A brutal past

In today's society we are said to have equal rights for all people of the united states regardless of race, gender, or color. Some say we do not but some say we do, I think we do because we have a colored president. Another debate is that which event contributed more? The freedom from slavery due to the civil war. Then others believe the civil right movement of the 1950's and 1960's contributed more. I am not saying either did contribute more because they are equally important, without both it would not be the same. However there are similarities between the two.

Lets start with the civil war and the freedom of slaves. After Lincoln was elected the south began to succeed from the United State and form the Confederacy. Even then the war had not begun, it took a raid on an armory by a radical abolitionist by the name of John Brown. This sent us into the war. Afterward the slaved were allotted freedom but that is about it. They were now freed from slavery and on their own, that however did not change peoples minds about them, southerners still hated them and refused to give them any rights. Most slaves were not allowed to get normal jobs and had to resort to sharecropping which in easy terms is glorified slavery. A white plantation owner would let you live on their land and let you farm so much of it in a certain way, in exchange for at least half of the crops at harvest. If they did not follow strict guide lines they would face monetary punishments and sanctions. Once you signed a contract you were stuck there until it was fulfilled or face prosecution which could lead to death. Also lynching started to become more popular.

Now, lets fast forward fifty to ninety year to 1950 where a new era is beginning which would be known as the civil rights movement. Life for the African Americans has improved but is still in a poor unequal state thanks to segregation throughout the south. There are more jobs and homes, there are also towns and sections of towns with only black or white families. Lynchings are still taking place and now the second Ku Klux Klan has risen bringing hate crimes throughout the south such as, burning churches,running over Negros, burning crosses. Some of the time they would preform these acts just to scare African Americans from voting.

Now while history is easier to record now than is was during the reconstruction we still have to look at this with open eyes. The civil rights movement lasted  roughly 20 years while the reconstruction lasted a mear 12 years. There were many people killed throughout both times for different and absurd reasons such as looking at a white woman wrong, back talking a white man, being the son of a murderer, going to Sunday school, wanting to vote. Both times had radical racist that thought they could bypass the government with sharecropping and segregation of public places. However though in the civil rights movement it was illegal to commit a hate crime. Not many acts were actually convicted because of corrupt judges and juries but the government was trying harder at least.

Overall I think the treatment of African Americans has been poor for all of time and now they are finally getting to a point where they are close to equal, we are not quite there yet but we are getting very close. I think the civil rights movement was a bit harsher than the reconstruction but it was also longer. Our lesson needs to be to look back at the past and make sure we work hard to eliminate an recurrence of this in the future.









Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Martin_Luther_King_-_March_on_Washington.jpg