Race and Racism

Race in AmericaA Brief History of The United States of America
The story of race in America started with the Columbus' discovery of the continent in 1492. The original inhabitants of what is now The United States were treated poorly, often died from diseases or they were killed by settlers wanting their land. With the expansion of settlements on the newfound continent created a need for workers, especially for the large plantations created in The South. In order to make plantations profitable slave labor was preferred. At first, the settlers tried to use Native Americans as slaves, but they often got sick, died or did not have the required stamina for tough plantation labor. The solution became importing slaves from the African continent and this was the beginning of slavery in the South. There were two types of slaves, field slaves and house slaves, and these groups often lived very different lives. However, som slaves managed to escape, often to the North, but the lives of runaway slaves were difficult and shaped by the threat of being discovered and sent back to the SouthSlavery was the main factor leading to the American Civil War, which lasted from 1961 to 1965. The war broke out when Abraham Lincoln became the president and advocated the abolition of slavery.

Even after the emancipation of the slaves, Black people were met with skepticism and fear in the South. The Ku Klux Klan was a Southern organization, which was formed to prevent Black people from gaining power and influence. The organization was often responsible for lynchings of Black people in the South, often because of unconfirmed suspicions. One of the most shocking lynchings was that of Emmett Till, a teenager visiting from the North, who was beaten to death in Mississippi in 1955 for supposedly having flirted with a white woman.

Even though Black people were still treated poorly in the US after emancipation, African American culture evolved and came to have an enormous influence. The Harlem Renaissance in New York in the 1920s was one of the largest initiatives to create a blossoming culture within music, art, and literature. African American music also came to have a large influence within a number of different genres.

After African American soldiers had contributed tremendously in the battles of World War II, many of them came back to a South, where most public facilities were segregated. The South was governed by so-called Jim Crow laws, which meant that Black and White people were given separate public institutitions and were supposed to have very little contact. For example, there was segregation in the school system, so that Black and White people went to different schools.

Things started to change when Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. This event started the Montgomery Bus Boycott, where African Americans refused to take the bus unless buses were desegregated. The Bus Boycott was initiated by NAACP, an organization with a very charismatic leader, who later became an icon for the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. King believed in a peaceful and non-violent struggle for rights and is famous for his speech "I Have a Dream".

Many other initiatives were taken to protest for civil rights. The Freedom Riders rode interstate buses into the South to enforce a Supreme Court ruling that deemed the segregation of buses unconstitutional. The Freedom Summer in Mississippi in 1964 was an attempt to register as many Black voters as possible and the desegregation of The University of Mississippi was a great victory for the movement. Even though these were peaceful and non-violent initiatives, they were not necessarily met with non-violent methods by those opposed to the movement. This was clearly shown by The murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964.

Many African Americans grew impatient since they felt that the process was too long and difficult. Some of these abandoned the non-violent philosophy in favor of a more violent approach. Among the activists who came to advocate violence in the struggle for civil rights were Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X. The Black Panther Party also became known for their violent approach and characteristic uniform. There were also a number of riots, often caused by police maltreatment.

Even though the social conditions of African Americans are greatly improved today, there are still significant differences between Black and White in the US. This fact became apparent in the aftermath of the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012, which caused rage and disbelief across the world. Still, the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and his re-election in 2012 has given hope that racial differences in the US will change.