The Struggle Of The American Republic Essay

The United States is a immigrant country, which faces varieties of problems. The African American problem is one of the most serious one. Racial segregation is a deep-rooted social problem, which reflects in every field in the United States. For example, education, labor market and criminal justice system. In the aspect of education, most of black children were not permitted to enter the school, because the white children studied there. In the aspect of labor market, the black people 's average wages were lower than the whites. They did the manual work. In the aspect of criminal justice system, the blacks were easily in jail. Badly, their sentences were also more serious than the whites. In general, the blacks live in the bottom of the American society. Martin Luther King delivered the famous speech I Have a Dream, ' ' I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. ' ' (1) However, it was difficult for African American to get the freedom. The 1776 Declaration of Independence announced that everyone are equal and freedom.But black slavery still occurred in the southern states of America. Then the Civil War broke out, African American kept struggling for land and political rights.

During Reconstruction, African Americans’ freedoms were very restricted. There were strict regulations on voting, relationships, employment, firearms, and other freedoms that white people had. African American faced disenfranchisement for years after being freed and becoming citizens. In What a Black Man Wants by Frederick Douglass, Douglass angrily demands the freedom to vote that every American deserved. He assesses the black man’s contribution to society and wonders why this contribution has not led to more rights. Those who were supposed to be fighting for the rights of freed slaves were not speaking up. Even the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society was not fighting for the rights of the freed slaves. Because of the restrictions on voting, African Americans did not have the same power over their own lives that white people had. Disenfranchisement is just one way white people limited freedoms of freed slaves.

In America, the lives of Africans did not get any easier. Once the demand for labor began increasing dramatically, more and more Africans were imported to America. Originally, white people and black people worked together in the plantations. As a result of the increase in Africans in these British colonies, less white people took jobs on plantations. Eventually, enslavement became based on race. Numerous slave codes were developed, which included denying slaves the right to be out past sunset and denying slaves the right to meet in groups of three or more. These Africans forced to live enslaved in America were treated as if they were inferior to white people. It is discouraging to think about the fact that this country, though it was long ago, once accepted this kind of social injustice.

“The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting.” In the 1880’s poll taxes and literacy requirements that afterward advocated African Americans to vote. Meanwhile Klan violence frightens from police and employers, blacks were still “protesting”about voting rights. As a result, there were over two dozen blacks serving in state congress across some

Following the American Civil War, the bloodiest armed conflict on US soil, slavery had been outlawed from the US. It had taken the US until January 31, 1865, less than two-hundred years ago, for slavery to be abolished. Yet, it was still abolished, albeit, later than many other nations throughout the world. It had taken yet over another year for the fourteenth amendment to be passed in June 13, 1866, making all former slaves into citizens. But, perhaps the greatest and most important right of all, the right essential to any democracy or republic, the right to vote, was given to former slaves through the fifteenth amendment.

The right to vote for African American became difficult during the time because the northern didn’t want to consider the blacks as equal to the society. As Frederick Douglass, has once stated “Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot.” African American fought their way to gain their right to vote is by coming together, free blacks and emancipated slaves, to create parades, petition drives to demand, and to organize their own “freedom ballots.” As a free African American, they except the same respect as the whites and nothing

Whites have always considered themselves superior to blacks, no matter if they were slave owners or not. Blacks were considered lower than humans, making them a main target of oppression of whites. So even when a small group of blacks were given their freedom, they weren’t truly liberated from the chains of slavery and oppression. Blacks were freed in the early 1800s, giving a limited amount of blacks the freedom they deserved. These blacks were usually rural, uneducated, and unskilled domestic servants who had to work hard to survive in the society that shunned them. Free blacks were still given restrictions and laws because of their status in society. In the early 1830s, a law in Virginia was made to prohibit all blacks from getting their education. They even took it to the level where free blacks who went out of state to educate themselves were not able to come back and return to their own state. The worst restriction was that blacks could not testify in court. When a slave owner claimed that a free black was their slave, they could not defend themselves, and would have to conform back to their slavery. Despite the terrible treatment given to blacks, some rose above the oppression and became successful, therefore achieving their goals and potentials of being a free black man, leaving a huge impact on society in the 1800s.

Blacks were treated with tremendous cruelty in many different ways. Black lives before the civil rights movement were treated cruel and unfair. African Americans did not have the same opportunities that they have today. Before the movement they could not get an education, a good job, or a place to live. These men and women who worked for white landowners were pretty much treated like slaves. They were barely paid anything for the work that they did. Many blacks lived in the streets and did not even have a place to get out of the weather. Due to these factors many blacks lived in poverty and were treated very cruel. A staff Writer wrote, “For black Americans, the pre-Civil Rights era was a time of danger and turmoil, as they set out to claim

African-Americans may sometimes wonder at the contradictory facts about their history presented in many standard history texts. These texts state that blacks were given the right to vote in 1870, yet the same texts will acknowledge that this right did not really exist for African-Americans until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

This was the period of post-slavery, early twentieth century, in southern United States where blacks were still treated by whites inhumanly and cruelly, even after the abolition laws of slavery of 1863. They were still named as ‘color’. Nothing much changed in African-American’s lives, though the laws of abolition of slavery were made, because now the slavery system became a way of life. The system was accepted as destiny. So the whites also got license to take disadvantages and started exploiting them sexually, racially, physically, and economically. During slavery, they were sold in the slave markets to different owners of plantation and were bound to be separated from each other. Thus they lost their nation, their dignity, and were dehumanized and exploited by whites.

Throughout history, African Americans both free and enslaved were not treated equally nor permitted with the same rights as white men. African Americans were enslaved and not allowed to vote or hold public office. Since the 15th century, African Americans have been treated less than human, some even experienced brutal punished for justifiable mistakes. The use of African American slave labor was an enormous contribution to agriculture and labor. It became a part of southern state’s economy within America. Additionally, African Americans were forced or born into slavery where they endured harsh working conditions with zero pay and often times were punished by their masters. Even slaves that became emancipated or paid for their freedom were also treated differently than whites. Notably, blacks did not have the same privileges as whites and were forced to carry a “freedom card” wherever they went. Failing to do so would lead to severe consequences, such as being forced back into slavery. Once African Americans were considered free, they faced additional discriminations such as not being able to vote or serve as a figure in public office. Due to this and additional factors, African Americans were almost entirely incapable of defending themselves against whites. Since the start of the 17th century, African Americans, free and enslaved were punished for their skin color and were considered the lowest scale by not being allowed to the same opportunities and rights and white men.

Black Americans had been a long part of American history and were bought to America by the settlers, which were white, as slave’s. Black people were treated with such intolerance that it were better not to be alive they were tortured, abused, hanged, beaten and starved. A quote from a source which was written while all these awful things were happening shows

Soldiers received a heavy bombardment of snowballs and rubbish when they opened fire. 3 dead, 8 wounded , including Crispus Attucks.

In the last decades of the Republic, the struggles between competing warlords with dynastic ambitions spurred related changes in visual culture. One of the new institutions of this changed world was the household of Gaius Octavianus, better known by his title of Augustus, and its supremacy. This resulted in the promulgation of the notion that it was both an exemplum to be admired and imitated, synonymous with the Roman state itself. In The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, Paul Zanker examines the role of images in the cultural program of Augustus, arguing that a new visual language developed to express the ideals of the monarchy and to bolster the social changes desired by the new government. For instance, in 35 BCE, public statues of living women, honorific portraits of Augustus’ wife, Livia Drusilla, the first empress of Rome and his sister, Octavia, were initiated by Augustus and dedicated by a senatus consultum. Sadly, these portraits are only known from Cassius Dio and their original location of display in Rome is unknown. However, the very fact that the Senate had to authorise such portraits by a special decree, suggests the unique nature of such public honours to women.

African slavery started at the 16th century and ended in the 19th century. Slave life was the most brutal and disrespected period of America. When Africans first stepped foot on the slave ships coming to America things were bad. The white man beat, raped, and treated the black men like animals. Life on the plantation wasn’t any better. The slaves didn’t work for a paycheck, they worked for their lives. The black man had difficulties adapting to the environment, learning another language, and being a monogamous.