African American History 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.

The time has come again to celebrate the achievements of all black men and women who have chipped in to form the Black society. There are television programs about the African Queens and Kings who never set sail for America, but are acknowledged as the pillars of our identity. In addition, our black school children finally get to hear about the history of their ancestors instead of hearing about Columbus and the founding of America. The great founding of America briefly includes the slavery period and the Antebellum south, but readily excludes both black men and women, such as George Washington Carver, Langston Hughes, and Mary Bethune. These men and women have contributed greatly to American society.

The aspect of African-American Studies is key to the lives of African-Americans and those involved with the welfare of the race. African-American Studies is the systematic and critical study of the multidimensional aspects of Black thought and practice in their current and historical unfolding (Karenga, 21). African-American Studies exposes students to the experiences of African-American people and others of African descent. It allows the promotion and sharing of the African-American culture. However, the concept of African-American Studies, like many other studies that focus on a specific group, gender, and/or creed, poses problems. Therefore, African-American Studies must overcome the obstacles in order to

Why are the following events so important to America’s history? The events that include Brown V. Board of education, Emmet Till, Little Rock Nine, Freedom Summer, Chicago in the 1950’s, were all very important events to occur before a movement that was not necessarily alive, yet. These events were all important because of how they would start the momentum of the Civil Rights movement that would give African Americans the simple rights that any white man has. These events shared things in common such as the simple fact that they all involved African Americans pressing for rights that they deserved. All of these events whether they be positive or negative would be beneficial to the Civil Rights movement.

Family dynamics across all races are complex. For the state of the black family is made even more complicated by a history rooted in slavery. Fractured families were born out of a system where husbands were taken away, jailed or killed, leaving the family weakened with a mother and/or grandmother at the helm. While these historical facts may be true; that the black family is weak, can be argued. Yet, the family for many in the black community and other communities of color extend to include a large number of kin. On the other hand, it can also be argued that since families were ripped apart during the slave trade it created an opportunity for setting up networks of support and family units to include members who may not be blood related. You often hear black people refer to an elder as “aunt” or “uncle” these networks were put in place as protective factors in the event that parents were sold there was an assurance that someone would care for the children. To an extent this behavior continues to this day as we see many fathers sentenced to long jail terms for petty crimes or killed. The family structure makeup may be a blood relative and it may also be kin of another kind. LaShawnDa Pittman discusses how these factors shape the African-American family and how slavery impacted the role of the mother and father within the family system. During slavery there wasn’t any possibility of childhood. Children were socialized to begin work at the age of

Slavery (the ownership of another human as one’s own property) is one of the oldest traditions in human history. History shows that ancient Rome and Greece valued their wealth upon the number of slaves an individual owned. Their service was to provide slave labor for their owners. As time progressed, slavery began to evolve into something much different– especially in the North American colonies. A new nation was emerging, fueled by a drive for expansion and a growing economy. The United States exploited African Americans through racial slavery to fill the labor shortage and created a system that stripped them of their basic rights, dignity, and created social barriers to ensure their subservience to Southern society.

Jesse Jackson, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B DuBois are all African American leaders. All of these men were leaders in their own time and their own sense, living in different eras with different views, but they all shared common ground. All four were African Americans trying to overcome obstacles and become influential leaders in their society.

Despite its inception some 400 odd years ago, slavery continues to impact families of African descent. Al though forcibly taken to American shores with shack les and chains draped around them like garments, Africans retained some sense of family both mentally and spiritually. The familial bond which was present those 400 years ago still exists today. It is the tradi tional African family structure that is the baseline for the past, present and future black American family. It is therefore imperative that we examine this tradi tional structure.

To many people, America’s history may appear to be a series of events shaped by the decisions and actions of white men. However, this perspective fails to recognize the tremendous impacts that minority groups had, have, and will have in shaping and influencing America’s past, present, and future. The Revolutionary War is an example of how women and African Americans played an important role in critical events in American history. In the Revolutionary War, Americans fought for freedom and independence from Britain, leading to the birth of our nation. Without the contributions of women and African Americans, the Revolutionary War may not have been successful, and American history may have followed a very different course.

Several African American families were separated and torn apart. Thousands of slaves were forced from the East to the Southwest or Deep South. Several people died from this passage due to conditions like malnutrition and extreme labor. The idea of “fictive kin” became a mechanism for the enslaved to cope with the new conditions. Fictive kin, though not blood relations, created family-like relationships with other members of the slave society that had been torn from their families. With the brutal expansion of slaves, many slaves became angered and violent. Rebellion was more likely than ever in this time. Religion was another coping mechanism among the enslaved. Plantation churches were a place of comfort for the enslaved people. The churches emphasized the slaves pursuing reward in their next

Frederick Douglass' narrative reveals a lot about the work of the slaves. Some few slaves worked in the master's house, some more worked in the master's production huts around the farm, but most of them worked in the field under the watch of an overseer with a whip ready in hand. The slaves would be punished, sometimes very severely, if they weren't working early in the morning. They could also be punished if they didn't work fast enough or well enough. After a long day of work, they would have to go to their huts and do their own cooking and washing. They could only sleep a few hours a night after doing all the work they had to do. When they were finished with their work they would fall down on their beds and "sleep till they [were] summoned to the field by the driver's horn." (48) Looking at the slaves as property, the master wanted to use them as much as he could to get his money's value. He didn't think of them as human beings who had needs, but as machines

Life under slavery was harsh, and during the mid-1800s, it was the main way of living in the South. Unlike the North, the South had very few industries, but made up for this with plantations. They then gained wealth by using slavery as they pleased, but under slavery, African- Americans were treated brutally. Under this kind of treatment, slaves made many ways to endure this pain and even sometimes then rebel.

No, black history month should be practice in every middle/high school just as U.S. history. It does not make since for black history month to be racist. Black history month being racist is far beyond the point.

On August 13, 1955 a man named Lamar Smith was shot in the middle of the day by a white man. Dozens of people watched this murderer gun down Smith, however, the killer was never indicted because every witness claimed that they witnessed him murdering Smith. There are many cases similar to Smith’s situation, in which the murderer gets away with the crime because of their skin color. Throughout the Civil Rights Era, African Americans made the greatest sacrifice, protestors risked their lives trying to achieve equal rights. There are many incidences when white protestors are targeted by hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan. President Lyndon B. Johnson seemed to only use police brutality when it came to silencing the protestors and King during their movement to end oppression towards African Americans and to gain equal rights. Students are only taught so much about the hate crimes that occurred during the Civil Rights Era, this research paper’s purpose is to show readers the hate crimes they were never taught in school.

The newspapers covered many of the social and political problems of the South because it was the best communication to the