Essay On African Americans A Turning Point In History

For many years, American Presidents were viewed as being white and powerful leaders. Why were they only white? Is it because Americans felt Blacks were not smart enough to run a country on their own? African Americans were viewed as less dominate people and have been discriminated because of the color of their skin. In 2008, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States making him the first black president ever. In this paper, I will discuss how Barack makes a change and if America can accept him as our first black president.

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.

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.

Africans first arrived in the area that later became the United States of America in around 1619 in the Chesapeake area. The large amount of fertile land in the area gave the settlers their biggest cash crop, which was tobacco. As time went by, more and more tobacco was being exported to England. Because of this, more labor was needed. This need for more labor was not only in the north, but in the south as well due to their mass production of cotton. This movement started the institution of slavery in America. Then, the colonies and other countries started to trade slaves and it became a business. The Royal African Company was the first slave trading company, which was started in 1672. The slaves were transported by the Middle

“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.

Scholars have dedicated their time and attention to furthering the discipline of African American Studies and can define the field with many different definitions. Through looking at the origins and development in the study we can see how it became a legitimate academic field. As we study the writings of the African American intellect, it will fully explain the importance of the discipline. Their work will justify the study of cultural and historical experiences of Africans living in Africa or the African Diaspora. When examining the scholar’s arguments we can develop our own intellectually informed rationalization of the field of African American Studies.

Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive. The election of Mr. Obama amounted to a national catharsis- a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama’s call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country. But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation’s fraught racial history, a breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago.

Richard Wright would write about Barack Obama earning the honor of being the first black man to be the head of the country. Obama made history on January 20th, 2009, when he was inaugurated into presidency of America as the first African American to become the president of the US. He made history, he went on to start programs like ObamaCare, Helped Gay marriage rights make it to the supreme court, as well as combat global warming. Obamacare, also known as the affordable care act, is helping many people in America gain health care when they can not afford it, for many, it is helping with “Job lock”, a situation where you need to continue working at a job that you hate but need to have health care, as explained in the article titled Will Obamacare end Job Lock? By Dean Baker, Los Angeles Times. Obama is helping many of us with the pursuit of happiness, and with acts such as the affordable care act, we can do such things. Obama is closing in on the end of his

Finally, Ta-Nehisi Coates shows his support for this claim in his article “The First White President.” In this article Coates discusses how minorities, such as African Americans, have always been outsiders because of society’s racism, but with President Trump they lost all hope of becoming insiders. Before, with Obama as president, minorities had some hope of becoming insiders, “Barack Obama delivered to black people the hoary message that if the work twice as hard as white people anything is possible” which gave light to the possibility of change, but with a different society in charge, all minorities were now more outsiders than before (Coates). This is not a new division, for African American people have always been pushed to the outside.

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 election of President Obama marks the most noteworthy political accomplishment for African Americans in the United States during the post-civil rights revolution, thus bringing about a change in the country’s social and political landscape that was steeped in racial discrimination since the founding of this great nation. Because social and political conditions are subject to constant change, President Obama’s

When Barack Obama was elected to be President of the United States in 2008, many deemed it as the ultimate breakthrough for African-Americans. Considering the social position of African-Americans only 50 years ago, to have an African-American serving the most powerful role in the world was no mean feat, and yet, despite this, in many areas of society, African-Americans still seem to be suffering from undue discrimination. This begs the question, just how racist is America?

The newspapers covered many of the social and political problems of the South because it was the best communication to the

Although I have memories from my youth of the election of Barack Obama, our first black president, I was too young to appreciate the incredible significance. Unfortunately, my first memorable political event has left me with a cynical impression of politics. The impending nomination of Donald Trump has left me baffled and in disbelief. It is hard for me to understand how Donald Trump supporters can reconcile his statements with their own party principles.