For more than a century now the right of the African Americans have been taken away. Slavery in the Unites States dates back to the year 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia January 11, 1864, the 13th amendment was proposed by Senator John B. Henderson of Missouri if passed it would abolish all slavery in the United States. By April 8, 1864, the thirteenth amendment is approved on a vote of 38 to 6 where it was sent to be ratified. The thirteenth amendment was passed abolishing slavery.
After 245 years of slavery, approximately 3. million slaves are freed by Abraham Lincoln after the Civil War ending in 1865. The African American thought this would be a new beginning but it was the complete opposite the southerner whites systematically rolled back many of the rights that the African Americans had. The whites oppressed the right of the African Americans by segregating and using lynch mobs to show the power they have over the black population. During the Jim Crow era, it was as if the slavery had just been changed in a small way to give the African American population progress in the system.
After the Civil War, everyone thought the southern states would change to be same as the states in the north but it did not. The south envisions a New South as it was before just not with the free labor yet somehow they made their vision possible. Even though the laboring class progressed there was still backfires. The African Americans were free but being free doesn’t isn’t truly free when you have nothing and you must start to work for your owner for a wage that was near to the same wage you made when a slave. As I have said before, it is not only the political change in the administration which is daily causing thousands of colored farm hands, and even mechanics, to migrate from the South to the West, but it is also caused by unjust wages, wages which do not admit of a bare living, such as 15 cents a day, and $6 or $8 per month. These low wages is carrying out the plan, said to have been suggested by [John C. ] Calhoun, for the purpose of “keeping the Negro down” (Staker, page 9). The black community could not survive off such low wages that were unjust.
This how the white fought back and took away the rights of the African American and this did not end here. With the African American making very little money the parents could not provide to have a good school for the children they have. The low wages also took away the right of not being able to buy land the wages were so low it was as if they were slaves. With no doubt the white segregated the black from the white with different opportunities this was another way of taking the right of the African Americans.
The school is separated and so are the levels of learning since the white could provide more money to the school the white school was better. The African American had low wages so they could not afford to pay much to the school to buy the materials for the students to use. ” Discrimination is introduced even into the precincts of the schoolhouse. A first-class colored teacher never receives the equal salary of a first-class white teacher, a practice which, upon its face, carries with it the purpose of seeking inferior teachers for one class and superior for another.
The professional, on account of caste prejudice, is shut out from an equal opportunity of securing an equal patronage with his white fellow, because of his color” (Staker, page 10). Even the teacher was discriminated when it came to the wages they were earning. A white teacher is making a decent wage keeping the teacher engaged in actually teaching the kids, unlike the African American teachers that were hoping to make enough make it through the week. During the Jim Crow Era segregation was something that was meant not to be broken.
Between 1880 and 1920, the social segregation of the whites and blacks became clear. White southerners wanted a racially segregated society. They did many things which included enforcing the Jim Crow Laws. In Plessy v Ferguson (1896), the majority opinion was to show people that according to the law, the African Americans were treated equally. The whites had systematically rolled back the rights of African Americans by changing the way the judges read the constitution. They did this is the Plessy v Ferguson case when interpreting the texts in the constitution.
In one point, they said that if blacks and whites are equal, then it is safe to assume that in the eyes of the law, no one race is superior. They used this idea to appeal to the judge that the blacks claim of being unequal is rubbish. They also formed a racially segregated society by applying Jim Crow Laws. The reason Jim Crow Laws were seen as constitutional to the whites was because of the famous slogan: separate but equal. To make society segregated, states made all public facilities such as schools, bathrooms, and restaurants segregated.
Meaning that one place was for whites and the other area was for black people. The states applied this law everywhere. The reason this was bad for African Americans was because it ruined their image as a race and took away their right to equality. Even though they said the facilities were “equal”, they were not. Most of the time, the facilities that were there for the black people were severely under budget and poor machinery, The states would use up all of their money and tax dollars to be spent on white property, not black. This helped white southerners from a more racially segregated society.
Also in Plessy v Ferguson, they argued that the law cannot abolish any racial segregation and that the law can only enforce, not change the way society thinks of people. Because of this, and the weird interpretations of the constitution, black people’s rights were ruined constantly. The white made it seem like the African Americans were free but were they truly free. When the 14th amendment was used to create equality but the white did not see equality the same way. Equality to the African American was getting a fair wage and being able to feed their family and being able to accept or reject a contract.
The whites equality was letting the African American chose if they want to take the job at whatever wage they choose. As long as the white people were profiting it was equality to the whites. “The object of the [Fourteenth] amendment was undoubted to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either.
Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power” (Brown, page 17). The whites and black both should be able to have the same right and they do according to the law but the whites have the power of the money. The power of the money is was oppressed the black people’s rights.
Just as the quote explains that even they are separated and they all have different ways of rising to becoming rich the black stay poor because they have fewer opportunities because they have very little, to begin with unlike the white. The segregation is used as a way to show that the African Americans are inferior and many ways an example is the family owned business the black store had less in comparison to the white ch were at cheaper prices because the product was made at a cheaper cost. The discrimination is the number one way of taking a person’s right away.
The African Americans were being discriminated even before the civil war was even over. The white would use every little tactic to show the African Americans that they were inferior to them and discriminating against them was the number on way to show their hate toward them. Discrimination did not just happen outside in the streets but also inside the government which was meant to support every person. The police department was full of white who discriminated against black because of their race.
One way the white showed this was how they segregated things like restaurants and hotels and stores so that the white could show how better their stores and restaurants were. The whites saw this as fair because they each are allowed to do the same thing just without having to eat or buy from the store together. “The thing to accomplish was, under the guise of giving equal accommodations for whites and blacks, to compel the latter to keep to themselves while travelling in railroad passenger coaches.
No one would be so wanting in candor as to assert the contrary. The fundamental objection, therefore, to the statutes is that it interferes with the personal freedom of citizens…. If a white man and a black man choose to occupy the same public conveyance on a public highway, it is their right to do so, and no government, proceeding alone on grounds of race, can prevent it without infringing the personal liberty of each” (Marlan, page 19). This show how the white people did not see segregation as discrimination they saw it as an equal opportunity.
It’s not an equal opportunity when one side is nicer than the other because it’s like having a school with books and another school without a book and they both attempt to learn and be taught the same but the one with the book will prosper. It’s the same as in the All things considered during the 1880s and the 1920s the whites did many things in order to show superiority to the blacks. One way they achieved taking away rights from the African Americans was by segregation during this time there was no equal opportunity.
During the Jim Crow Era the African Americans were the most affected because the white people created so many laws that prevented the African American from many thing. Example of it was the school education being bad also the government sided with the white population. Also during the Jim Crow Era the lynch mobs grew because whenever the white could not use the law to win against a black they would be made an example of by killing. Overall the whites fought back hard to show superiority over the African Americans.