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African-Americans

by J D Wright

Introduction

Few people have ever experienced such pain and gain as have African-Americans. Inslightly more than one century, these descendants of slaves have become highgovernmental officials, business leaders, scientists, and international entertainers andsportspeople. In the 1990s, the top US military officer was General Colin Powell, theUS secretary of Commerce and Labor was Ron Brown, Virginia's governor wasDouglas Wilder, New York's mayor was David Dinkins, the highest-paid televisionperformer was Oprah Winfrey, and the richest athlete was Michael Jordan. All areAfrican-Americans.

Yet one must admit that these impressive lives are exceptions within the US black

population of 34 million (13% of the US population). African-Americans more oftenlive in large city ghettos or 'the wrong side of town'. They find fewer jobs and receiveless pay than white Americans, and they still confront isolated incidents of publicintolerance and violence. This lack of opportunities pushes many young people intodrugs and crime. But African-American progress continues on its steady advance fromthe nightmare of slavery to the dream of Martin Luther King that all Americans willbe treated as equals.

SlaveryThe institution of slavery was the true evil empire of American history. There wereabout half a million African-Americans at the time of the American Revolution andabout 4.5 million during the American Civil War. The life of a slave was very poor butthe basic needs were taken care of, because an African-American was a valuable'property' whose health guaranteed the health of the plantation. Many house slaveswere virtually treated as minor members of the family. The greatest tragedy for slaveswould come when their owner sold off their children or even their spouses to otherplantations.

Cruelty, especially severe punishments, did exist, as was portrayed in Harriet Beecher

Stowe's influencial 1852 novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. It helped increase the number ofabolitionists in the North, and they helped elect Abraham Lincoln as president.Although he had been born in the southern (pro-slavery) state of Kentucky, Lincolnwas determined to abolish slavery. Even before the Civil War ended, he proclaimedhis Emancipation Proclamation that freed them.

The first free centuryMany African-Americans found freedom more difficult than slavery in some regards,since they had no experience in taking care of the basics of life. They also soonrealized that they were less free than Southern whites. The South was angry over

losing the war and its slaves. Hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan frightened theformer slaves into submission by wearing white hooded robes and by burning crossesin front of their homes. Worse, vigilante groups adopted lynching (killing, usually by

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hanging) for African-American 'crimes', which even included being cheeky to a whitewoman.

This continued well into the 20th century in the South. African-Americans were keptfrom voting by state laws that charged a tax to vote, or requirements of literacy oreven an exam. They were also put in social isolation by the segregation system that,like South Africa's apartheid, kept them in separate schools and would not allow themto use white restaurants, hotels, theatres, swimming pool, and parks. 'White' and'Black' signs even separated railway waiting rooms, drinking fountains, and lifts.

Real freedomAll of this officially ended on 17 May 1954, when the US Supreme Court ruled thatthe South's traditional 'separate but equal' facilities were not legal. But nothing reallychanged until African-Americans and white supporters began actively demonstratingfor equality, in the era of the Civil Rights Movement.

Their leader was a Baptist preacher, Martin Luther King, who organized a victoriousblack boycott against the bus company in Montgomery, Alabama, because it madeAfrican-Americans sit in the back of the bus. King continued to organize peacefuldemonstrations, including a march of 250,000 people on Washington, DC, where hemade his famous 'I have a dream' speech. His work, supported by President LyndonJohnson, led the US Congress to pass a Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in1965. King himself received the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize.

It was really not that simple. The first 'battlegrounds' were the Southern schools that

banned African-Americans. The resistance was strong, but the federal government hadthe power. President Dwight Eisenhower had to send in federal troops in 1957 tointegrate a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. When the first black student enteredthe University of Mississippi in 1962, 12,000 federal troops were needed to quell riotsthat left four people dead. When Alabama Governor George Wallace and his statenational guard barred the door at the University of Alabama in 1963 to keep out thefirst black students, President John F Kennedy merely switched the guard to federalcontrol.

As the movement gained momentum, King was jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, for

his civil disobedience, and water cannons and vicious police dogs were turned on hissupporters. African-American students holding 'sit-ins' to demand service in cafeswere beaten and kicked, 'freedom riders' travelling south on integrated buses hadstones thrown at the windows. Finally and tragically, civil-rights workers weremurdered in Mississippi, and the Reverend King was assassinated on 4 April 1968 bya gunman as he stood on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. His birthday is nowan official US holiday.

African-American contributionsThe culture and achievements of the USA would be much less without African-American contributions. It is difficult to imagine American music without jazz, theblues, spirituals, and even rock and roll, which grew out of African-American rhythm


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and blues, or international athletic success without black runners, basketball players,and boxers.

Related Articles:blackcivil-rights movementCivil War, AmericanKing, Martin Luther, JrslaveryUnited States: history 17831861United States: history 186177United States: history 18771945

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