According to the United States Census Bureau the estimated population of the United States is 323,127,513, in that number, 13.3% are African Americans. Although African Americans make up the second largest race in America, they have not always been treated as they should be, with that being said, there has been major changes in the way they have been treated as a race. This change had to do with three major things; The Civil War and Reconstruction, Jackie Robinson, and The Civil Rights Movement.
The Civil war was a war fought strictly within the United States between the North, who supported African American freedom, and the South, who supported slavery. The war started in 1861 and lasted until 1865. During those four long years, 625,000 soldiers were killed. Southern slave states started the war by attempting to succeed from the Union. Soldiers from the North cut off railways that carried supplies to the South, leaving them starving and without necessary supplies to win the war. In January of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation stating that every slave in the South “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free” it was ratified in December 1863 (history.com). As the war went on, Lincoln realized that the Proclamation would not be taken seriously after the war ended, so the Thirteenth Amendment was added to the constitution. Once the South was defeated and slaves were freed, the reconstruction of the South began. Newly freed slaves now needed jobs, housing, education, and basic human rights. Things such as the thirteenth amendment, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and the fourteenth amendment helped to give African Americans the rights they deserved. The Thirteenth Amendment stated that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” (loc.gov). The Freedmen’s Bureau was a program that functioned for one year after slavery ended. It was one of the most powerful movements in Reconstruction. The Freedmen’s Bureau helped African Americans by giving the land, education, jobs, and fair treatment. The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868 and it stated that any person born in the United States were citizens of the United States and the states they lived in, it also stated that no state could deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, it also stated that a state couldn’t deny a person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of laws. The Civil War and Reconstruction is what got the ball rolling toward basic human rights for African Americans, but another man was a major contributor also.
Jack Roosevelt Robinson, or Jackie, was the first African American baseball player in the United States. Jackie is the only person in UCLA sports history to letter in four sports- football, basketball, baseball, and track (crf-usa.org). Jackie was born in Georgia but was raised in a mostly white neighborhood in Pasadena, California. When he graduated from college, he joined the Army and was stationed in the South. While Jackie was in the South he was arrested for refusing to go to the back of a bus. He began his baseball career in the Negro leagues playing for the Kansas City Monarchs, he caught the eye of a Dodgers scout and moved to Montreal, Canada to play for their minor league team. After winning the Little World Series, the Dodgers decided to move him up to the major leagues. Although Robinson was accepted in Canada, the US was a different story. He received many death threats and threats of killing his wife and son, but responded to none of them. He took his frustration and anger out on the baseball diamond. During games, fans would scream insults at him, players would cleat him, and try to hit him. He wasn’t allowed to stay in most of the hotels his team stayed at and he wasn’t allowed to eat inside the same restaurants they ate at. Through all the hate and not being accepted, there was one good thing about Robinson playing baseball: he encouraged and led the way for many others. Jackie Robinson was a major supporter of the Civil Rights Movement.
Civil Rights is defined as “the rights of citizens to political and social freedom and equality.” This definition is exactly what the Civil Rights Act Of 1964 was designed to achieve. President Lyndon B. Johnson was joined with Congress to make sure this act was signed into law. One hundred years after slavery was abolished and the Civil War was over, African Americans were finally getting the equality they had always, as human beings, deserved. The Civil Rights law prohibited discrimination based on race, religion, and gender. In Mississippi African American voter registration rose from 7 percent in 1965 to 70 percent in 1967. There are several key events in the Civil rights movement: Rosa Parks, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the March on Washington, the Little Rock Nine, and many many more. Rosa Parks was a Montgomery, Alabama resident who refused to give her seat on the bus to another white passenger, thus starting the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott took place from December 5, 1955 to December 20, 1956. It was a non-violent protest. African Americans refused to ride the segregated buses. In June of 1956 the Montgomery federal court finally ruled that segregating the buses was a violation of the 14th Amendment. One main leader in the bus boycott was a young man named Martin Luther King Jr. King helped to fund the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization that fought segregation in the South. In 1963, he delivered a speech that will be forever remembered by Americans. The Speech was given in Washington DC during the March on Washington which was a massive protest that occurred in August 1963, when 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial (history.com). The Little Rock Nine were also very instrumental in the Civil Rights movement. After Brown v Board of Education decided that the segregation of schools was unconstitutional, nine high school students in Little Rock, Arkansas changed history forever. When the nine students showed up to enroll for school, they were stopped by the National Guard and Arkansas’ governor. Three weeks later, they were escorted to school by the Army. Many other events shaped the Civil Rights movement, and their effects are still being felt sixty years later.
Although African Americans have much more freedom in 2017 than they did in the 1800’s, there are still problems. There is still discrimination and hate in the hearts of racists, but it is slowly going away. In 1958, 44 percent of whites stated that they would move if a black family moved in next door to them , today only 1 percent claim that (brookings.edu). History has been forever changed by the events that have led us to where we are today, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
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