African Americans By 1900

How far had real action advanced the position of black Americans between 1917 and 1955?

In the 19th and 20th centuries Europe was thriving and wealthy while most of their colonies in Africa were suffering under their rule. The Europeans all wanted a piece of Africa’s land with its plentiful resources and free labor. Around this time, Europe was going through the industrial revolution and because business was booming the European countries need more resources than they already had. The Africans had the land the Europeans wanted to use to continue having booming businesses, they also had African slaves and workers that they can use so they don’t have to pay for labor. In the 19th century leader of the Europeans countries want to discuss how they will divide Africa without the leaders of Africa knowing. The Europeans then started to invade Africa and take control over the citizens. As the Europeans got more powerful, the Africans become more miserable. Unable to match the guns Europe had, African countries began getting claimed, one by one with the exception of two. The Europeans ruled in a cruel way that left many Africans dead or suffering. Many countries tried and successfully broke away from Europeans after many years under colonization. The Europeans had a negative impact on the lives of many Africans in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially with racism and assimilation. People were taught to be a human they had to be like a European which led to many racist views on African people and culture and is why some nations like France used assimilation to make

After these laws were abolished, caste oppression in the south, the decline of cotton agriculture (which was due to floods), and the shortage of labor in the Northern Factories created the conditions that incentivized African Americans to emigrate towards the North. Here they faced the ghetto. Although they had more freedom and opportunities, many African Americans were forced into a ‘Black Belt’ which became a community with the following attributes: overpopulation, underserved, crime, disease, and dilapidation. Beneath that facade of freedom was a ‘job ceiling’ - restricting Blacks to the most underpaid jobs - and a wall between them and White cliques, keeping them from true ‘social equality.’ Smiley & Fakunle state that overt racism is not

The life of African Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries has been a truly storied past. One of the most astonishing aspects of African American life, in this period, is the degree to which it was heterogeneous. The experiences of African Americans differed widely based on geographic location, class, gender, religion, and age. Despite a high degree of variability in the experiences of Blacks in America, if one were to consider the sociopolitical fact that Black people as a group in America were a subordinate caste in dominant society, then it becomes possible to make certain overarching connections. One such connection is the presence of secretive subversive ideologies and actions. The existence of these secretive subversive activities is apparent if one examines the labor tendencies, the folklore, and the outward societal projections of black people. By briefly examining the labor practices of Black women in Atlanta during the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries, The Uncle Remus tales, and cultural icon Louis Armstrong, one can deduce that secretive subversive actions and beliefs were an integrated aspect of Black existence during this period.

Once the Europeans were settled into the New World, they’ve decided to have a trade with Africans. Once, the Europeans traveled to Africa, they composed a trade with the Western Africans, to have their people, in return for gold. Many Africans, located in the West, were taken from their homes and families, into a ship to be taken far away into new land. This time in moment, in time, made a change throughout history.

All this was intended to ensure that the idea of white supremacy was in full force. This idea became fully integrated between 1889-1919 where the African Americans who never showed respect to the whites were lynched. This was too much for them, and they started to respond to such segregation and discrimination.

Things that you would never believe happened to blacks in the 1940s. In 1946, African–American soldiers that had jest came back from war were being lynched. The average lynching of black soldiers were about one lynch per week. There were cases where black soldiers were waiting at the train

From live theater to cinema, from the banjo to hip-hop, from whites in blackface to blacks in blackface, America has imitated and exploited black and has since then not gone back. Many of the adjectives persistently used today to describe African Americans, “lazy, ignorant, buffoonish, superstitious, joyous, and musical” were the same words used to describe African Americans throughout the duration of the minstrel shows’ history centuries ago (“The Mammy Caricature”). Real-life black circumstances were satirized and exploited in musical theater, becoming known as ‘minstrelsy’; with its emergence in the 1820’s—and its continual rise after the Antebellum era—minstrelsy easily and quickly became the most popular form of American entertainment

For over 250 years blacks were faced with some of the most brutal hardships any American people had ever endured. They were brought to America to be slaves and work for the ones who bought them. For many, many years, blacks put up with the terrible treatment they were receiving with the hopes of a brighter day to come soon. The later half of the 19th century brought them the hope they were looking for. Blacks finally had a chance to gain the freedom some of them literally had been dying for for so long. This was made possible on January 1, 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This executive order freed over 3 million slaves in the south that were in Confederate areas.

During the nineteenth century, minority groups such as African Americans, Chinese, Mexicans, and Native Americans faced new struggles through means of oppression. Each of these minority groups handled this oppression differently because they each had very different experiences. Whether they came willingly, unwillingly, or were being pushed out of their own land, they were all treated as inferior by whites. To fight the oppression they were facing, they all created communities, fostered a sense of strength and independence, and used that to fight back.

The social activities that were available for black were also limited, sports has been one of the most loved pass time activities for Americans. A lot of college students who participate in sports were found by college scouts in high school because of their sports records that they hold. Back in the past this was not available to black because they did not do college scouting at (negro) schools, they looked passed their talent. The schools for blacks were even substantially smaller than the white’s. Looking at the view from the white’s aspect they were the students that had the newest and best material that was available. Comparing the education between the white’s and blacks I would say that the white’s received better educational opportunities the blacks. Majority of the teachers for the most part, went to college and had proof of being able to teach the required material.

Before Colonization indigenous Indians migrated between the Caribbean and America, they first came from Europe via the Bering Strait. This migratory practice by these Caribbean inhabitants soon came to an end following colonization. The early twentieth century saw migration being developed between the Caribbean and America through the United Fruit Company as a result of the banana industry. The banana boats that operated between the Caribbean and Atlantic ports in the US encouraged passenger travel (Palmer, 1995). However, the McCarran-Walter Act allowed the United States, to impose restrictive immigration policies, which lasted up to the mid-twentieth century. No more than 100 immigrants per year were allowed in the country. The Act

African Americans, although liberated from slavery, experienced extreme hardship in the late 19th century. The racist attitudes of the South and the North held them back from a level playing field. Beginning with presidential reconstruction, an example of racism in the South was the enactment of the “Black Codes,” or laws that were made to replace slavery and avoid offering the rights of the 13th Amendment. Some of the laws the “Black Codes” made were the denial of voting rights, rights to seek political office, rights to own firearms, and even in some states the rights to work any skilled job which might compete with whites. Even when Republicans and “Radical Reconstruction” took root, racism eventually won out, and Blacks were denied rights by the effective use of intimidation and laws that attacked their lack of education and monetary holdings. Although progressive Northerners were able to set up the legal framework for equality, the racist beliefs of the majority of America, including Northerners, thwarted the efforts needed to fulfill the attainment of equality for Blacks. “New Immigrants” were also victims of racism, they were treated differently than the old immigrants because they looked different, had different customs, and weren 't from western Europe but instead eastern and southern Europe. Racism regarding their background justified America 's policy of “Laissez-Faire Economics,” which supported letting things be with people and industry. Even though the “New

Even though slavery was finally abolished in 1865, blacks and whites still did not have equal rights and opportunities in the 1900s because Jim Crow laws segregated African Americans from whites from any contact with each other. Blacks were only allowed to enter “colored only” public places like bathrooms, restaurants, and hotels. They usually had worse conditions and were inferior to “white only” facilities. Blacks always had fewer rights than whites, no matter how smart they are. Under the Jim Crow Laws, daily life for African Americans in the South was hard because of the lack of job opportunity, vile conditions in the workplaces, and unequal treatment.

So owning one's land had become the biggest goal for many Blacks to pursue since they saw it as the only path for their properity. As more and more Blacks gained economic power through land ownership, the Whites did anything as possible to reclaim their superiority over the Blacks. They did this by passing the “separate but equal” rule, where the Blacks were not allowed to sit or be in places assigned as “whites only”. They tried to deprive their voting rights by assigning a poll tax and a literacy test to their vote, which many Blacks were not able to afford themselves of. Also, by the 1920s, a very strong anti-Black organization had formed throughout the south who had called themselves by name, Ku Klux Klan.