A Glimpse at the History of Black Americans

When I first became interested in learning more about the history of Black people in America the biggest problem that I faced was not knowing where to start or how far back to go. Having been raised and educated in the South, most of this information was not taught to me in school. While doing my own research I was able to focus on the following periods of time: the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Slavery in America (Domestic Slave Trade), Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movements. It would be impossible for me to go over all of these time periods in great detail with a single article, but my hope is to paint a broad picture to serve as a guide for others who are curious about becoming more educated on the history of Black Americans. 

The Transatlantic Slave Trade (1500’s - mid 1800’s)

“Gang of Captives Met at Mbame’s on Their Way to Tette”, 1861. [Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (Dec. 1865–May 1866), vol. 32, p. 719]

The Transatlantic Slave Trade was a horrific centuries-long slave system (16th - 19th centuries) where African men, women, and children were kidnapped and forcibly transported across the Atlantic ocean to the Americas to be sold in to lifelong bondage.  The trade was led by the Portuguese and Spanish after the settlements of plantations in the Americas required an extremely high demand of labor for profitable crops such as sugar cane, tobacco, rice, coffee, cocoa, and cotton.  Europeans formed alliances with African leaders and provided them with weapons and tempting goods (textiles, ironware, exotic drinks, etc) as a means to attack rival African communities in return for captives.  African leaders were faced with the choice of either providing slaves to the European traders or risk being enslaved themselves.  Some African nations organized into military resistance movements and fought African slave raiders and European slave traders entering their villages.  However, as a result of constant instigation by Europeans and a rise of tribal conflicts, African people lived in a constant state of fear of unpredictable violent attacks and kidnappings. 

The majority of captives were taken from West-Central Africa (Congo and Angola today).  A large percentage of the people taken captive were women in their childbearing years and young men who normally would have been starting families.  Elderly and disabled people were usually left behind by European slavers or killed because they were not considered economically profitable.  Once captured, abducted Africans were marched to the coast, a journey that could be as long as 300 miles.  Typically, captives were chained together at the ankles, while also being tied together by ropes around their necks forming what can be referred to as a coffle (pictured above).  Anyone that was too weak to keep up with the pace of the group was killed.  It is estimated that 10-15% of the captives died during this long journey to the coast.  Barracoons (temporary holding pens) and slave castles were built along the coast to store captives to await slave ships before embarking on the Middle Passage. 

The Middle Passage was the brutal, forced sea journey of captive Africans from West Africa to the Americas, and served as the central part of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.  The journey could take weeks to months depending on how many stops the captain made along various African ports.  It is estimated that for every slave loaded aboard a slave ship, three or four others died before reaching the African coast.  Slave ships were the culmination of human misery and terror.  The crew separated the men from women and children, as well as people from the same tribes to decrease the chances of potential rebellions. Chains, manacles, and padlocks were used to shackle mainly adult males.  Shipowners regarded the slaves as cargo to be transported to the Americas as quickly and cheaply as possible.  Slave traders would try to fit anywhere between 350 to 600 captives on a single ship.  The conditions that the captives were placed in once aboard the ship were inhumane to say the least.  African captives were packed so tightly together that they could not stand and were forced to sit in bodily fluids and human waste while below deck in temperatures reaching up to 120 degrees fahrenheit.  It was said that the stench of slave ships was so foul that other vessels could detect them from miles away by smell alone.  The majority of fatalities aboard the ship were caused by diseases (ex. small pox) and illness (“bloody flux” or dysentery).  On top of the horrific living conditions that they were placed in, African women and children were regularly abused and raped by the crew.  A number of captives went insane from the dehumanization of the Middle Passage and resisted the only way they could, through starvation and suicide (jumping overboard) rather than accept their enslavement. 

Despite the odds, enslaved Africans regularly tried to free themselves from the slave ship and crew.  Scholars believe that roughly one in every ten slaving voyages experienced major rebellions, especially while the ships were still anchored to the coast.  Whenever a mutiny erupted, the crew used extreme violence to control African captives. Those who rebelled were savagely punished by the crew, and ringleaders were usually killed in front of the other captives, then cast overboard to the sharks.

It is estimated that approximately 12.5 million Africans were forced to endure the middle passage.  Only about 6 percent of all Africans shipped across the Atlantic were taken to North America, the largest numbers went to Brazil and the Caribbean.  The three-legged system of the Transatlantic Slave Trade is referred to as the Triangular Trade. The first side of the triangle was the export of goods (guns, ammunition, alcohol, indigo, and other manufactured products) from Europe to Africa.  The second leg of the triangle exported enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas and the Caribbean Islands.  The third and final part of the triangle was the return of products from slave plantations (cotton, sugar, tobacco, rum, etc) to Europe from the Americas.  Profits gained by Americans and Europeans from the slave trade and slavery made it possible for them to experience exponential economic and political growth.  In contrast African victims suffered from a violent loss of community, culture, and life, that continues to have a profound impact on their descendents to this day.

Slavery In America (1619 - 1865)

An enslaved man, Private Gordon, was beaten so frequently that the multiple whippings left graphic scars depicted in this 1863 photograph. Donated by Corbis

Many consider the starting point of slavery in America to be 1619, when 20 enslaved Africans were brought ashore to the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia.  At first, European planters used a combination of free, indentured, and enslaved labor.  However, they quickly realized that African slave labor was the most profitable and cheaply acquired.  In 1641 Massachusetts became the first North American colony to recognize slavery as a legal institution.  As an institution, slavery deprived the enslaved of any legal rights or autonomy and granted the enslaver complete power over the Black men, women, and children legally recognized as his property.  The reality of American slavery was often dehumanizing, barbaric, violent, and sadistic.  

For the enslaved, the plantation meant a lifetime’s labor.  In the United States a slave's life expectancy was 21 to 22 years.  Enslaved people suffered the constant threat of extreme physical violence as punishment for or warning against transgressions like running away, failing to complete assigned tasks, visiting a spouse living on another plantation, learning to read or write, arguing with white people, working too slowly, possessing anti-slavery materials, or trying to prevent the sale of their relatives.  It was a common practice for enslaved families to be separated at an enslaver’s or auctioneer’s whim, never to see each other again.  In addition, female and male slaves faced sexual dangers wherever they worked.  Black women were raped by their enslavers and could be passed around to friends and visitors to do the same. Sexual abuse of enslaved Black men included being forced to have sex with enslaved women against their will and in front of a white audience.  A strict hierarchy placed among the enslaved (from privileged house workers and skilled artisans down to lowly field hands) helped keep them divided and less likely to organize against their enslavers.  Those enslaved in the Northeastern states were not as confined to agricultural work as those in the South and many spent their lives in bondage laboring as house servants or in various positions of unpaid, skilled labor.

In 1793 a U.S. born schoolteacher named Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin.  As a result of his invention the South transitioned from the large-scale production of tobacco to that of cotton, a switch that solidified the dependence of enslaved labor to the South’s economy.  Although the United States banned the international slave trade (the importation of slaves) in 1808, the demand for slaves remained high giving rise to The Domestic Slave Trade.  In order to meet the high demands of labor, slave breeding farms were established. Slave breeding was the practice of slave owners systematically forcing slaves to have sexual relations and bear children.  The objective was for slave owners to increase the number of people they enslaved without incurring the cost of purchase, to fill labor shortages caused by the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, and to promote desired physical characteristics.  Enslaved women found ways to resist forced reproduction by causing miscarriages and abortions from taking plants and medicines.  Virginia was nicknamed the “breeder state” due to its role in the rapid growth of the enslaved population. Human traffickers accumulated substantial wealth by purchasing the enslaved in the Upper South and transporting them to the Lower South via boat along the Mississippi River, also known as being “sold down river.”  Due to the booming cotton industry, enslaved Black people were worth more in the Lower South than anywhere else in the country and had less of a chance to escape to freedom in the North.  The domestic slave trade was so successful that the enslaved population in the United States nearly tripled over the span of 50 years. 

“To be a man, and not to be a man—a father without authority—a husband and no protector—is the darkest of fates. Such was the condition of my father, and such is the condition of every slave throughout the United States: he owns nothing, he can claim nothing. His wife is not his: his children are not his; they can be taken from him, and sold at any minute, as far away from each other as the human fleshmonger may see fit to carry them. Slaves are recognised as property by the law, and can own nothing except by the consent of their masters. A slave’s wife or daughter may be insulted before his eyes with impunity. He himself may be called on to torture them, and dare not refuse. To raise his hand in their defence is death by the law. He must bear all things and resist nothing. If he leaves his master’s premises at any time without a written permit, he is liable to be flogged. Yet, it is said by slave holders and their apologists, that we are happy and contented.” - John S. Jacobs, 1815-1875, was enslaved in North Carolina as a child and escaped to freedom in adulthood

Contrary to what has been purported, slaves were not a passive, docile group of people that meekly accepted their fate.   Enslaved people organized rebellions as early as the 18th century.  Nat Turner led the most brutal enslavement rebellion in United States history, attracting up to 75 enslaved people and killing 60 white people in August of 1831.  An enslavement revolt aboard the Amistad resulted in the 1841 United States Supreme Court decision affirming that the African captives were free individuals with the right to resist "unlawful" slavery.  From the 1830s to the 1860s, the movement to abolish slavery in America gained traction, led by formerly enslaved people such as Frederick Douglass and white supporters.  The Underground Railroad (an organized network of constantly-changing routes that helped slaves escape North to freedom) was formed with Harriet Tubman serving as a guide.  Despite the horrors of slavery, it was not an easy decision to flee. Escaping often involved leaving behind family and heading into the complete unknown, where harsh weather and lack of food might await.  There was also the constant threat of capture.  Some escaped slaves would remain in the south to establish/join independent settlements in forests or swamps, and were referred to as Maroons.  

By 1860, the South so desperately clung to the institution of slavery that, as the national tide turned toward abolition, 11 Southern states seceded from the Union, forming the Confederate States of America (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia).   Advocates of slavery argued that science and religion proved white racial superiority and that black people, like children, were incapable of caring for themselves.  Under the myth of “benign slavery,” white enslavers and enslaved Black people enjoyed an organic, mutually beneficial relationship in which the enslaver profited from the labor and the enslaved enjoyed the enslaver’s food, clothing, shelter, protection, and civilizing influence by being exposed to Christianity.  This propaganda used to justify keeping Black people in bondage was entirely false. 

The Civil War began in 1861 as a struggle to preserve the Union amongst westward expansion, not as a struggle to free the slaves.  As the bloodiest war on American soil dragged on it became increasingly clear to President Abraham Lincoln that the best way to force the seceded states into submission was to undermine their labor supply and economic engine that was sustaining the South—slavery.  On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring enslaved people in Confederate states "are, and henceforward shall be free," fundamentally changing the Civil War's purpose to include ending slavery and allowing Black men to join the Union military.  Approximately 200,000 Black Civil War soldiers would join the Union Army by the time the war ended in 1865, and around 40,000 lost their lives.  On December 6, 1865, eight months after the end of the Civil War, the United States adopted the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which officially abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, “except as punishment for crime.”  Nevertheless, most white people in the South refused to accept the newly emancipated status of Black people. Three states failed to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment until the 20th century: Delaware in 1901, Kentucky in 1976, and Mississippi in 1995.

Reconstruction (1865 - 1877)

Klu Klux Klan: AP Photos/stf, 500603019

Reconstruction was an extremely dark and turbulent era in American history following the Civil War, marked by lawlessness and violence during the reintegration of Southern states from the Confederacy and 4 million newly freed people into the United States.  During this time the Northern-controlled federal government used federal troops and congressional authority to enforce emancipation and protect formerly enslaved peoples’ new civil rights and American citizenship.  Emancipated Black people put aside their enslavement and embraced education, hard work, faith, and citizenship with extraordinary enthusiasm and devotion.  The Freedmen’s Bureau was a federal agency established to assist the newly freed slaves in making this transition from bondage to freedom.  The strongest impact made by the bureau was in education by building over 4,000 schools and hiring 10,000 teachers.  The ability to read and write became a symbol of freedom in the Black community.  The first years after Emancipation also witnessed the creation of the nation’s first Black colleges, including Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Fisk University in Tennessee.

Unfortunately, under the administration of President Andrew Johnson in 1865 and 1866, new southern state legislatures created “Black Codes.” These codes were restrictive laws designed to limit the freedom of Black Americans and ensured their availability as a cheap labor force after slavery was abolished during the Civil War.  Under Black Codes, many states required Black people to sign yearly labor contracts; if they refused, they risked being arrested, fined and forced into unpaid labor for white planters.  These codes were designed to prevent Black workers from leaving plantations; and deterred them from migrating out of the South. This led to the emergence of sharecropping, a new practice that soon replaced slavery by placing Black Americans in a cycle of debt and functioned as a restrictive form of economic bondage.  Many Black people also became entrapped by another new form of slavery through the criminal law—convict leasing.  States passed laws authorizing public officials to lease prisoners to private industries, and is the foundation of for-profit prisons that exist today.  While states profited, Black prisoners earned no pay and were forced into a brutal exploitative labor system that historians called “worse than slavery.”  These Black Codes relegated Black Americans to second-class citizenship and were enforced by all-white police and state militia forces—often made up of Confederate veterans of the Civil War—across the South.  Southern state governments were essentially given free rein to rebuild themselves and create a regime of white supremacy and Black disenfranchisement, alongside a new economic order that continued to exploit Black labor.

The end of slavery brought an immediate increase in violence against Black people across the South that reached “epidemic proportions.”  Between 1865 and 1877, thousands of Black women, men, and children were killed, attacked, sexually assaulted, and terrorized by white mobs.  Because Black people were no longer considered property, white Southerners had fewer reasons to protect them from being harmed.  A group of former Confederate veterans founded the first branch of the Ku Klux Klan as a social club in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1865.  The Klan quickly became a vehicle for white Southern supremacy and engaged in a campaign of terror, violence, and murder targeting Black Americans and white people who supported Black civil rights.  By the 1870’s, the Ku Klux Klan had branches in nearly every Southern state.  In the regions where most Klan activity took place, local law enforcement officials either belonged to the Klan or declined to take action against it.  Mob violence soon expanded beyond the Klan as white communities grew increasingly bold and confident in their ability to kill Black people with impunity and without prosecution.  Mobs of poor, white farmers would target Black people they viewed as economic competition and threatened them with death if they refused to abandon their land or give up their jobs.  Black people were lynched in the United States by mobs that were often composed of unmasked and prominent community leaders (lawyers, physicians, ministers) and cheered on by white men, women, and children alike.  Individual Black people and families were robbed, terrorized, beaten, or killed simply for existing and crossing paths with the wrong white person at the wrong time.

As a result of the violence and disenfranchisement placed upon formerly enslaved people, the government was forced to take action.  The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was passed, declaring that Black Americans were full citizens and entitled to equal civil rights under the law, and strengthened by the passage of the 14th Amendment.  With the passage of the Reconstruction Act of 1867, newly enfranchised Black people gained a voice in government for the first time in American history, winning election to Southern state legislatures and even to the U.S. Congress.  The Reconstruction Act of 1867 also temporarily divided the South into five military districts and outlined how governments based on universal (male) suffrage were to be organized. Under this law Southern states were required to ratify the 14th Amendment, before they could rejoin the Union.  

After 1867, an increasing number of southern whites turned to violence in response to the revolutionary changes of “radical” reconstruction.  In 1870, the 15th Amendment was passed and guaranteed that a male citizen’s right to vote would not be denied “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”  Across the United States, white mobs waged bloody massacres and mass lynchings to prevent Black communities from exercising their newly granted voting rights. 

The Compromise of 1877 was an informal agreement between Southern Democrats and allies of the Republican Rutherford Hayes to settle the result of the controversial 1876 presidential election, and marked the end of the Reconstruction era.  The Democrats agreed not to block Hayes’ victory on the condition that Republicans withdraw all federal troops from the South, thus consolidating Democratic control over the region.  The very same people who had recently fought to maintain white supremacy and retain slavery were now well positioned to seize control of their state governments, create laws and policies to suppress the new civil rights of Black people, and enable continued racial terror.  Southern state governments quickly went to work altering their constitutions to disenfranchise Black citizens and codify racial hierarchy.  When the last federal soldiers left the South and Reconstruction drew to a close, Black people had seen little improvement in their economic and social status, and the vigorous efforts of white supremacist forces throughout the region had undone most of the political gains they had made.  There is no established casualty count for the number of Black people who lost their lives during the Reconstruction era, many victims simply disappeared.  But perhaps the most devastating legacy of Reconstruction’s failure was the deadly violence that continued to plague Black communities in America for decades to come.

Jim Crow (1877 - mid 1960’s)

Esther Bubley, photographer. A rest stop for Greyhound bus passengers on the way from Louisville, Kentucky, to Nashville, Tennessee, with separate accommodations for colored passengers. 1943. Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division.

The name “Jim Crow” originated from a character created and performed by the “Father of American Minstrelsy” Thomas D. Rice.  Rice would tour the country performing in “blackface” and perpetuate negative stereotypes about Black Americans.  The use of “Jim Crow” eventually became a derisive slang term for Black Americans.  Jim Crow today is primarily used to refer to the caste system that purposefully limited Black Americans to a racial apartheid that dominated the American South.  In 1896, the US Supreme Court’s decision in the Plessy v. Ferguson's case enacted “separate but equal” racial segregation, and provided a legal umbrella for all Jim Crow laws that forced Black Americans to live as second-class citizens.  Jim Crow laws affected almost every aspect of daily life and supported the oppression of Black people.  "Whites Only" and "Colored" signs were placed above water fountains, and door entrances/exits.   The laws mandated the segregation of schools, parks, libraries, drinking fountains, restrooms, buses, trains, and restaurants.  In most instances, the Black facilities were grossly inferior or there weren’t any facilities available for Black people at all. 

As a result of Jim Crow laws, various systems were put into place that made it more difficult for Black Americans to register to vote or vote in Southern districts.  Black people were denied the right to vote by  poll taxes (fees charged to poor black people), white primaries (only Democrats could vote, only white people could be Democrats), and literacy tests ("Name all the Vice Presidents and Supreme Court Justices throughout America's history").  In some instances Black people would be expected to accurately guess how many marbles were inside of a glass jar.  In order to help less-educated white voters, “Grandfather Clauses” were established. If a citizen could prove that their grandfather was registered to vote, then they could register to vote regardless of if they could pass the literacy test.  Since most Black Americans were descendents of slaves that never had the right to vote, they were unable to utilize these grandfather clauses.  Black people who violated Jim Crow norms risked their homes, their jobs, and even their lives. The legal system was stacked against Black citizens, with former Confederate soldiers working as police and judges, making it difficult for Black Americans to seek justice.  Violence was instrumental as a method of social control, and the most extreme form of Jim Crow violence were lynchings.

Lynchings were public, often sadistic, murders carried out by mobs that functioned as a form of cheap entertainment for white families.  These acts of racial terror were frequently attended by large crowds, who treated the torture of Black victims as festive, social events.  Most lynchings often occurred in small and middle-sized towns where Black people often were economic competitors to the local white people. These white people resented any economic and political gains made by Black people.  Victims of lynchings were usually hanged or shot, but some were burned at the stake, castrated, beaten with clubs, or dismembered.  Lynchers were seldom arrested, and if arrested, rarely convicted.  Many white people claimed that although lynchings were distasteful, they were necessary supplements to the criminal justice system because Black people were “prone to violent crimes”, especially the rapes of white women.  At its core, lynchings were a tool to inflict terror and maintain white supremacy over Black Americans.  Convinced that under Jim Crow laws Black and white people could not live peaceably together, formerly enslaved Isaiah Montgomery created the Black American-only town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, in 1887.  Mound Bayou still exists today, and remains almost 100 percent Black.

The Great Migration was the relocation of more than 6 million Black Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West from about 1916 to 1970.  Driven from their homes by racial violence and harsh segregationist laws, many Black Americans began relocating with hopes of finding better economic opportunities.  After America joined World War I there was a high demand to replenish the shortage of industrial laborers up North.  The Great Migration also ushered in a new era of increasing political activism among Black Americans, who after being disenfranchised in the South found a new place for themselves in public life in the cities of the North and West.  

The Red Summer of 1919 kicked off one of the greatest periods of interracial strife in U.S. history.  Between April and November of 1919, there would be approximately 25 riots and instances of mob violence, 97 recorded lynchings, and a three day long massacre in Elaine, Arkansas during which over 200 Black men, women, and children were killed after Black sharecroppers tried to organize for better working conditions.  The racist attacks in 1919 were often initiated by white servicemen and centered upon Black veterans who had just returned from the war. Across the country, former soldiers used their government-provided weapons training to defend their neighborhoods against vicious white mobs.  In 1921 the Tulsa Race Massacre occurred when a white mob attacked Black residents, homes, and businesses in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma.  In the aftermath of this act of terror hundreds of Black people were killed and thousands were left homeless.  The Klu Klux Klan’s membership was nearly depleted following The Great Depression, and the organization was temporarily disbanded in the 1940’s.  However, there would be a resurgence of local Klan activity across the South as the Civil Rights Movement began to kick off. 

Civil Rights Movement (1950’s - 1960’s)

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., at the Lincoln Memorial looking out at the 250,000 people who had come to Washington to advocate for civil rights on Aug. 28, 1963. (Getty Images)

The Civil Rights Movement was a historic nationwide movement for Black Americans to bring to an end racial segregation and exclusion across the United States.  It was a time of tremendous progress, but did not happen without a fight.  One of the earliest successes of the Civil Rights Movement occurred in 1948, when President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981.  With this executive order the United States Armed Forces was desegregated, declaring an end to racial discrimination and ensuring equal treatment and opportunity for all personnel.  

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense and Educational Fund, led by Thurgood Marshall, spent decades fighting against racial segregation in education.  On May 17, 1954, they had a monumental victory when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Brown v. Board of Education “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” legally ending racial segregation in public schools and overruling the “separate but equal” principle set forth in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1889.  Thurgood Marshall would eventually go on to become the first Black American Supreme Court Justice, a position that he would hold for 24 years.  Despite the Supreme Court’s decision, Southerners were not enthusiastic or quick to desegregate schools.  In September of 1957, nine Black students, known as the Little Rock Nine, attempted to desegregate Central High School and begin classes, but were instead met by a threatening mob.  The situation got so bad that President Dwight Eisenhower was forced to nationalize the Arkansas National Guard and send U.S. troops to protect the students and enforce the desegregation order of the federal courts.

A pivotal event in the Civil Rights Movement occurred on December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white passenger.  A move that would solidify Parks in history as the “mother of the modern-day Civil Rights Movement.”  As a result of the outrage over Parks arrest, Black community leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association.  The organization was led by a young Baptist minister, Martin Luther King Jr, placing him front and center in the fight for civil rights.  They launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted 381 days. On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that segregated seating was unconstitutional.  In September of 1957, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law. This act allowed for federal prosecution of anyone who tried to prevent someone from voting, and also created a commission to investigate voter fraud.

Across the country Black youth were inspired to join the fight for civil rights.  On February 1, 1960, four college students (“Greensboro Four”) took a stand against segregation in Greensboro, North Carolina, when they refused to leave a Woolworth’s lunch counter without being served.  Their actions spearheaded peaceful Sit-Ins and demonstrations in dozens of cities, and helped to launch the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).  A young college graduate, Stokely Carmichael, who joined the SNCC during the Freedom Summer of 1964, would go on to become the chair of the SNCC, and originate the phrase "Black power.”  On May 4, 1961, thirteen “Freedom Riders”—seven Black and six white activists embarked on a bus tour of the American South to protest segregated bus terminals.  After arriving in Alabama, the bus was ambushed by a mob and the activists were brutally beaten.  That fall, under pressure from the Kennedy administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations prohibiting segregation in interstate transit terminals.

On August 28, 1963, civil rights leaders, A. Phillip Randolph and Baynard Rustin, organized the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  More than 200,000 people of all races congregated in Washington, D.C. for the largest non-violent civil rights demonstration that the nation had ever seen.  The primary purpose of the march was to force the passage of civil rights legislation and establish job equality for everyone. The highlight of the march was King’s iconic speech in which he continually stated, “I have a dream…”  The following summer President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, legally ending the segregation that had become institutionalized through Jim Crow laws.

Despite the monumental passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Black Americans still faced many challenges.  On March 7, 1965, a young John Lewis led 600 peaceful demonstrators to participate in a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.  The purpose of the march was to protest the killing of Black civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by a white police officer and to encourage legislation to enforce the 15th Amendment.  As the protesters approached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were blocked by Alabama state and local police.  Refusing to stand down, protesters continued marching forward and were viciously beaten and teargassed by police.  Due to the level of violence that occurred, this day would go on to be referred to as Bloody Sunday.  Television coverage of the marchers being beaten sparked outrage across the nation, inspiring everyday citizens to lend their support.  That August the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law, preventing any efforts to keep minorities from voting.  The new law banned all voter literacy tests and provided federal examiners in certain voting jurisdictions to ensure the law was being followed.

During this period of time several important civil rights leaders lost their lives.  On February 21, 1965, former Nation of Islam leader, Malcolm X, was assassinated at a rally.  On April 4, 1968, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on his hotel room's balcony.  Emotionally-charged looting and riots followed, and just days after King’s assassination the Fair Housing Act became law on April 11, 1968.  This law prevented housing discrimination based on race, sex, national origin and religion. It was also the last major legislation to be enacted during the Civil Rights Movement.

Where Does that Leave Us Today?

The enslavement of Black people in the United States lasted for more than two centuries and created a complex legal, economic, and social infrastructure that has left many disenfranchised.  After going back and learning about the history of Black Americans, it is easy to see how this country has landed in the predicament that it is in.  The tentacles of slavery and white supremacy have managed to slither their way into every aspect of our society today.  While doing this research I was overcome by a multitude of emotions, being born and raised in the South made everything that I learned about even more personal.  I felt heartbroken while reading about how my ancestors were treated as less than human.  I thought about all of the parallels between what happened during past eras and what is happening with the current administration.  Reading through American history can be very difficult and emotionally taxing, but there is power in knowledge.  I was reminded that throughout the history of America there have always been periods of progress, followed with regress, before progress was made again.  I try my best to keep that in mind whenever I think about what is happening now in this country.  The United States history books are written with the blood of Black Americans, and no matter how much some may try to erase or rewrite that history, what has happened cannot be undone.   Until we as a country are willing to rectify the past we are only doomed to repeat the same mistakes.  In spite of all the trials and tribulations that Black people have gone through in America, I choose to remain optimistic that the pendulum will swing back towards the direction of progress.  I am proud to be the descendant of such resilient people, and am eternally thankful for all of the people who put their lives on the line in order for me to have the rights that I have today.  I hope that whoever is reading this chooses to lead with love and light and continue to stay in the fight for a better future.