American History

African American’s Unfairly Treated for Over 100 Years

HIS 204

1/24/14

Civil Rights laws passed in the late 1800's failed to provide African American's the rights they deserved; this injustice continued for over 100 years. Even in both World Wars African American's who fought for the United States were treated poorly and segregation kept African American's feeling like 2nd class citizens. It wasn’t until the late 1960’s when the civil rights movement was in full force did African Americans start to see and feel what equal rights should be in the United States. The American government for over 100 years failed to deliver what it promised in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation.

President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1963 which was the fist step to freeing the slaves. Unfortunately, the proclamation didn’t apply to the southern states such as Tennessee, Virginia, and Louisiana due to the Civil War. Finally, on April 9th 1865, when the Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to end the Civil War over four million slaves were freed from the southern states. Just because the slaves were free didn’t mean that people’s racial hatred towards African Americans was gone. It was just the opposite, and this was proven when legislation was passed in the south that restricted and controlled ex-slaves known as the Black Codes. The Black Codes stated the following (Bowles, M. 2011):

- African Americans could marry but they outlawed interracial marriage.

- African Americans were prohibited from carrying guns.

- African Americans could only work in farming

- If a freed slave didn’t follow these codes then they could be put in jail or loaned out for enforced work, slave work.

Surprising, the Black Codes were supported by then President Johnson which just created a new form of slavery and is an example of how the United States government failed to truly free African Americans from slavery....