Ota Beng Racial Segregation In The United States

In the 1960’s, black and white individuals were not recognized as being equal. The two races were treated differently, and the African Americans did not enjoy the same freedoms as the whites. The African Americans never had a chance to speak their mind, voice their opinions, or enjoy the same luxuries that the white people attained. Through various actions/efforts like the lunch counter sit-ins, freedom rides, and bus boycotts, the black people confronted segregation face on and worked to achieve equality and freedom.

In Spite of the devastating history of segregation in the United States. A lot has changed in the past fifty years since segregation ended. The United States shifted from arresting African Americans for using “white only” facilities to integrated schools all over the country. Influential individuals such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr helped pave the way for African Americans to live as equals to along with their white counterparts in the United States of America.

Just fifty years ago, America was a society of segregation and racism. The dictionary defines racism as “the belief that a particular race is superior to another.” Although it is clear times have changed, racism is still seen in modern american society. It’s also clear that relationships between African Americans and whites are generally better than they were in the forties and fifties. Today, it is rare to witness a black man walk down the street and step off the sidewalk to let a white man walk by, or to see a black man sitting on a different section of the bus or train because a white man told him he has too. But superiority of races is still happening. A lot of this has the do with the ignorance of others. Passed down generation to

Equality was once a repulsive concept within America, today it seems to be a foregone conclusion. Indeed, we have made so many strides in the way that we view race that it seems a gross misstep every time that it needs to be addressed. Even our President, an African American who overcame tremendous odds to rise to the highest office does not have the answers to our issues with race, rather he calls on us all to “ask some tough questions about how we can permit so many of our children to languish in poverty, or attend dilapidated schools, or grow up without prospects for a job or for a career.” For most, these questions point to sources outside of themselves, but perhaps there a bit of introspection is the answer. Systematic segregation can

As an inhabitant of planet earth, I have watched the people grow and prosper and then fall back to old habits. Years ago, we were separated by race and even though we claim that time is over, it is not. Our country is a great example of segregation because we not only segregate by race, but by gender and sexual orientation as well. America was founded on preconceived expectations of gender and race leading to a segregation of consciousness that structures opinions around the injustices of stereotypes.

At a time when African Americans were faced with laws plainly stating that the Black race was inferior to Whites and when Slavery had been transformed into Jim Crow and the convict leasing system, the African American struggle was at its worst. After States had formed Black Codes in order to limit African American rights and wages, Jim Crow laws were introduced to further racial segregation. An African American during the Jim Crow era could be incarcerated for an act as simple as vagrancy and placed into the convict leasing system which proved to be a treacherous post-slavery and devastating to the dream of equal rights. Though White society had once again found ways to repress the African American community, it was by way of education, journalism and art that African Americans were able to form a common and activist voice. Radical and eloquent minds of African Americans began to form publicly and also became socially accepted as artists, writers and politicians. It is the social struggle which propelled these extraordinary humans across the lines of racial and social injustice in the United States. It is in the struggle that we understand ourselves.

Race is invisible to white, because they don’t have to think about it. When white people are in poverty, they never think to consider their skin color as a factor to why they are. Whites are mostly oblivious to this happening in general, because it does not happen to them.

Forty-seven years ago the Civil Rights Act was passed to end racial discrimination in America, later on the twenty-fourth Amendment to poll taxes, then the Voting Rights Act, busing was set up to integrate schools, and the quota system was developed. Black Power, the Nation of Islam, and the Southern Christian Leadership conference were also some of the groups that tried to end segregation and promote the African-American race. Although these groups and laws did help end it, it still exists in today’s world and many studies have been done to prove it in the past couple of years.

Segregation caused distress and anger between the races in America. Jim Crow laws segregated blacks and whites all throughout America. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) backed desegregation of public places 100% (Stokes 80). After the reconstruction period was over, America had extreme economical and industrial growth (“Racial Segregation” 2). Brown vs. Board also helped desegregate America in schools. Segregation affected many people in many ways and created violence and distress between blacks and whites within the country.

I believe that most Segregation is fear based and a small portion of it is race based. There are many people that have not allowed themselves to connect with other races and cultures. Their knowledge of other races and cultures is likely derived from other people opinions, as well as our Countries history, and stereotypes that are played out on a daily basis in the world.

Racial segregation has been embedded in southern society ever since the birth of the America. However, even though documents such as Brown vs. Board of Education and the fourteenth amendment has been instituted into the constitution, we are still facing racial segregation throughout America that is unconstitutional and unjust. The south of America, especially Alabama, are facing several claims of racial tension in their prison system and their way to solve the tension between the black and white population is through segregation. The prison system has faced a lot of backlash, as 65% of their inmates consist of African Americans and 35% of them consist of white Americans. From time to time there has been violent encounters between white and black Americans, which have led to many unfortunate deaths. In order to simmer down the tension, the prison system thought it would be necessary to isolate inmates by race. The decision of segregation in Alabama’s prison system takes us back into history, when African Americans’ faced separate but equal law (Plessey vs. Ferguson) that separated whites from blacks in public facilities. This action is total nonsense and Alabama’s governing systems needs to find methods in which can diversify black and white American’s together to unify with each other through actives and interactions.

Bradley, Stefan. "Watching Jim Crow: The Struggles over Mississippi TV, 1955-1969." The Journal of African American History 90.1-2 (2005): 171+. World History Collection. Web. 31 Aug. 2015.

The history of our culture has said it is okay to separate individuals based on the color of their skin. However, not all believed that segregation was right when it came to the education system. When the time came to Desegreted School it was meet by resistant, but the effects of this historical movement can still be seen in the 21st century.

Wannabes, one of the biggest problems America faces in this day and age, those who wish to be something they are not, and in many ways, should not be. In our time, it’s found that more people try to be something they aren’t rather than embrace who, or what they are. Just take a look at the white children of America, sagging their pants, using slang terms, and many more similarities to the black children in America. Parents don’t understand a word their children say, families are becoming more distant as a result, there’s such a big difference between my generation and the last, that families shift apart because of these differences. This happens all throughout America, walk into any high school, and the results will be the same, the majority

African American still faced an equal world of segregation in various forms. As far as Jim crow laws which at a local and state level barred African American from classrooms black and whites had separate classrooms they didn’t share bathrooms nothing it was an invisible line in between the two like in the poem “Big Boy Lives Home” if they cross that line they will be punished .They were separate because of their skin color. All these African American people wanted was to be equal and freedom to use the same facilities as whites. “On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman issued two executive orders. One instituted fair employment practices in the civilian agencies of the federal government;” (African American Odyssey, President Harry Truman