In the twentieth century, the United States of America was recovering from the northern victory of the Civil War and hoping to foster how the races were to exist together, as equal. The American Civil War lasted from 1861-1865. The Northern and Southern states were fighting about issues of slavery and central power. The thirteenth amendment was adopted as part of the Constitution on December 7, 1865. It stated that slavery was no longer legal in the United States. At that time, approximately four million slaves were given freedom. This created many problems with the South accepting African Americans into their everyday lives. W.E.B. DuBois, a well-known civil rights activist said, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line” (DuBois 16). This was one of the biggest challenges the south had to face, trying to break the “color line.” Over the decades, racism has unfortunately, become a fundamental characteristic of our American culture. In present-day, we continue to have multidimensional racial inequalities for various reasons. Racism has stemmed from years and years of political, social and economic forces.
Diversity was inevitable. During this time, the United States Government sent the army South, to protect the new rights of African Americans. Following, the Civil War reconstruction began. It lasted from 1865-1867 in hope of “putting back all the missing pieces”. In this time period, the reviving of the south introduced many new challenges for African Americans. Prior to this time, the African Americans were basically non-existent politically and socially. Now, they were finally free because of the enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment. There was now a population of about four million former slaves learning to live among and with the common folk. Many political leaders had their own plans of Reconstructions. President Abraham Lincoln created the “Lincoln Plan.” His plan stated that any southerner that wanted to take an oath to the Union would be forgiven. The plan also stated that if a state had ten-percent of its voters supporting the Union, their state could be readmitted. Before President Lincoln’s plan was implemented, he was assassinated which made Vice-President Andrew Johnson, the new President of the United States. Johnson’s plan for Reconstruction was similar to former President Lincoln’s plan although it was more lenient to the Confederate States for he grew up in the South. Congress disagreed with Johnson’s Reconstruction plan and they began to pass more stringent laws for the Southern states. Many Southern states tried to avoid these new laws that passed by Congress by passing Black Codes. The Black Codes were “designed to restrict freed blacks’ activity and ensure their availability as a labor force now that slavery had been abolished” (history.com). The first Black Code was passed by Mississippi on November 22, 1865. This is ironic because Mississippi was the last state to ratify the 13th Amendment. The Black Codes required all the freedmen to be employed. If unemployed, they could be held for vagrancy. Unfortunately, these newly freed people could not read or write and were continually segregated in public areas. Another ridiculous black code was that black men could not assemble without a white man present. In 1866, Congress passed the Freedmen’s Bureau and the Civil Rights Act which President Johnson ended up vetoing. The Freedmen’s Bureau was established to help and protect freed slaves while they were learning how to live their life as a freed slave. The purpose of the Civil Rights Act was to ban discrimination and protect the prior slaves from laws in the southern states. This allowed the federal government to intervene in state affairs and to protect the right of the African American citizens when necessary. In June of 1866, Congress ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. This ensured that the freed slaves were official United States citizens and should receive all the rights stated in the Constitution. It also stated that once a person becomes a US citizen, their citizenship cannot be taken away unless there is proof of lying. Even though African Americans were considered free and equal by law and slavery was abolished, blacks did not have the same access to the rights as did the white people. In February of 1869, Congress approved the Fifteenth Amendment which protected the voting rights of all US citizens, regardless of their race or the color of their skin. It was not until the Compromise of 1877 was made, marking the end of the Reconstruction era. The Compromise of 1877 ensured that “the Republican Party candidate, Rutherford Hayes, would become the next president and that the Democrats would regain political power in the southern state governments” (american-historama.org). The Reconstruction era did not only mark the start of equality that the slaves had been fighting for, but it was also attempting to make the divided nation, one union again.
Many white people did not like the new freedom that the African Americans were given so they punished them by their means, as a form of control. Lynching was used to spread fear among blacks and is guided by the ideology of white supremacy. These killings were alleged offenses with or without a legal trial. After the establishment of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacy organization in Tennessee, the lynching of African Americans increased drastically. The goal of this organization was to maintain white supremacy in the south, which was felt because of the South’s defeat in the Civil War. Reports show that “3,724 people were lynched between 1889 and 1930. Four-fifths of the victims were Negroes; those not black might have spoken up sympathetically for the black man’s plight” (Buchanan 12). Not all the lynching victims were killed, some were beaten so they could remember their prior life as a slave. This abuse did not end until 1871, when President Ulysses S. Grant signed, The Klan and Enforcement Acts. This act made the Ku Klux Klan an illegal terrorist group with the hope of ending this type of racial violence. The Enforcement Acts were designed to stop the interference of blacks right to vote, hold office or even enjoy the equal protection. Violating this act was a Federal crime.
In 1954, the beginning of the African American Civil Rights Movement, blacks were still facing the Jim Crow Laws. These laws segregated the blacks from the white population. They enforced the segregation in public places such as schools, benches, bathrooms, restaurants, water fountains and even seats on a public bus. The case, Plessy v. Ferguson stated that African Americans were “separate but equal.” The African Civil Rights Movement was a fight to end segregation, discrimination and provide equal rights for all African Americans. It was not until 1954, that the case of Brown v. Board of Education found that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court of the United States found that the even though the schools were separate, they were not equal.
As the soldiers came home from war, they needed to assimilate into civilian life. Jobs were scarce with the ending of the war. President Roosevelt signed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, also known as the GI Bill. It was to stop an economic crisis that was taking place. This bill helped returning veterans and their families with housing, medical care, educational services and strengthened hospital facilities. The Veterans Administration was assigned the responsibility of ensuring the provisions of its law were carried out. Up to this time, America had a bad reputation for not taking care of its returning veterans. Many veterans were able to use these wonderful services, however, many colored veterans were denied the use of the GI Bill. This, the lack of education and segregation impacted poverty to rise for the African Americans. The GI Bill seemed to have invested in the future of some but not all veterans. In addition to the increased poverty for blacks, the economic reconstruction was prosperous for the North and the West but not in the Southern United States. Immigration increased and the United States was finally getting back its economic and industrial power. The nonfarm worker’s annual income increased almost 75% from 1865 to the 1900s. The farmers and the unemployed slaves were hit hardest, however, the farmers were eventually able to recover from their agricultural hardships. The technology in farming equipment assisted the farmers, for they no longer had slaves to tend the crops. We cannot say the same for the blacks.
The culmination of all of these events over this 100-year span did not seem to wipe out, decrease or even neutralize the racism in America. I believe, The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is the best piece of legislation to date. In 1965, Congress expanded this act and passed additional legislation aiming at bringing equality to African Americans, such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Despite all of this legislation, America continues to have serious racial challenges and the federal poverty level is highest among African Americans at 24.1%. Myself and all millennials are racially the most diverse generation in United States history. Hopefully, we can make positive changes and possibly rid some of the racial discrimination that is so prevalent today.