Slavery by Another Name
"Slavery by another name" refers to the exploitation and subjugation of African-Americans in the United States following the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. This period, from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 until the Civil Rights Movement, saw such practices as sharecropping, convict leasing, the Black Codes, and Jim Crow laws, which perpetuated a system of racial segregation and discrimination.
For instance, as the documentary showed, in the economic realm, sharecropping trapped many African-Americans in a cycle of debt and dependency. They rented land to farm, but the high costs and low crop prices often meant they ended up owing more to the landowner at the end of the year than they made. Convict leasing was another form of exploitation, where black prisoners were leased out to work in private industries under brutal conditions.
Politically, poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses restricted African-American voting rights. These conditions disenfranchised them and put a cap on their political power. The Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) also upheld racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine, further perpetuating the racism. Socially and culturally, the Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation in public spaces, while racial stereotypes were perpetuated in popular culture. The fear of lynching and the enforcement of racial etiquette norms reinforced the racial hierarchy and the oppression of African-Americans.
All these practices indicate a profound continuity of racial subjugation and discrimination, suggesting that while the institution of slavery was abolished, its legacy has persisted in different forms. This implies that the constitutional design and historical development of the U.S. system allowed for these forms of racial injustice to persist, pointing to the importance of continual critical examination and reform. This is evident, too, in the documentary "13th," which refers to the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery "except as a punishment for crime." The documentary shows how this clause has been exploited to perpetuate a system of mass incarceration that disproportionately affects African-Americans. Cleary some reforms still need to happen.
Civil Rights Movement Civil rights since 1954 with special reference to California's role A growing Cause, 1776-1865 The Declaration of Independence asserted that "all men have been created equal," as well as in 1788, the U.S. Constitution presupposed to "secure the blessings of liberty" towards the United States citizens. These rights as well as liberties, nevertheless, had been meant just for white individuals of property. The actual Founding Fathers by no means thought
Civil Rights Movement: Brown v. Board of Education There were many great moments in the civil rights movement, but none stands out more than the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. That case truly addressed the horrors of segregation and gave a measure of equality to black school children who wanted to be able to attend school with their white counterparts. Occurring in 1954, the Brown case
The milestone that the Civil Rights Movement made as concerns the property ownership is encapsulated in the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which is also more commonly referred to as the Fair Housing Act, or as CRA '68. This was as a follow-up or reaffirmation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, discussed above. It is apparent that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 outlawed discrimination in property and housing there
During the mid 1960s, "highly public demonstrations" (525) became more popular and gained momentum among the community because popular and significant individuals close to the cause supported them. The power and attention these protest garnered illustrated just how serious African-Americans were in achieving their goals. The protests proved to the people that they could do more than they thought they could. They could accomplish things even though they were
The Black Power phase was best embodied by one of its leaders, Malcolm X, a Muslim convert who used the Islam religion as his philosophy in promoting the Black Power movement's objectives, which promotes the use of violence as replacement to moral idealism in the black Americans' fight against discrimination and prejudice. More than anything else, the Black Power movement promoted the use of violence directly against white Americans --
In 1934 he published his first collection of short stories, entitled, the Ways of White Folks, which provided a series of short insights into the humorous and tragic interactions between the two races. During this time Hughes also established several theater groups in such cities as Los Angeles and Chicago. In 1935 he also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, which he used to help begin to write scripts for movies
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