and age groups." (Carson, E. Ann, and Sabol, William J. 2011.) Stated on Americanprogram.org “ The Sentencing Project reports that African Americans are 21 percent more likely to receive mandatory-minimum sentences than white defendants and are 20 percent more likely to be sentenced to prison.” Hispanics and African Americans make up 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population. (Henderson 2000). Slightly 15% of the inmate population is made up of 283,000 Hispanic prisoners.

Regardless of race or ethnicity, it is my belief that people in general, will stand up for their rights no matter what they have to do in order to get their rights recognized, they will do it. In this case, African Americans had to fight to mold the country and freedom that they desired. When a group of people become oppressed they will learn to band together to mold their future and the future of their children. I would like to look into this from the point of view that even though we are referring to people of African American descent, other races would have done the same. I hope to touch on topics and keywords that will reflect that in a literary sense.

Slavery in colonial America was a hard way of life. Slaves varied in ages and gender. Slaves were assigned a task or tasks that had to be completed during the day. The male slaves would participate in the hard labor such as working on the farm. The female slaves would generally work in the household, sent on errands or spent most of their time with the house owner. Female slaves were forced into sexual relationships for reproduction. Reproduction would either be forced between one African slave and another or between the slave and the house owner. Slaves were also treated like livestock and being bought, sold and traded among owners. For the enslaved people they had to endure being separated from their families when captured or when sold at the slave market. Their new

The African Americans were given their own freedom as well after being free from Britain. The diversity had become denser and so trade had flourished, and America had become more social. In Document F, it would state, "In 1790, the first U.S. census counted 13,059 free blacks in New England, with another 13,975 in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Strictly speaking, none of them was "free," for their lives were proscribed politically, economically, and socially. While white indentured servants often became respected members of their communities after their indentures ended, free blacks in the North rarely had the opportunity to rise above the level of common laborers and washerwomen, and as early as 1760 they had formed ghettoes in the grimy alleys and waterfront districts of Boston and other Northern towns" This would show how the indentured servants became members of the community and had not been looked down from the rest of the other people. And how America was the land of the free and was not discriminating other people based on their race or ethnicity.  To sum up, the people of races were not judged and were accepted by the

Slavery had become a fundamental part of the social and the economic life in Chesapeake and the Southern Colonies. It is estimated that over 270,000 slaves lived and worked in Chesapeake in 1770 (Foner 2012, pg. 136). Blacks accounted for nearly half the population of Virginia by 1750 and in South Carolina they outnumbered whites two to one (Kennedy 2000, pg.

The United States developed the official poverty measures in 1960. It was developed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had declared a war on poverty during the Civil Rights era. (The Path of Power- The years of Lyndon B. Johnson, (Caro, 16). The poverty rate of African Americans has been declining for many years. The Census Bureau releases two reports every year that describe who is poor in the United States based on cash resources. There is also the supplemental poverty measure (SPM) which takes account for the cash resources and non cash benefits from government programs aimed at low income families. (www.Census.gov/People and household). In 2012 there were over 46.5 million people in poverty and of those numbers 10 million were African

Finally, there were some differences in gender in this type of job. Those are some reason why plantation working was hard in the 1800s. First of all, workers had to live in a mess. It was tough for them! Their houses were extremely unsanitary because people had dirty clothes and bugs everywhere.

Throughout history, many different minority groups have been treated unfairly. Although African Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans are all minorities, they are similar in the ways of getting treated negatively, but they differ significantly. While some experience different situations in their early histories, stereotypes, discrimination, and other important issues. Some of these minority groups have these issues similar or worse than others.

The history of African-Americans has been a paradox of incredible triumph in the face of tremendous human tragedy. African-American persons were shown much discrimination and were treated as second class citizens in the colonies during the development of the nation. The first set men, women, and children to work in the colonies were indentured servants, meaning they were only required to work for a set amount of years before they received their freedom. Then, in 1619 the first black Africans came to Virginia. With no slave laws in place, they were initially treated as indentured servants, a source of free labor, and given the same opportunities for freedom dues as whites. However, slave laws were soon passed – in Massachusetts in