Eth 125 History Report on Race

Carla Thompson

ETH/125

Historical Report on Race

The African Americans have had to deal with a whole lot of discrimination throughout history. From the beginning discrimination was brought to the United States when the Europeans shipped enslaved African Americans into the Jamestown colony in 1619 to help harvest tobacco. The Slaves was here from 1600’s through the 1800’s which helped the start of the economics in America. Slaves were brought here to tend to several different crops which include sugar, rice, tobacco and wheat, because the property owners could not tend to their crops alone. Enslaved African Americans worked from sun up to sun down in the hot fields to tend to the crops (History , 2012). Once the Civil war was started blacks tried to join the Army but were turned away because of a law that was being upheld to keep African Americans from enlisting. This discrimination lasted until President Lincoln passed the Final Proclamation. African Americans were then allowed to enlist in the Army but the black soldiers were still discriminated against and segregated (The Civil War and Emancipation, 2012).

Throughout the years there have been many concerns about the African Americans participating in political causes. One example would be the state of Mississippi adopting a literacy test to keep blacks from voting. The literacy test that was initiated had also stopped the white people from being able to vote as well due to lack of being able to read. So the state adopted a grandfather clause, which let anyone vote that was eligible to vote before 1870 regardless of literacy or tax qualifications. The grandfather clause was a way to allow white people to vote while stopping the black community from being able to vote.

In the 1700’s and 1800’s there were several laws that supported slavery. There were two different slave rebellions the first one was in 1712. The slaves found guns and clubs and armed themselves. They went on a rampage setting fire to houses...