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Historical Report on Race

Historical Report on Race I am going to share my research with you. Along with the culturalization of African Americans in a White America, in my blog I will be discussing their journey here, and the beginning of discrimination against them. My hope is that after you have read this information you can take with you the knowledge and realization of how their life has been through the years, and hopefully avoid the same mistakes of discrimination. The African American journey to America began in the 1600s when King James of England decided he wanted a colony in the New World. (Browne-Marshall, 2009) In the year 1607, the colony of Jamestown, Virginia was founded. In 1619, the English settlers traded supplies to a Spanish slave ship for about twenty Africans. (Browne-Marshall, 2009) These were the first slaves in America. By the 1800s the Africans were not even considered people. Our constitution begins with We the people which the Africans were not considered a part of. The beginning of the discrimination against the African Americans began with slavery. Slavery began very simply. In 1620, when the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth the (for the most part) had servants, not slaves. The two were very similar in terms of African Americans working for White families, but servants got released at the age of 25. One out of every five Africans was slaves. (Shaefer, 2012) there were five conditions in which slavery generally followed. One of these rules was that slavery was for a life time. Until later on when things changed, once you were bought that was your way of life. There are only a couple of ways they could have come to be slaves. They were either originally bought or traded, or they were born into the life. Slavery was considered inherited. To the White family, slaves were just property without rights, and coercion was used to assert control of the system. Also some of the slave laws were as followed, slave marriages were not legally accounted for, they could not hold any of their own property,

and no one could even teach a slave how to read or write. Could you imagine what it must have felt like not to ever have a say in anything that involved you own life? The children that they would bear would not even be considered their child. They were born a slave and own by the family. Around 1860, there seemed to be a small glimmer of hope. Harriet Tubman and other people of different racial backgrounds developed the Underground Railroad to help slaves escape from slavery up to the North and Canada. (Franklin and Higginbotham, 2011) Some slaves risked their lives to attempt to be freed by the Underground Railroad. Then, on January 1, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln set forth the Emancipation Proclamation in the midst of the Civil War. This action of course did not end slavery by any means, but it did allow for the admission of Black man into the Army and Navy. Moreover, by the end of the Civil War there were around 200,000 Black men in these particular branches of the armed forces. (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration) This was a major step in the right direction for African Americans. The culturalization of the African Americans in a White America was a process to say the least. By the end of World War II the number of African American soldiers had grown tremendously, reaching about one million. The Civil Rights Movement began in the 1950s right after the soldiers returned for the war. This period brought forth many different protests. One of the most effective ones was a woman we all know as Rosa Parks. In 1955 she started a bus boycott by refusing to give up her seat to a White man. Back then all African Americans were required to sit in the back of the bus. Rosa challenged that law which eventually led to the creation of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which at that point was led by the one and only Martin Luther King Jr. Eventually the boycott caused the end of the segregation seating on the buses. King felt it his purpose in life to change things for the better, hence the infamous I have a dream speech. (King, 1971) His dream was to have Whites and Blacks to live together in

peace and harmony. Although there is still discrimination in our Nation today, we have made great strides in working and living together for the most part. African Americans have had many obstacles and had to jump many hurdles to get where they are today. If not for the sacrifices made by some brave men and woman throughout history, our society might still be in ruins over slavery and equality of man. I hope through my research you have come to realize that through it all we have become a stronger Nation, yet sometimes we let history repeat its self. We are all human, but if we take the time to look at discrimination and try to find ways to end it, the world could be a more peaceful place.

Reference Page

Browne-Marshall, G. J. (2009, Fall). The African American Journey-One Fate. Human Right Magazine, 36(4).

Becker, E. (1999). Chronology on History of Slaves. Retrieved from http://http//innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://archives.gov/exibits/featured_document/emacipation_proclamation/