Unlike immigrants of other nationalities and races, Africans who first came to the United States were sold into involuntary servitude. The African population remained small until the early 1700’s, when plantation owners of Virginia brought slaves from West Africa at a rate of 1,000 per year. Slavery became an integral part of life throughout the colonies. Africans were forced to work as field hands in the South and as domestic servants in the North. From 1776 to 1783, slaves increased the ranks of the American Revolutionary’s army, as Americans fought for independence from the British. In fact, Crispus Attucks, a runaway slave, earned a place in American history by leading colonial forces during the Boston Massacre in 1770.
The American Revolution brought hope for slaves in the United States. In 1783, Quork Walker of Massachusetts used the preamble to the constitution in claiming his right to freedom. This led the Massachusetts legislature to prohibit slavery. The following year, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Connecticut also passed laws prohibiting slavery.
During this same period, Africans in the South were pushed into continued forced labor. With Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, the cotton industry became the core of the southern economy in the United States. More slave labor was used on the plantations in the South.
At the same time, the abolitionists in the North began to gain strength. Their antislavery movement divided the United States. This movement was part of the fuel that ignited the Civil War in 1861. From this era in history, African American leaders became vocal and organized. Many of these leaders influenced the African American community. Among them was Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass was a former slave who spoke eloquently and was able to give a picture of slavery through his speeches and his autobiography
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
. With the emancipation of the slaves by the 13th Amendment, he along with others believed that African Americans would be treated as citizens. Yet, the African Americans faced continued oppression. In a speech to whites in 1895, he said, “The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity,and independence, bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. The Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must moum.”
After federal troops were withdrawn from the South, African Americans struggled to overcome a hostile white population. Many were subjected to discrimination, mob violence, and political disenfranchisement. Risking their own personal safety, African Americans voted and were elected to public office until the late 1890’s. No longer was it slavery that denied African Americans equality, but the political system became the oppressor. After using illegal means to ensure victories, whites who were elected to office and made laws that were discriminatory to African Americans thus preventing most from voting. Other racists laws were passed that included schools and public transportation. This legislation was collectively known as “Jim Crow” laws. Jim Crow was a character in a racist l9th-century song-and-dance act that degraded African Americans. These laws did not specifically go against the Constitution or openly discriminate. For example, under Jim Crow laws all voters were required to pay a poll tax. Most African Americans were poor and thus could not afford to pay to vote. Therefore unable to vote, unable to voice opinions or make decisions that could benefit African Americans, African Americans became second class citizens. Again, they were at the mercy of white Americans. Whites used legislation as well as violence to make African Americans subservient. Like many of the runaway slaves before and during the Civil War, African Americans migrated to the North.
In the North, African Americans moved to a place where there were supposed to be many opportunities to escape poverty and to obtain rights as citizens denied them in the South. This movement between 1890 and 1930 is called the Great Migration. Letters written to relatives who remained in the South gave descriptions of life that encouraged more to move. One man who moved North wrote:
I should have been here 20 years ago. I just began to feel like a man. My children are going to the same school with whites, and I don’t have to humble myself to anyone. I have registered. Will vote in the next election and there isn’t any “yes, Sir” and “no, Sir.” It’s all yes and no, Sam and Bill. (
MulticulIural Milestones
, 1995)
Many reports such as this gave hope to southern African Americans that they too could obtain the “American dream”. Also, newspapers ran ads offering jobs with good wages. They printed stories about those who were successful in the North. The
Defender
of Chicago encouraged migration.
Agents from companies traveled to the North to recruit African Americans to work in the factories. These agents also provided stories and promises to earn in a day which many could not earn in a week working as field hands. Tickets were given to both African American males and females who promised to repay later.
The Great Migration had a huge impact on the African American experience. No longer were the majority of African Americans rural residents but members of urban communities. Between 1890 and 1910 more than 200,000 African Americans moved North. The number increased to more than a million from 1910 to 1930. The largest African American urban community with more than 200,000 was located in New York by 1920. A community that gave us the Harlem Renaissance. This urban enclave included talented poets, novelists, painters, and entertainers.
Richard Wright became a part of the Great Migration in the 1920’s who moved North to escape the little or no opportunities of the South. In 1940, he wrote Native Son. This book describes how a young African American in Chicago faced the world. His book gave a different picture of life in the North as promised by some relatives, newspapers, and company agents. African Americans were paid less than whites in the same jobs. Certain jobs were closed to them. Discrimination denied African American jobs in many industries.
At the end of World War I (WWI), job opportunities decreased for all Americans. African Americans competed for jobs wanted and needed by WWI white veterans. Resentment began to increase. Not only was there competition for jobs, but there also was competition for housing. Efforts were made to keep African Americans out of certain communities. This forced many African Americans to live in crowded deteriorating neighborhoods (ghettos). Friction also arose within the African American community. Those who had migrated in the beginning of the Great Migration accused the late comers of ruining their neighborhoods. They called them “country bumpkins”. These late comers were often not allowed to join fraternal organizations, churches, social clubs, and other community groups. Thus, we have discrimination within the African American community.
The Great Depression began in 1929. This economic crisis affected millions of Americans. African Americans suffered the most. Again, the status of being a second class citizen charged African Americans to move. They came together and began to work for social reform to change their status. African American train porters formed their own union in 1937. World War II (WWII) pushed African Americans to band together to fight the hiring injustice in the factories that were providing supplies and weapons for the Allied armies. An African American union organizer, A. (Asa) Philip Randolph, used the threat of a mass protest against the all-white defense industry in Washington, D.C. As a result, in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt fearing social unrest and the reputation of the United States abroad as a defender of democracy issued Executive Order 8802. This landmark document declared “there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin.” This connected the federal government with the well being of African Americans. From this time until the end of WWII (1945), economic opportunities were opened to African Americans.
The end of the war brought peace and prosperity to the United States. African Americans became more determined to rid the nation of racial injustices. Even though Jackie Robinson (Brooklyn Dodgers) and Larry Doby (Cleveland Indians) were allowed to play in the baseball major leagues, many African Americans knew that this was just a pebble from the mountain needed for African Americans to be a complete and equal participants in American society.
The Civil Rights Movement was ushered into American history in the early 1950’s. African American leaders began to dismantle segregation. Thurgood Marshall, the head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) Legal Defense Fund developed a case that challenged school segregation in
Oliver Brown et al v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
. He used the arguments of five antisegregation suits against five school systems in five different states that had already reached the federal courts. He asked the United States Supreme Court to reverse the decision in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson that made it legal to “separate” public facilities if they were “equal” by races. In 1954, the Supreme Court made a unanimous decision after months of debate. The decision:
Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal, deprive children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does. . . . We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.
The Court with this ruling paved the way for equality for all Americans.
The struggle for equality thrust Marshall into a prominent leadership role as well as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King, who pushed peaceful protests as a means of change (nonviolent), ironically divided the Civil Rights Movement. Many young leaders (Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael) believed that the Movement should focus not so much on the South, but improve the minority community through economic and political strength independent of the American mainstream. The movement was almost destroyed in the 1960’s with riots in Newark, New Jersey, Los Angeles, California, and Detroit, Michigan. These cities were left in ruins. With the assassination of Dr. King in !968, the crisis within the movement ended.
Those who continued to struggle to be equal citizens in the United States took various paths following King’s murder. The number of elected African Americans continues to grow. Even in 1988, Reverend Jesse Jackson was victorious in several democratic primaries for the Presidential nomination.
African Americans have contributed much to eliminate inequalities in the United States. They have also contributed to the American culture. Much of the international glamour of America was created by African Americans. Some of the most talented artists have come from the African American culture. Louis Armstrong enchanted listeners with his jazz trumpet. Bessie Smith captivated audiences with her songs. Langston Hughes moved readers with his lyrical verse. Novelist and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston made African American speech come alive. Jacob Lawrence’s caricatures have recorded history in visuals. Energy, passion, and humor can be found in the works of these artists and more to document that the African American history and culture is what helps to make the history and culture of the United States.