The Black Renaissance And The Great Depression

From 1865 to 1900 African Americans, despite being presumed free; blacks quickly realized they were only free from was the whippings, break-ups from their families, and sexual exploitation. (Experience History 457) African Americans were still force to live with the hostility of whites. It has taken blacks a long time to be freed from the hatred, and discrimination of white southerners, and after decades’ racism among whites still exist today.

Though the conclusion of the American Civil War in 1965 marked the end of slavery in the United States, African-Americans would not see anything resembling true freedom from the segregation and isolation imposed by slavery until very recently, and only after decades of difficult struggle. Some of the most important achievements occurred during the 1960s, when a generation of African-American leaders and activists, including Martin Luther King Jr., Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and the Freedom Riders, fought against some of the last vestiges of explicit, institutionalized segregation, discrimination, and isolation in order to attain equality and civil rights. Only by examining the treatment of African-Americans throughout America's history can one begin to understand how the the ending of slavery, the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and the contemporary issues facing the African-American community are inextricably linked. In turn this allows one to see how rather than existing as a single, identifiable turning point in the history of civil rights, African American's struggle for equality and an end to isolation must be considered as an ongoing project.

For many African Americans, the war offered an opportunity to get out of the cycle of crushing rural poverty. Black joined the military in large numbers, escaping a decade of Depression and tenant farming in the South and Midwest. Yet, like the rest of America in the 1940s, the armed forces were segregated. The Army accepted black enlistees but created separate black infantry regiments and assigned white commanders to them. Of the more than 2.5 million African Americans who registered for the draft in WWII, about 900,000 served in the Army. But about only 50,000 African Americans were allowed to serve in combat.

The black race has faced many hardships throughout American history. The harsh treatment is apparent through the brutal slavery era, the Civil Rights movement, or even now where sparks of racial separation emerge in urbanized areas of Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit. Black Americans must do something to defend their right as an equal American. “I Am Not Your Negro” argues that the black race will not thrive unless society stands up against the conventional racism that still appears in modern America. “The Other Wes Moore” argues an inspiring message that proves success is a product of one’s choices instead of one’s environment or expectations.

The reconstruction amendments established in the 19th century made many believe that African Americans would finally reach equality. However, the abolishment never changed society’s view on African Americans and instead, barriers such as oppression and segregation came out of it. Despite the ceaseless barriers faced by African Americans in the South, they were able to utilize methods in which gave the movement strength in the 1950s and ultimately, led to their gained civil rights.

African-Americans have fought on many of liberty’s battlefields from the pre-emancipated plantation to the killing fields of the Civil War. African-Americans have always been willing to fight not just for their freedom, but for their country as well. Yet, their country never lived up to its founding document that asserts that, “All men are created equal; ”instead,

In the United States, there has been many cases of Racial injustice. From the beginning of the start of the United States of America it was the injustice to the Native Americans being captured and used for slave labor while their bison be slaughtered for sportsmanship. But this paper is on the specific race of the African Americans. There are many races that have been racially profiled and ostracized by the English people. But the treatment that African Americans have endured even till this day is disheartening. African Americans have gone through enslavement during the early 1600’s to the mid 1800’s. Then the African Americans were obstructed by the Jim Crow laws creating the ‘Separate but Equal” propaganda during the late 1800’s into the 1960’s. After the abolishment of the Jim Crow Laws, people were considered equal until the recent actions of many police officers using deadly force on African American youths in the early 2000’s.

As war spread across Europe in 1914-1918, black Americans saw a second opportunity in which they could use the war to their advantage, in securing the respect of their white neighbours. This contemporary conflict brought about great controversy within the black community, being asked to fight for a democracy on behalf of a country in which they did not receive equal treatment. Many activists did support the war effort, including DuBois announcing ‘while the war lasts [blacks] must forget [their] special grievances … fight shoulder to shoulder with white fellow citizens… For democracy’ (Heinze, 2003). Paradoxically, when it came to the drafting of the volunteers, blacks came under a total polarization of customary discriminatory practice. Blacks were instructed to tear corners of their registry cards, thus becoming easily identified, to be inducted separately to white volunteers. (Murray, 1971). Now, under usual circumstances, the Black citizens would be turned away, the war office began doing all they could within their power to bring them into service, and surprisingly, this was most common among the Southern boards, demonstrated by the Confederate army during the civil war. The army established a more progressive attitude toward race relations than mainland America, by the end of 1917, African Americans served in cavalry, infantry, medical and engineer positions. The war allowed for the black Americans to begin asserting their citizenship, protesting racial injustice on

African Americans didn’t know that is was a Great Depression. African Americans have always been poor and knew how to survive. By 1932, approximately half of black Americans were unemployed, blacks always felt unemployed and under paid. Whites attempted to keep blacks out of work by not hiring African Americans. They used racial violence, and discrimination tactics to keep an underprivileged population depressed.

The Reconstruction Era is a suitable starting point for African Americans. “Reconstruction- the effort to restore southern states to the Union and to redefine African Americans’ place in

After the civil war and the period of reconstruction during the 20th century, many economic, social and political conditions changed for African Americans. This new freedom and opportunities given to them were not dramatically a big change. Even though the civil war had ended African Americans still faced discrimination and didn’t get as promised. One social change that came out of the civil war and reconstruction was segregation between the two races it was the process of separating the black people from the white. As shown in document 6, we see the public drinking fountain in North Carolina are kept separate from the white.

The Great Migration and African American battle for civil rights has been a continuing battle that was centered on prejudice, injustice, and lack of support from the government. In the Jim Crow South there was a huge discrepancy between whites and African Americans. They were treated poorly and received harsh treatment everywhere they went. For example, “A negro woman in Georgia resisted the offensive attention of a white ruffian, with the result that her house, with all her possessions, was burned, and notice served on her to leave the community at once or she would pay the penalty at the rope’s end (The Migration of Negros, p.g. 52).” This incident shows how powerful the Jim Crow south was and how racial superiority showed in a malevolent way. The violence and injustice taken towards African Americans were vile and the conditions of their situation. The conditions many African American faced were cruel and the living situations were harsh as most African Americans lived in the Jim Crow South. The conditions and the destruction of African Americans political rights, the curtailment of their civil rights, and the lack of protection in life made it difficult for them to gain equality (The Migration of Negros, p.g. 47). African Americans fought for their rights through media and protests. There were many movies and media displays that created stereotypes and harsh views among the African American culture and the way to fight back would be to counter those stereotypes and negative views. The South made it extremely difficult for African Americans as it created social, political, and economic inequality. The Great Migration and fighting for equal rights pushed African Americans further into equality.

Throughout the 1960’s, the widespread movement for African American civil rights had transformed in terms of its goals and strategies. The campaign had intensified in this decade, characterized by greater demands and more aggressive efforts. Although the support of the Civil Rights movement was relatively constant, the goals of the movement became more high-reaching and specific, and its strategies became less compromising. African Americans’ struggle for equality during the 1960’s was a relentless movement that used change for progress. In essence, the transformation of the Civil Rights Movement throughout the 1960’s forwarded the evolution of America into a nation of civil equality and freedom.

African Americans in America in history have gone through many hard times trying to just progress out of slavery and obtain freedom and have equal rights. In this paper I will attempt to explain what some of the important events of the time revealed about the role of African Americans in broader American society in, respectively, the 1920s and the late 1960s. I will explain how and why the roles of African Americans in the 1920s differed from their roles in the late 1960s, and explain how events in the 1920s may have contributed to

It is now over a century and a half since President Abraham Lincoln took the courageous step of issuing the emancipation proclamation that essentially laid the foundation for the freeing of African-Americans from slavery. Since then, African-Americans have been engaged in a never-ending struggle to effectively appropriate this hard fought freedom. The election of Barack Obama into the highest office of the United States is perhaps a significant enough achievement that speaks volumes of just how far African-Americans have come. However, a closer look at Americas social, economic and political fabric reveals a grim truth – that close to two centuries after gaining their freedom, African-Americans are still discriminated based on their racial identity. Of course the amount and form of discrimination is quite different from the total oppression of the slavery years, but still, for many African-Americans, it appears as though very little has changed. From housing to education to employment, African-Americans face numerous challenges that further taint the sacred values contemplated by the founding fathers of America. This essay takes a critical view at racial discrimination in schools with respect to African-American students.