History of the Afro-Americans

Chronology

N.B.: this chronology is not exhaustive
  • 1808: abolition of the draft in the United States
  • 1861-1865: American Civil War
  • 1865: abolition of slavery in the United States
  • 1896: stop Plessy v. Ferguson (racial segregation)
  • 1954: stop Brown v. Board off Education
  • 1963: speech of Martin Luther King (“I cuts has dream”)
  • 1964: Civil Rights Act
  • 1965: assassination of Malcolm X
  • 1968: assassination of Martin Luther King

Draft of the Blacks in North America

See also: Thomas Jefferson and slavery

The Afro-Americans descend for the majority from the black slaves off-set on the slave ships at time from the Atlantic Traite. One estimates at several million the number of people having been transported of force on the American continent. The first black slaves were imported into Virginia in 1619. The English colonies of the south of the Atlantic littoral needed the servile labor to work in the plantations of tobacco. Throughout the XVIIIe century, the draft intensifies to reach the figure of 300.000 arrivals. In 1790,20% of the population of the young people the east United States of African origin. As of this time, one can observe interbreedings with the White.

As of 1770, the companies Quakers of New England are hostile with the slavery of the Blacks. Slavery is abolished in 1777 in the Vermont. Virginia decided to abolish the draft in 1778.

During the War of American independence (1775-1783), black soldiers, that they are slaves or free, took part in the conflict in the two camps, loyal supporter and rise. It is estimated that 5.000 Blacks fought in the American army and several of them were freed.

The American Révolution placed in the middle of the political debates the place and the statute of the Blacks in the company. The continental Congrès discussed slavery intensely. Thomas Jefferson, in the Declaration of American independence, preferred to be unaware of the subject, in order not to dissatisfy the areas of the South which lived saving in plantation. Slavery will be spring of each federate state. If the American Constitution (1787) founded the democratic bases of the new Republic, it excluded African from the right to vote, just as the Amerindian women, and the poor.

The American Civil War and the abolition of slavery

The draft of the slaves is officially abolished in the United States in 1808. But the question of slavery is not settled and opposes the Americans. The free trade running develops among the authors of the North-East of the country (William Ellery Channing (1780 - 1842); ). In the years 1820, the Female Anti-slavery Society denounces the Esclavage. The churches Baptist and methodist are detached gradually from the control of the White and are organized in communities of mutual aid: in 1816, the episcopal Church African methodist émancipe. The freed slaves who earn their living well, then try to buy the freedom of the members of their families. The ideas of the American revolution, risings of slaves and the Haitian Révolution make fear in certain growers a general insurrection of the black population. In 1831, the slave Nat Turner, leads a revolt in the county of Southampton in Virginia (51 white are killed in one day). It is finally crushed and its chief is carried out. The problem of slavery in the South of the USA, partly revealed by the book Uncle Tom's cabin led Abraham Lincoln to promise her abolition if he were elected. Its election thus led the States of the South to require the Secession. This one was refused to them (it would have indeed deprived the federal cases of the essence of its taxes), leading to a civil war called American Civil War (1861-1865). Finally, in 1865, the 13th amendment with the constitution abolishes slavery on all the American territory. After 1865, a great number of former slaves are found without work and of many growers go bankrupt. Many Blacks start to leave towards the industrial cities Midwest and the North-East the United States. Rejected by the white populations, they gather in certain districts: Harlem in New York. In Boston, they are established in the district of Roxbury, in the south of the downtown area like to Mattapan and North Dorchester.

Segregation and discrimination

See also: Racial segregation in the United States, Movement of the civic rights to the United States of 1896 to 1954

The American Civil War left rancours in the States of the South: after the end of the military occupation is installation the segregation by fear of the interbreeding and the psychosis of the rape of the white women by the black men. The Afro-Americans are also victims of violence, of lynchings and the hatred of the Ku Klux Klan, terrorist movement founded in 1864. The most radical Republicans such as Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner assert the right to vote for the Blacks. The American Congress votes a law of the civic rights ( Civil Rights Act ) or XIVe amendment which grants the citizenship and the equal rights to the Blacks in 1866. In 1869, the XVe amendment interdict to limit the right to vote of the Blacks. The laws Jim Crow are promulgated in the States of the south of the the United States at the 19th century with an aim of restricting the majority of the rights granted to the former slaves after the American Civil War. They found the development separate but equal , i.e. the segregation in the public places, including the trains and the buses. The number of black voters will continue to increase until 1880. After the period of the Rebuilding, most of the legislation of the civic rights is declared anticonstitutional by the Supreme court. Particularly, the Supreme court declares in the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 is unconstitutional, XIVe amendment concerning only the States and not the people, the Congress cannot prohibit to the people and at the private companies (transport, restoration, theaters) to practice the segregation. In 1896, the court further goes and in the stop Plessy v. Ferguson, it authorizes the States themselves to practice the segregation, provided that the conditions offered to the two races are “separate but equal” (doctrines separate goal equal ). In certain states, one requires voters to quote and comment on passages of the Constitution in front of a jury, which then eliminates systematically the black voters. The main characters of the cause of the Blacks are Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey and William Edward Burghardt Of Wood. This last founds in 1910 NAACP (National Association for the Advancement off Coloured Peoples). The American Communist party suggests the creation of autonomous black communities in the south. In 1948, the president Harry S. Truman orders desegregation in the American army. The majority of their efforts was acts of civil disobedience with for goal to violate the rules and laws of racial segregation while refusing for example to yield a seat, in the compartment reserved for the blacks in a bus, with a white person (Rosa Parks), or by organizing sit-ins in restaurants exclusively reserved for the white. It is only starting from the historical stop Brown v. Board off Education of 1954 that the segregation was called into question. In 1957 the president Eisenhower must utilize the police force with Little Rock to protect from the young Blacks wanting to go in a school for white under the tomato jets. the CIA dismantles the Ku Klux Klan during the Années 1960 ( the Mississippi Burning ). Moved by the independence of the colonies of black Africa, Martin Luther King organizes Walk on Washington in 1963 while Malcolm X militates for an independent black State. Luther King the pacifist one invites all the American ethnos groups to make peace. In 1965 the president Johnson and the Congress set up positive discrimination in the universities. The assassination of the two black leaders by white extremists nevertheless will start violent racial riots in all the country. Martin Luther King is entitled to one day non-working which bears its name. New a Civil Rights Act is voted by the Congress in 1964, and this time, is supported by the Supreme court. This act, with the Voting Rights Act (law on the right to vote) of 1965, puts indeed fine at the segregation.

Positive discrimination

See also: Positive discrimination

The first to use the expression Affirmative action is the US president John Fitzgerald Kennedy; it was then taken again by its successor with the White House Lyndon Johnson. Their idea was that, in spite of the laws in favor of the equality, the Blacks would remain late compared to the remainder of the American population. The goal was to make so that the Blacks are more represented in the qualified jobs, the universities, the media, etc As of the years 1960, of preferential employment are set up. But it is not a question of in no case of a policy of quotas: in 2003, the Supreme court condemned the principle of the quotas as being contrary to the equality in front of the law and the free competition. The results are considered to be convincing in the United States: in 1960,13% of the Afro-Americans belonged to the middle-classes, they are 66% in 2000.

See too

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