Trends in African American Families Essay

“Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.”(Lyndon Johnson). For generations in the United Stated, ethnic minorities have been discriminated against and denied fair opportunity and equal rights. In the beginning there was slavery, and thereafter came an era of racism which directly impacted millions of minorities lives. This period called Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system up in till mid 1960s. Jim Crow was more than just a series of severe anti-Black laws, it became a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were positioned to the status of second class citizens. What Jim Crow

During the times of slavery, colored individuals were labeled as “other” in the United States. Black families were categorized as pathological, deviant, and in need of fixing. Black families struggled a lot. Poverty rates were sky high for single women who were the head of their household, especially for Black and Latino women. They were also the face of the homeless community, which was growing rapidly. The government then decided to implement marriage and fatherliness encouragements to ease poverty which resulted in societal problems surrounding the Black and Latino women.

Slavery is an institution that repetitively separates family members and close friends from each other, without any regard to those people. This aids in disrupting the heteronormative nuclear family relationship greatly. Frederick Douglass said that “My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant…” and that “It is a common custom…to part children from their mothers at a very early age.”(pg. 1). This showing that most children that were born into slavery would grow up having no relationship at all with their own mothers. Also, a lot of slaves were born into slavery by the fact that “children of slave women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mothers,” (pg. 2) and the slaveholder now holds the title of father and master. With being torn from their mother at a young age and having your own father be your master, completely takes away the chance of a child that is born into slavery from having the “normal” nuclear family relationship.

The number of two-parent African American households is dissolving. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the black family has declined from 80% in 1890 to 39% in 1990. The result of conflict, and warring souls in the African American community, this trend can be stopped and reversed. The African American family must first gain an understanding of what is causing this dissolution, then they can be taught about what principals and skills they must adapt in order to reverse it. Once this is accomplished, the black family must be given opportunities to share this information. By taking these steps, two-parent African American families would once again be prevalent in the United States.

Even after the hurdle of being enslaved was passed, there were many more and difficult hurdles ahead. For example, the black codes were an earlier major hurdle. The codes prevented African Americans from owning weapons, votes, and land. While the Black Codes were quickly abolish; a group emerged called the Ku Klux Klan which aimed to bring down African Americans to be seen as less than then human. However, the Jim Crow laws caused separation, and that separation led to African Americans having unequal opportunities. These laws were claimed to be constitutional, because they didn't deprive any person of life, liberty, or property; or trying to include slavery. From the Black codes to Jim Crow laws, African Americans had, and have many hurdles to overcome.

From the 1930s to the 1950s, African Americans were being severely persecuted and ostracized. The Jim Crow Laws allowed for legal segregation and continued control over blacks in the South. Those laws severely restricted the rights of the African American in the southern half of the United States and essentially continued to restrain them even though the United States Constitution forbid it. The North did not have such laws, but blacks still suffered. When African Americans migrated to the North, they were disillusioned by the fact that they were still not equal. The African Americans were instead delivered a subtler form of the discriminatory actions within the South. African Americans struggled for equality everywhere because of white

During these years of radical reconstruction, the African Americans were going through some very tough times. The laws that were put on them were harsh and unreasonable. All they wanted to do was becomes socially and economically apart of the United States. Groups like the KKK were unfair towards the blacks and made their lives miserable by holding rallies and killing them. As a result of reconstruction, the blacks were not given social or economic equality because of laws like the black codes and Jim Crow laws, and the rebellious whites in the south. These African Americans struggled just to support themselves, but whites eventually accepted them at the end of the

More than hundreds of years, Africans Americans had abided in inhuman lives and were thrown into passivity like lower social positions. Jim Crow laws, lasted from 1876 to 1965, “prevented ex-slave from riding in the same train cars as whites, from eating in the same restaurants, or from using the same toilet facilities” (Roark et al

Before the Civil War, African Americans living in America were seen and treated as lesser persons, primarily by not having voting rights and not being given equal treatment in relation to the law. When the war ended in 1865, many changes were made, some good and some bad. The bad that came from the war was that so much destruction was caused, specifically in the south; many means of transportation was ruined. Although the destruction caused a major setback, much good came about from the war, like the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. The Thirteenth Amendment, the amendment that ended slavery, states, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,

For Example, slaves were forced to work several hard labor jobs without pay. Many slaves had to go through the fear of being sold and torn apart from their families. Even children were auctioned off and torn apart from their families at early ages. Some children were sold as an act to punish their mother or father. Not only did slaves not have equal right, but they also could not get legally married to their significant others. Then you had the ‘free blacks’ who were former slaves that had been emancipated by their master or decedents of free blacks. Free blacks were able attain property, get an education, and move around as they pleased. Although free blacks escaped the harsh conditions of slavery, they still had to face the white racism that came their way. As more and more whites believed that slavery was the answer to the race problem that was going on around them, they constantly became more suspicious of free

In today's world, there is such a big emphasis on education and its importance. And there should be an emphasis. Unfortunately, not everyone has the same attitude about receiving a good education. This article attempts to discuss the attitudes of African American's towards education when a stable family structure is absent.

Slavery is a stain in the history of the United States that will always be particularly remembered for the cruelty it exhibited. Up until 1865 slaves were imported in shiploads and treated as if they were merely cattle. On the farms slaves were given no mercy and had to work long, arduous days for nothing. Additionally they were often subject to cruel overseers who would beat and whip them on a regular basis. As brutal and destructive as the institution of slavery was, slaves were not defenseless victims. Through their families, and religion, as well as more direct forms of resistance, Africans-Americans resisted the debilitating effects of slavery and created a vital culture supportive of human dignity.

African Americans have come a long way in the last few decades. We have more rights, more opportunities to grow and prosper and more independence than ever before. But the same cannot be said for African American families as a whole. The African American family and community is in trouble (Tilove, 2005). These families are facing many issues today that are contributing to their break down. These factors include poverty, diminishing health, welfare, incarceration, the struggle to find housing and the challenges involved with providing children with higher education. The disintegration of families have gone on for too long and it’s time we do something about it (“Current Challenges”, n.d.).

Slaves were not usually treated with respect in the households they worked in, most of the time, slaves were treated horribly. They would be raped, beaten, teased, whipped, and were victims of many cruel and unusual punishments that are unimaginable to the human race present day. Family was the most important thing to the African culture. Brothers tried their hardest to look over their younger sisters as best as possible. Old women and men with no family members to turn to, looked to the comfort of nieces, nephews, and cousins when they fell ill, and aunts and uncles played a primary part in the family as well. Men were not the only ones that were forced to take part in daily labor and routines but also women and children. Some slaves were assigned outside work in which they would tend the crops and more commonly known work the plantations on their masters estate. Women were more commonly assigned to kitchen work such as cleaning the houses, washing clothes, cooking meals, working as servants, and tending to the masters each and every need. Most women who worked in the houses were brutally raped by their masters whether or not they were married to a man or not. Although most women worked in a home setting, there were some women who did work outside with the men and children. Work was difficult on the slaves and their masters were not empathetic towards them in

The master's control over both spouses reduced the black male's potential for dominance over his wife. I will later discuss how the brokenness of black family structures is a result of the extensive and damaging legacy of slavery. As I briefly discussed the historical roots of the trauma through the horrors of slavery, I would like to focus more on how this trauma is passed through generations and how does one identify it or call it: Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome or Historical