Black Struggle -- LiveWire Teen Forums

This is how my history teacher explained it.

To understand the reasons why it is the way it is now, first you have to understand how it started.

Basically, it started with slavery. I'm sure you know that the first English settlers arrived in the Americas in 1607. At first, most workers were indentured servants, both black and white. The system was used to pay the costs of transporting people to the colonies. They needed lots of workers because of the tobacco industry, which is very labor-intensive. The English brought their class system with them and upper class, who were mostly the Englishmen who got there first and thus could claim large plots of land before it was all taken controlled pretty much everything.

And the lower class got mad. In the beginning, black and white indentured servants were generally treated pretty equally (like scum). They were all poor and unlikely to become rich, even when freed from their servitude. And they were frustrated. In 1676, they became so frustrated that they rebelled against the governor of Virginia. This uprising was known as Bacon's Rebellion. It basically failed, but it scared the upper class because they realized that by having a united lower class as the majority, they were at risk of losing their land and property. Black slavery alreadt existed at this point, but it was still fairly rare, indentured servitude being much more common. After Bacon's Rebellion, they began to encourage the further expansion of black slavery and promote the idea of racial inequality. Their goal was to make the poor whites feel superior to the blacks simply because they were white. By setting the poor blacks and poor whites apart, they felt safer that the lower class would not unite and rise up against them again.

And it worked. The institution of slavery took over and for the next 2 centuries it dominated American society. It wasn't just the South, like lots of people think. Slave labor not only worked the tobacco (and later cotton) fields in the south, it also powered the factories and industries in the north during the Industrial Revolution. Basically, slavery drove the U.S. economy and made many people very rich.

And then came the Civil War. One thing you have to understand about the Civil War is that it wasn't fought entirely over slavery. Okay, well it ultimately was, but it didn't start out that way. It was more a battle of two ideologies which included more than just slavery. The agricultural south disagreed with the industrial north over many different things. They had different cultures and different ideas about how the country should be run. The southern states believed that they had the right to break away from the north and form their own country. The northern states said they couldn't. They needed the south for the health of their economy. For most ordinary people, slavery was the last thing on their minds. The Confederates (few of whom even owned slaves) felt that they were fighting a war of independence, while the Union soldiers were fighting to keep the nation together. Slavery was always there as an issue beneath everything, but people didn't always acknowledge it. If that makes sense.

However, the abolitionist cause had been increasingly powerful in the years leading up the Civil War. I could go more into the details about that but I won't. Eventually they prevailed first with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, then when the thirteenth amendment was passed at the end of the Civil War, making it officical.

Basically after the Civil War, the south's economy was obliterated by the north. Their cities were in ruins and their agricultural system was taken away. So Abraham Lincoln started something called Reconstruction, which was supposed to help the south get back on its feet and set up industry there and stuff. After he got assassinated, a series of weak presidents took over and half-heartedly continued Lincoln's plan. Reconstruction ended in the 1870's after a few shenanigans by the president-elect who agreed to end it if he was elected.

Right after the Civil War free blacks enjoyed many rights that they had never had befor and would not have again for a hundred years. Some ran for public office, some started businesses, some just wanted to go to school. All that newfound freedom was short-lived, however, by the end of Reconstruction.

After the first initial attempt to rebuild the South, the government largely ignored it. And it did its own thing for the next several decades. It never quite recovered from the Civil War. Poverty was widespread, among blacks and whites. Many blacks became sharecroppers, which was basically like slavery without the name. A situation developed quite similar to the situation in the 17th century, in which poor whites and poor blacks found themselves competing for the resources left over for them by the ruling class. Many whites believed that the blacks had been the cause of all their problems, and were taking away their hard-earned food and money by being free. They wanted to feel superior to someone, despite being so poor themselves. Blacks were the obvious target for their derision. Realizing that they would get no real freedom in the fields of the south, millions of blacks migrated north to cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Boston, hoping for a better life. What they found was even more poverty and discrimination. Again, it was all about competition among the lower classes. The new immigrants from places like Ireland, Greece, Italy, Poland, and Russia lived and worked in the cities as well, and made up the majority of the lower class. They felt as though the new influx of blacks was causing them to lose their jobs.

Thus, the racial rifts that plagued the United States for nearly a hundred years were born. Soon the institution of segregation evolved and lasted until the 1960's. The philosophy of the time was "separate but equal." What a shame that it was far from equal. Blacks were given the lowest quality education, public facilities, housing blocks, etc. The system was basically skewed so that blacks would always remain at the bottom of the ladder. But, making the best of their situation, they were very resourceful and creative. They developed a unique culture that formed the basis of most of today's pop culture. (For example, they first developed jazz, which evolved into rock and roll)

The Civil Rights movement of the 1950's and 60's ended official segregation in the United States. But many blacks were still stuck. During the 1950's, the post-war boom caused many white families to move out of the cities to the rapidly developing suburbs where there was more room and more financial freedom. Many whites went to great lengths to ensure that their suburban neighborhoods remained white. Some subdivisions even specified what races could live there and which couldn't. Few blacks had the resources to move out of the cities, anyway. They moved into the urban neighborhoods that the whites had left.

The disparity continues to this day. That's why you see so many blacks living in inner cities, whereas overwhelmingly white suburbs. Go to any city in the U.S. and you'll see it. They're generally poor places, where the schools aren't as good and crime rates are high. And some other things just don't seem fair. There's still de facto segregation despite what people say. And there's still racism. That us vs. them mindset is still there among a lot of people. Lots of people are racist and don't even realize it until they're put in a situation that tests them. It's been in our culture for so long, subconcious or not.

And that is why it's such a big deal that we have an African-American president now.

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Stuff I've written
*For the wretched of the earth, there a flame that never dies
Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise*

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