National Association For Colored People

The Harlem Renaissance happened from the 1920s to the mid 1930s in Harlem, New York. What caused the renaissance was the migration of more than six million people from the South to the North. Slavery was abolished but it did not stop white supremacy. The aftermath of white supremacy was having the Jim Crow laws created and enforced to the Southern states. The Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation where ninety percent of black Americans lived.

Elliott case illustrated the extreme deficiencies in segregated black schools. In 1950, Briggs originated in rural Clarendon County, South Carolina. Taxpayers spent $179 to educate each white student while spending $43 for each black student. One witness before the U.S. District Court of Kansas said “The entire colored race is craving light, and the only way to reach the light is to start blacks and whites together in their infancy and they come up together.” To prove the case, the NAACP gathered historical and scientific evidence. The historical evidence was found inconclusive by the court, and drew their ruling mainly from the NAACP’s that segregation psychologically damaged black people.

Post-racial America is a myth. The colorblind/post-racial theory that race no longer matters in America’s society and that the rights and racial order (mainly whites-blacks) of America in post-Civil Rights era just falls short of the truth. Up until 1964, the Jim Crow laws were state and local laws implementing racial segregation in Southern America. Both whites and African-Americans lived under the “separate but equal” status for black citizens and racism was the norm. July 2nd, 1964 brought the end of Jim Crow laws and introduced the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which became a landmark in America’s history by enforcing the civil rights of all citizens and outlawing discrimination based on one’s race, religion, sex, or color.

In due time, he was the leading activist for equal rights for blacks in the United States and became very well known later in life. Sooner or later, Du Bois became one of the founders of the Niagara Movement: a black protest organization that pressed for equal rights in the early 1900s.

I was surprised by the whole unit reading about the unfortunate racial tension between Caucasians and African-American people. Even After the civil war there was still too much segregation. Schools formed to teach African-American students finding a way to separate Caucasians from African-Americans. Colleges created for African-American students due to the Morrill Act, of 1890. Yet Caucasian colleges were still getting more state funding.

In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed African Americans the right to vote. The Fourteenth Amendment had guaranteed full rights of citizenship. Three years before that, the Thirteenth Amendment had abolished slavery in America forever. The new time was known as Reconstruction.

Black people worked hard to get the rights that all Americans are supposed to have. The Civil Rights Movement Black people fought these laws from the start. For example, many people refused to use businesses that were unfair to black people. After a little more than a year, bus companies no longer forced black people to sit in the back. To do it, they had to change their rules and serve black people the same way they served white people.

“The term American Dream was first used by the historian James Truslow Adams in 1931 to explain what had attracted millions of people of all nations to settle in America” (American Dream then and now 1). The idea of the “American Dream” has changed for all ethnic groups throughout time; but my primary focus is African­ Americans. In general, “The early settlers in America hoped for a better life than the one they had left behind in Europe. Their main reasons for leaving Europe were religious persecution, political oppression and poverty” (American Dream then and now 1). Today, “Critics see the American Dream as a clever political and economic strategy” (American Dream then and now 2).

Southerners needed to stay over African Americans as much as they could now that they couldn’t have slaves. Also, towards the end of reconstruction, Black codes were revised into the Jim Crow Laws. African Americans were still in muddy waters even though having been freed. A third effect of the CIvil War was was the ability to more publicly, legally, and easily help out African Americans. For instance, the Freedmen 's Bureau.

However, in 1865, the 13th Amendment had been ratified, officially ending slavery. Although free, white prejudice and discrimination still played a huge role in African American’s lives. Fast forward to the twentieth century and not until half-way through did the dream of equality seem obtainable. Like the abolishment of slavery, The Great Migration was also a historical event that shaped this country into what it is today. An event in the twentieth century, relocation sparked across African Communities across the globe.