The Rise of African Americans

The Rise of African Americans

African-Americans have struggled for hundreds of years to gain equality. I am going to discuss how African Americans worked to end segregation, discrimination, and isolation to attain equality and civil rights. This paper will highlight how some of the well known and unknown people that contributed towards the Civil Rights Movement, in which continues to be fought in present time. The time period that I will be covering will be from 1865 when the thirteenth amendment came into fruition continuing through to the present. I will show how these determined people have progressed from being treated as someone’s “property” to holding one of the highest positions attainable in the nation.

Reconstruction

Bowles, Marc D. (2011). American history 1865-present: end of isolation. San Diego, Bridgepoint, Inc.

Pollard, S. (Producer & Director). (2012). Slavery by another name. [Documentary]. United States: Twin Cities Public Television, Inc. Retrieved from http://video.pbs.org/video/2176766758/

The Reconstruction Period from 1865 to 1877 where President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 which took the steps toward freeing the slaves, but it was the Thirteenth Amendment that actually freed the slaves which gave them the right to vote and citizenship. During the Reconstruction Period a black code was formed where African Americans could get married. With the increase of the black codes the Fourteenth amendment was formed where it granted African Americans citizenship where ex-slaves were allowed to become citizens in the state that they lived in. However they could not work at any jobs other than farming, could not own firearms, were restricted to where they could travel, and were not allowed to vote (Bowles, 2011, 1.1). Most African Americans could work on the previous land where they were enslaved for food and small payment for the crops that were harvested. If the land owners were not particular about...