But yet we place them together as so to justify one another. ... Many blacks were free and owned large amounts of land and assets equivalent of white owners at the same time. ... "Anthony realized that he and the local justices shared certain basic beliefs about the sanctity of property before the law. ... They also played a huge role in the families that were free. ... By the 18th century the distinction was clear that all whites were free and all blacks were slaves. ...

• Word Count: 877
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Indians and Africans were here long before pilgrims. ... Through the readings so far in the book African American Literature I have learned that African slaves would tell stories to keep hope of becoming free someday. ... In the last paragraph it says that no one remembers the word now but maybe one day someone will wake up with the word on their tongue and "we will all stretch out our arms and take to the air, leaving these blood-drenched fields of our misery behind." I think stories like this were told to keep the idea of becoming free in the slaves minds, to keep hope alive so no one wou...

• Word Count: 457
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

With this resentment rapidly growing, we begin to see an emergence of the white supremacist movement that devoured the post-reconstruction South. ... Therefore, this left the states little room to push the freed slaves back into submission. ... Since the states knew that they could not prevent the freed slaves from voting. ... With this in mind, we begin to see the intricately woven tale that Chesnutt uses to demonstrate the emergence of hate crimes in the post-reconstruction South, which were spurred by this bloody battle for white supremacy. ... Happening in the beginning of the story...

• Word Count: 1273
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Washington were both extremely influential black leaders, who were remembered for their beliefs, on the lives and freedoms that were deserved by the freedman during the late eighteen hundreds. ... Washington was born four years before the civil war had begun, Dubois was born three years after the civil war had come to an end. ... Washington worried about the high tensions that existed between the conservative white man and the newly freed black man. ... They both felt very strongly about there beliefs and the rights of the freed black man. ... Even though they had different ideals the...

• Word Count: 514
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

But while he was helping the ones who needed to be free there were the whites who disagreed with his beliefs because they believe that blacks are meant to be slaves in this world. ... Once we were going to the mall and on our way our car got broken down. We started asking each person for help and to tell you the truth no one bothered to help us because we were different from them. ... We watched it in school and they were teaching us the importance of Racism. ... People should think before they act. ...

• Word Count: 1164
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Eventually, he ends up free. ... Some of these things may affect the information we get, but we seem to get the same information as if we were in the situation. ... Slaves were usually traded among a community of plantations. ... The book goes through many years, leaving him as a free man. ... It is essential to know the type of reading that you like before choosing this book. ...

• Word Count: 1037
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

In "We Wear Masks" he is speaking of the masks the slaves or any person wear to hide their faces from the embarrassment of not only being slaves, but being treated the way they were by their owners. ... It is his most anthologized poem after he wrote "We Wear Masks" because of the lines, "I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, When he beats his bars and he would be free." ... Within these two poems he is able to bring people closer to the heart of primitive human nature in his race than anyone ever before (Laryea 109). ... He tried to let the sla...

• Word Count: 1623
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

In one perspective we are offered that it is probably a coincidence that no blacks had ever been elected for the office, and that a street closing is just a routine traffic control decision. ... A series of these laws were known as black codes. They were designed to govern movement, marriage, work relations, and most major aspects of freed person's life. Basically these black codes were another name for the same thing that was happening before the civil war, only with a slight compliance with constitution. Not much had changed in the actual implementation of rights for freed slaves until...

• Word Count: 793
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Title: The Apartheid Era Introduction: After this speech you will all know the amount of racial segregation that went on in South Africa before it became a free country. ... The parliaments were separated, and dealt with cases that only were of interest to the distinct groups. In 1986 the pass laws were abolished. ... All black organizations were legalized; Nelson Mandela was set free from 27 years of imprisonment from Robben Island together with several others. ... No one ever deserves to be treated differently because of his or her skin color; we all bleed the same color blood. ...

• Word Count: 939
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Autobiographies were extremely popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, because people were looking for models. ... A movement towards freeing the black population appeared long before the Civil War. ... We must keep in mind that these autobiographies were possible partially because many of the slaves in the period were indentured. American slaves that were literate were becoming more and more interested in becoming a model for their race. ... We are introduced to a dehumanized universe, in which punishment without judgment was frequent for the slaves. ...

• Word Count: 900
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

They were mostly black, his hatred flared up. ... Before shortly the rifle and scope were traced to Alabama sporting goods store. ... The binoculars were traced to the York Arms Company in Memphis, and had been purchased two hours before King had been shot. The beer cans were purchased in Mississippi. ... The hunch paid off when Galt's fingerprints were found to match an escaped convict named James Earl Ray. ...

• Word Count: 2208
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

Once the slaves were freed and given the promise of equality, they discovered that racism and intolerance kept them from achieving any sort of equal standing with white Americans. ... The 13th amendment had ended slavery and now there were millions of free blacks in the southern states who were in control of their own lives, or so they were told. ... This way, white plantation owners could assert their superiority over blacks and maintain the same social positions that had been in place before the civil war. Racism kept the newly freed black farmers from gaining hold of opportunity and economi...

• Word Count: 1364
• Approx Pages: 5

In other words they were treated almost as "slaves," whites were allowed to lynch them (burn them alive, or kill them in front of the public). ... In this play we are given some insight to what it likes to be caught up in racist battles over stereotypes, and accusations. More so, we are drawn into the reality of the problems our society faces with these issues. ... He can't be free from heritage of slavery and she can't be free from the heritage of oppression. ... This sends Clay a clear picture of her real persona, that he was trying to figure out before. ...

• Word Count: 1234
• Approx Pages: 5

Lincoln won all electoral votes of every free state except New Jersey, which awarded him four of its seven votes. ... Before the 1860 presidential election, Southern leaders had urged that the South secede from the Union if Lincoln should win. ... We have sown the wind, only to reap the whirlwind. ... We have hated and persecuted the Negro we have scourged him out of the temple of justice by the Dred Scott decision we have shot and hanged his friends at Harper's Ferry we have enacted laws for his further degradation, and even to expel him from the borders of some of our States we have joi...

• Word Count: 4026
• Approx Pages: 16
• Grade Level: High School

His other poem "If We Must Die" is a rather rebellious one that makes a call to fight against the racial prejudice and segregation and the brutal fact of lynching, which this line implies: "What though before us lies the open grave?". He makes a call for his kinsmen and stresses that they must fight back writing: "we must meet the common foe!". ... Yet they are free verses though, since there are no metrical structure but differently lengthened lines written in a verse paragraph and not divided into classical stanzas. ... (Where no Negroes worked and none were admitted as guests.) The hotel ...

• Word Count: 750
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

The blacks were now free but former owners still found a way to corner them into a situation a lot like slavery. ... Although they were free, black people weren't looked upon as equal, but inferior to whites. ... The term "Jim Crow" comes from a minstrel routine, "Jump Jim Crow," performed by Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice before the Civil War. ... Whites were growing afraid that blacks were going to have too much influence in the political world. ... Although America has progressed tremendously by ending almost all segregation, we are not a discrimination free country. ...

• Word Count: 1719
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

Harper was born in Baltimore to African American free slaves. ... I believe slave auctions were just wrong. ... Before the bidding began, if any bidders decided to come up onto the platform to inspect the slaves closely, they could. ... The Whites said that we was not a race and we were ignorant. ... Slaves were brutally beat just because of their skin color. ...

• Word Count: 748
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Therefore, the Ex-Colored Man would hardly be treated as a black boy, if it were not for him and for people around him being told that he is not white. After this moment of revelation and before he decides to pass for white, the narrator acquires a new vision of the situation of black people in the United States. ... This with the situation of black people contributes to the narrator's decision of establishing his identity as a colored person with honor and dignity, before choosing, later on the novel, to pass for white. ... He is tired of humiliation and shame and wants to be successful...

• Word Count: 977
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In the novel, A Lesson Before Dying, discrimination is a major predicament throughout and the story takes place during a particularly racial time period, but is there an even greater problem that the two men are faced with? ... Years ago, Professor Antoine told me that if I stayed here, they were going to break me down to the nigger I was born to be. ... "We black men...stay here in the South and are broken, or we run away and leave them alone to look after the children and themselves. ... They must believe, if only to free the mind, if not the body. Only when the mind is free has the body a c...

• Word Count: 1045
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Before the emancipation of slavery it was clear to all that the whites were the superior beings. ... Willalee was our friend But sometimes we used him like a toy." (402) Harry deep down knew they were the same people inside yet in the world he lived in he was still the superior being which still confused him. ... On the farm he lived on he wondered why that a half century after the "War Between the States" (17) his families "could not forget that we had been conquered while most of our neighbors were black people whose grandparents had been liberated in the same conflict. ... They were a fe...

• Word Count: 1153
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

In the end he is finally alleviated of all vices, finds a new found respect for the world, most importantly women, rids himself of his fathers expectations and most importantly frees himself of his ego and literally flies away. ... Green like a cucumber, lettuce or green like the sky is just before it breaks loose to storm? ... The black community's struggles at this time were difficult, yet improvements were beginning to appear, and several different attitudes were seen throughout the community and each of them were very well demonstrated through the many characters in the novel. We ...

• Word Count: 784
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

She spent some of the story with her grandmother, or Momma, and her Uncle Willie who were both very strict. ... She and her bother moved back to Stamps with their Momma and there she saw things that normal 10 year olds shouldn"t see (We"ll just leave it at that). ... She told her mother 3 weeks before she finally had her baby. ... Compared to Maya's life, so far mine has almost been completely free of problems. ...

• Word Count: 577
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

Watson reasoned on her own and in her will freed Jim. ... Huck's second reactions were based on what he experienced. ... But we've got them on our hands, and we got to remember what they are, and make allowances. ... Huck's actions were based on what he felt was right. ... He wants to find his lost family and to free them. ...

• Word Count: 2477
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

As Americans, we pride ourselves on the concept that our ancestors fought tooth and nail for our freedom and we should never forget that concept. ... Black American's heeded to his campaign slogan of "Yes We Can" and invested all of their time and energy into ensuring that Obama would be instated as the President of the free world. ... According to The New Jim Crow, the racial caste system began before America was even a nation. ... Nearly two and a half centuries after slavery was introduced to the colonists, the Emancipation Proclamation declared that 4 million slaves in Ameri...

• Word Count: 6384
• Approx Pages: 26

We can also read Ralph Ellison's (Invisible Man, 1952) work. ... "The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time...some of us had been permitted to stay on the deck for the fresh air. ... Their horror may be well conceived if we think that lots of that Negroes were found, at the end of their voyage, in different stages of suffocation; lots of them were foaming at the mouth and in their last agonies; many were already dead. ... We have to consider that frequently half of the white crew also died during th...

• Word Count: 4160
• Approx Pages: 17
• Grade Level: High School