Slavery was different for America then it was for the rest of the world. For the rest of the world, it wasn’t a race thing they just enslaved the people that they had conquered. They did not care what the color of their skin was it was just about the need for labor. In the article “New of New World Slavery” it explains how slavery was different in America than in Europe. “Slavery in the classical and the early medieval worlds was not based on racial distinctions”. In America, it was all about race and discrimination. It started out the same just a need for free labor, but since it was mostly black slaves it led to the thought that black people were only good for slavery. This made people think the black people were inferior just because of …show more content…
Laws of segregation started in the north during the civil war (William V. Moore). Black people were segregated from railway cars, theaters, schools, prisons, and hospitals. After the 13th amendment was passed, slaves had some freedom, but then Andrew Johnson took up the presidency when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and he was a supporter of states rights. Taking advantage of state’s rights southern states started to pass the “black codes”. Mississippi enacted the first law of the black codes. This law required all black people to have proof of employment every January. If they backed out of their contract and they would have to forfeit their earlier wages or be arrested. If they were arrested it would be like they were a slave again with the loophole in the 13th amendment, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall be duly convicted...”. This loophole is saying that no one can be used as a slave unless they were a criminal. This led to black people being arrested for minor crimes like loitering or unemployment. After Mississippi enacted their first black code, then South Carolina enacted one of their own. Which forced black people to only work as a farmer or a servant and if they did not they would be taxed $10-$100. Soon after, all southern states had their own …show more content…
Like it is mentioned in the movie 13th “The so called war on drugs was a war on communities of color”. So, now black people are being arrested much more than White people even though the drug use is close to the same as Angela F. Chan points out in her article for the Huffington Post. “Even though Black people use drugs at the same rate as White people, they are incarcerated for drug crimes at 20 to 50 times the rate of White people in some states”. A law that was passed during the war on drugs was mandatory sentencing. This law led to people being arrested crack being sentenced to much harsher punishments than those for cocaine. The people being for crack were predominately black and for cocaine predominately white. “Crack was largely a inner-city issue and crack was largely a suburban issue”(13th). After the war on drugs Bill Clinton became president, and pasted more to crack down harder on crime. One of them being mandatory minimums this didn’t let the judges decide the crimes. It set mandatory sentences for the crimes. So, this shifted the power from the judge to the prosecutor, and 95% of elected prosecutors are white(13th). This shows that still today racism and the effects of slavery are still being felt 151 years
Though the creation of certain policies criminalized drug use and began to target minority communities predominantly African American and Latino. It used a campaign with the message of violence and danger that needed to be controlled within the African American and minority
It eliminated any coercion that could have been behind the uprising for the black rights to
Although slavery had been outlawed by the Thirteenth Amendment, it continued in many southern states. In an effort to get around laws passed by Congress, southern states created black codes, which were discriminatory state laws which aimed to keep white supremacy in place. While the codes granted certain freedoms to African Americans, their primary purpose was to fulfill an important economic need in the postwar South. To maintain agricultural production, the South had relied on slaves to work the land. Black codes were restrictive laws designed to limit the freedom of African Americans and ensure their ties to the land.
In the South blacks where didn't really slaves yet they were impeded by state laws, for example, the dark codes. Both regions of the Nation had their different fights with race yet,
In 2010, the US Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA) which reduced the sentencing difference between offenses for crack and powder cocaine. Many people in law enforcement believed that there is more violence associated with a crack cocaine crime, rather than a powder cocaine offense. Due to the increasing amount of reports and cases of aggressive offenses, Urban Leaders in America allowed the sentences of the crime to be extended because of the violence in a drug trafficking offense. In the article, “Data Show Racial Disparity in Crack Sentencing” by Danielle Kurtzleben, states that, “The figures for the 6,020 powder cocaine cases are far less skewed: 17 percent of these offenders were white, 28 percent were black, and 53 percent were
The Union victory in the Civil War in 1865 gave millions of slaves their freedom, however, the process of rebuilding the South during what is known as the Reconstruction Era, that took place between 1865 and 1877, introduced a whole new set of significant challenges. The most important part of reconstruction was to secure rights for former slaves. Radical republicans, aware that newly freed slaves would face racism and inequality, passed a series of progressive laws and amendments in Congress that protected blacks’ rights under federal and state law. This included the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments that granted black men citizenship and the right to vote. However, before the 14th and 15th amendments were passed, the Civil Rights Act of
After the Civil War, the south was left in shambles. Not only were the southern states left with the destruction and damage of the war but the economy was injured and barely stable because of the costs of war. The union began a Reconstruction movement to rebuild the broken nation. The Reconstruction was also meant to repair the broken economy and the damaged society. But the effectiveness of this system is questionable because it both succeeded and failed.
This was supposed to mark the end of slavery and the beginning of freedom for black people. In no way did this mean equality or even equity between black and white people would exist. The inequity between black and white people didn’t suddenly come to an abrupt ending. White people still had superiority over black people and the law was still in their favor. Not to mention, people were still extremely prejudice.
In 1651 and 1663, states decided that an enslaved person must be freed after 10 years of service and anyone who is born to an enslaved mother is also a slave. Later, in 1793, the fugitive slave law was passed. This gave slave hunters permission to return or capture any runaway slaves. The Jim Crow laws were formed in 1890 encouraging racial segregation. There were a lot of laws that were pro slavery, but there were also a lot of laws made against it.
It removed the literacy tests as a voting requirement. Poll taxes were also declared unconstitutional because the court ruling in Harper v. Virginia. Even though all these great changes did not end all Jim Crow laws straightaway, they set the United States on a course that would lead to the ending of segregation and discrimination. All of these changes formed by the end of Jim Crow was great news for African Americans. Reason being, African Americans could finally become full participants in the American political process (Berman,
According to Western & Becky Pettit (2010), African Americans have always been incarcerated at a higher rate than whites. Laws were enacted from 1914 (The Harrison Act) that restricted the sale of heroin and cocaine, which were both legal and established the legal framework for intervention on drug policy. However; during the 1980’s and 90’s marked an unprecedented escalation
They were enforced through careful monitoring of birth records and marriage records. What race or color a person was determined what their status was in the United States. If you had the slightest trace of African blood, then you were black. These laws were passed at the height of Eugenics. Eugenics
In the period of reconstruction, there was a lack of racial equality and racism towards blacks. The 13th amendment abolished slavery, with the exception of allowing it as a punishment for a crime (“Thirteenth Amendment” 19). Although it abolished slavery, there was still a lack of equality towards blacks. The Black Codes were state laws in the south, that were implemented in 1866. These laws limited the rights of African Americans and were
The black codes emerged and discrimination towards the blacks began.1865 and 1866 ‘The Black Codes’ were passed by Southern states to restrict African Americans freedom and compelling them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt. Slavery had ended but they needed work so they continued to work like slaves but at low wages. The slaves that didn’t continue to work on plantations had a rough time starting up businesses, with many loopholes to go around. They needed licenses to work even the simplest of jobs, if they didn’t under the black codes they could be
Around the 18th century African Americans were sold and used for hard labor, they were looked down on as less and dirty. They could be beaten and tortured if their owner thought they weren't doing enough or working hard enough. Horses were whipped if they weren't running fast enough or pulling hard enough.