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Historical Report on Race Eth/125 Essay

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Historical Report on Race
Jim, it was great to hear from you after so many years of us not getting in touch with each other. You mentioned in your last letter that you were writing a research paper on the African American history in the United States, and you were hoping I could share some of my experiences and knowledge of my race for your paper. I would love to offer my insight to you for your research.
You may be surprised to find out that the first Africans came to North America a full year before the Mayflower ever landed at Plymouth Rock. The first slave cargo arrived in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1619 with Africans that forced to aid in the production process of tobacco (History, 2013). Slavery grew over the next two hundred …show more content…

That has changed radically today with the emergence of the first black President ever in the United States. African American’s have also, for a majority of the existence of the United States, not been treated as equal citizens to everyone else, particularly to the “white” population. Slavery and segregation have dominated our existence and we have been treated more like property than we have been treated like equals. Our social existence in America was not something that even truly existed until the mid-1960’s. Culturally we always have been faced with hatred from others, particularly the White population, which has caused us to band together as a race and live together in communities of our “own kind”. Our historical segregation meant that no one had ever given us a chance to share our culture with the world. No one ever got a chance to know us. We had to live together, in communities of African American’s that did not have any other mixing of cultures. This has led to widespread ghetto areas that are economically depressed and do not receive any government funding to help better the community.
Over the years the African American citizen has come up against laws that have prevented them from being fully integrated citizens. One such law group of laws that made the most impact was most commonly known as Jim Crow laws. These were a group of laws that were put in place to enforce segregation mostly in the Southern

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