African Americans 1864 to Present - Literature review Example

African Americans 1864 to Present Introduction The African American history in the United s can be considered to be among the most interesting parts of the nation’s history and this is because it has developed in a manner where there have been ups and downs from its very beginnings. Africans were first brought to the British colonies of North America as slaves in order to work in the lucrative plantation enterprises that existed starting from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. These plantations were developed mainly because of the need for various goods such as cotton, tobacco, and sugar in Europe. They needed plenty of labor which the indentured servants from Britain could not provide effectively, hence the beginning of the importation of African slaves into the New World to ensure that the labor needs of the plantations were satisfied (Egerton, 2006). The result was the institutionalization of slavery in what would later become the United States and Africans continued to be brought into the country, especially to the South, in ever greater number to work on the plantations. Thus, when Abraham Lincoln took the first step to ensure the abolition of slavery in the country, there were plenty of protests, especially among the southern states whose economies almost wholly depended on slave labor (Carson, Lapsansky-Werner & Nash, 2011, p.206). Thus, the American Civil war came into being with the Union forces attaining victory over the Confederates and achieving the goal of freeing the slaves. The African American journey towards the attainment of full freedoms and rights within the United States has been a long and hard one as they have had to overcome many hurdles in order to achieve a semblance of equality within the society. Jim Crow Laws One of the hurdles to achieving equal rights to their white counterparts that African Americans have had to go through was the institutions of the Jim Crow Laws in the southern states a decade after the end of the Civil War. The Reconstruction Period which lasted from 1865 to the 1870s was one of the most favorable periods for African Americans in the history of the nation. Many of them, especially those who had fled to the North in previous decades to escape slavery flooded back to the south in a bid to ensure that the lives of the African Americans who had remained behind were improved. Many of the African Americans who moved south from the north often left their jobs and comfortable lives in an attempt to help their fellows achieve a decent standard of living. Because of these efforts, the living standards of African Americans during the Reconstruction period improved significantly and a number of them even went for and won several political positions during elections. Through the empowerment of the African Americans in the south, several candidates from this community were able to gain seats in Congress and these worked towards serving the interests of their people as well as ensuring that there was harmony between them and their white counterparts. However, the white population in the south, feeling threatened by the increasing empowerment of the African American population, chose to undertake actions which would ensure the undermining of the latter’s achievements. In the 1870, the Democratic Party, to which a large number of them belonged, regained power and made a compromise with the federal government where federal troops were withdrawn. Afterwards, in addition to terrorizing African Americans and pushing Republican organizers and officeholders out of the states, the Democratic majority took aim at watering down the civil rights protections that were guaranteed African Americans by the federal government (Carlander & Brownlee, 2006). The result was the passage of draconian laws aimed at African Americans that ensured that the latter were no longer able to participate in the economic, social, and political life of the state in any effective manner. These new laws, known as Jim Crow, tightly restricted the voting rights of African Americans and instituted a regime of segregation that dominated the south for nearly a century. In this way, the achievements gained by the African Americans in the south during the Reconstruction era were reversed in such a way that they were not only disenfranchised but also put on the road of slow or minimal economic development that remained the norm long into the twentieth century. The Great Migration and Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance is one of the most important improvements in African American history and this is mainly because it was during this period that a large number of people from this community came to the realization of their common roots and destiny. The Harlem Renaissance was a movement which helped in bringing about the conception among African American that they were not inferior to other races and that they had to be proud of their past in order to embrace their destiny as a part of American society (Jones & Carlsson, 2001). It was during this period that the great works of African American art and literature were developed and these had a profound influence from the works of Negritude writers such as Aime Cesare and Leopold Senghor; prominent writers who wrote in French. African American arts flourished during this period as the Great Migration was taking place with many African Americans leaving the south and moving either to the north or the Midwest in a bid to escape the Jim Crow Laws. In this manner, a large number of African Americans ended up in the Harlem neighborhood of New York while others formed a majority in the south of Chicago. The influx of African Americans in other places other than in the south provided an opportunity for them to freely express themselves as well as providing them with the basis of showing that despite the common preconception that they were inferior, they had a rich culture from which derived masterpieces of literature. Many of the writings made by the writers of the Harlem Renaissance helped in the development of an African American consciousness which ensured that there was the recognition of the injustices that were being committed against them in the society (Kolchin, 1994, p.78). The Harlem Renaissance provided a platform upon which African Americans were able to speak out about these injustices as well as point out the various ironies of American society so that the latter became aware of them and made an attempt to change for the better. Religion, mainly Christianity, also played a significant role in the development of the Harlem Renaissance because some of the writings during this period were based on biblical allusions and undertones. This movement also came about as a result of the feelings of disappointment that African American veterans of World War I felt when they returned home and found that their efforts and achievements in the war were not appreciated by their white counterparts in the south. This essentially made them move away to more tolerant places where they could live and express themselves in any way that they wanted. The writings of individuals during the Harlem Renaissance were to have an influence on the creation of some of the ideas that inspired the Civil Rights Movement that would come later in the twentieth century. The New Deal The Great Depression was a period where people across all walks of life in the United States suffered economically but none of these suffered more than the African Americans. In addition to having to endure economic hardships, African Americans also had to deal with racism, discrimination in matters of employment, as well as segregation in the southern states. The New Deal, initiated by the Roosevelt administration, attempted to bring an end to the hardships that African Americans suffered and to help them turn their lives around so that they could also have a chance of becoming prosperous in the white dominated society. The New Deal worked towards ensuring that African Americans gained at least 10% of all the welfare payments that were provided by the government and this was done because of the realization that as a result of the racist policies of previous governments, they were not able to access welfare despite their grave need for it (Wolters 1975, p.170). However, despite the benevolent measures taken by the Roosevelt administration, the latter did not attempt to bring segregation in the south to an end because of the political climate situation during that period in the Democrat-dominated south. To undertake such measures would have meant that the Roosevelt administration’s loss of support from one of its most powerful support base. While this may have been the case, the Roosevelt administration increased the number of African Americans within it although most of them worked in second-level positions. This administration also worked with black political organizations throughout the country so that they could shift their allegiances from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party and this move became the basis upon which the alliance between African Americans and the Democratic Party was formed. During World War II, Roosevelt signed executive orders which forbade the job discrimination against African Americans and this was the first breakthrough that any American administration had achieved in ensuring that there was a lessening of employment discrimination towards these people. This breakthrough meant that African Americans for the first time since the Reconstruction period gained the opportunity to have better jobs and pay that they had otherwise been denied for decades. While many historians often treat these developments as part of the war effort, they can be considered to have been an integral part of the New Deal and because of the empowerment that they afforded African Americans, they became the enablers of the Civil Rights movement which would start in the next decade. The Second Great Migration The Second Great Migration was, compared to the first one, based on the movement of African Americans from the urban areas in the south in a bid to find work in the lucrative defense industry that had developed during World War II. During this period, the majority of the African American population in the south lived in urban areas and these were fairly literate with a significant number of them being highly skilled in diverse professions (Nash, 1988, p.204). However, the south offered lesser opportunities for them than in other parts of the country mainly because of the policies of segregation and the Jim Crow laws which governed southern states. Their migration either to the north or the west, especially California, afforded African Americans the opportunity to get highly skilled jobs and better pay than they would otherwise have attained in the south. Moreover, the Second Great Migration ensured that the African American population was firmly urbanized with more than 80% of the population living in cities and while some forms of discrimination still showed up against them in urban areas, they had more freedoms than those who lived in rural areas, which were more isolated. The African American settlement in urban areas was also significant because it enabled them to more effectively participate in the civil rights movement that was essentially urban based. The Civil Rights Movement The Civil Rights movement came about as a result of the desire by African Americans to attain the basic freedoms that other American citizens enjoyed. It was a protest against the Jim Crow laws in the south as well as both overt and covert forms of racism which existed in other parts of the United States that made it impossible for the African American population to progress at the same level as the white majority (Lemann, 2007, p.174). The Civil Rights movement was remarkable because despite the decades of oppression after the Reconstruction period, the African Americans did not resort to violence to achieve their aims; instead, they took part in nonviolent protests. Moreover, a means that was used by members of this movement was civil disobedience which ensured that situations of crisis were produced and brought to public attention so that the inequities suffered by the African Americans could be revealed. In this way, the movement was able to achieve its objectives through the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 which was aimed at ensuring an end to all forms of discrimination in the American society. It is through the efforts of the Civil Rights movement that modern day America can consider itself one of the few countries in the world which ensures that its minorities are treated in a manner which is fairer than before the beginning of the movement. Post-Civil Rights Era The Post-Civil Rights period has seen African Americans come from the background of American life to become active participants in almost all the processes in the nation. A number of African Americans have come to hold prominent positions in the society not only in the social and political, but also in the economic life. The ability of African Americans to prosper in the country has been made possible by Affirmative Action which has ensured that they gain equal opportunities to their white counterparts in all sectors of the economy. The major result of the Civil Rights movement was the election of Barack Obama, an African American, for the first time as president in 2008; showing that the society is slowly but surely shading its racist past to embrace a more inclusive future. Conclusion As has been seen above, African Americans have had to undergo various periods in their history since 1864 and a majority of these have been trying times for them. The road towards empowerment and equality has often been hard and the periods discussed above are all related because of the fact that they are not only related to one another, but preceding periods had an influence on the later ones. It is through their going through all of these trials that African Americans have shown their resilience amid many challenges which were designed to put them down and exclude them from major activities in the United States. References Carlander, J. & Brownlee, E. (2006). Antebellum Southern Political Economists and the Problem of Slavery. American Nineteenth Century History 7(3), 393. Carson, C., Lapsansky-Werner, E.J. & Nash, G.B. (2011). “A Prelude to War: The 1850s,” in The Struggle for Freedom: A History of African Americans. Boston: Prentice Hall. Egerton, D.R. (2006). Slaves to the Marketplace: Economic Liberty and Black Rebelliousness in the Atlantic World. Journal of The Early Republic 26(4), 617–639. Jones, A. & Carlsson, R.J. (2001). Slavery and Savings. American Journal of Economics & Sociology 30(2), 171–177. Kolchin, P. (1994). American Slavery: 1619–1877. New York: Hill and Wang. Lemann, N. (2007). Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007. Nash, G. B. (1988). Forging freedom: the formation of Philadelphias Black community, 1720‒1840. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Wolters, R. (1975). “The New Deal and the Negro." in John Braeman, ed. The New Deal: The National Level volume 1. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. 170-217. Read More