Slavery And Racism In America

Watson 1 Taylor Watson Julie Wells English 11/American Studies  10 October 2014 A History of Slavery and Racism in America  In times of slavery in America, dark skin and slavery went hand-in-hand; all slaves were African American and nearly all African Americans were slaves. Historically, American society used physical and psychological means to keep races strictly segregated. Cruel and inhumane treatment of African Americans was an accepted and expected practice for numerous years. By the end of the nineteenth century, African Americans had earned their legal equality but were still segregated by societal beliefs. Although the severity of discrimination decreased by the end of the nineteenth century, the African American community would …show more content…
Kidnapped slaves were a cheaper and more plentiful source of labor than indentured servants, who were mostly lower-class Europeans. Soon, slavery became vital to the American South’s economic prosperity. It is roughly estimated that during the eighteenth century alone, between six and seven million Africans were brought to the New World as slaves (“Slavery in America”).   In the past, African Americans were not considered citizens; they could not vote, and it was even illegal in some states to teach slaves to read and write. It was crucial for the slave industry that slaves were dependent on their masters. In order to maintain control over the population, African American children were born into slavery. Society used these laws and the instillment of fear to keep boundaries between blacks and whites in place (“Slavery in America”).   The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution were key in creating equal rights between blacks and whites. The Thirteenth Amendment, arguably the most important for equal rights, was ratified by the United States on December 6, 1865. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery for all people who President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had not already freed. The abolishment of slavery was a landmark in the struggle for equality between blacks and whites because blacks became their own …show more content…
The Fourteenth Amendment granted Constitutional rights to all citizens, excluding voting rights, of any race. The Fourteenth Amendment established guidelines as to how citizens, including minorities, would be treated by other citizens and even government officials (police, judges, etc). The Fourteenth Amendment was important because it, in part, granted legal equality to all legal American citizens (US Const. amend. XIV, sec. 1).   The Fifteenth Amendment was ratified on February 3, 1870. This amendment gave all black men, at or above the age of twenty-one, the right to vote. The Fifteenth Amendment also banned state suffrage laws that discriminated against men of any race, so that they would retain their voting rights. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were referred to as the Reconstruction Amendments, because they reconstructed the rights of all American citizens of all races. The Reconstruction Amendments were aimed to protect the rights of freed slaves after the end of the Civil War (US Const. amend. XV, sec. 1).   The nineteenth century was a revolutionary time period for African Americans and the United States’ society. The Reconstruction Era consisted of important legal and political changes that made African American men technically equal to other

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