When captive Africans first set foot in North America , they found themselves in the midst of a thriving slave society. During most of the 17th and 18th centuries , slavery was the law in every one of the 13 colonies, the new United States . The importation of slaves was provided for in the U.S . Constitution , and continued to take place on a large scale even after it was made illegal in 1808. On arrival, most of the new captives were moved into holding pens , separated from their shipmates and put for auction.In the eyes of the law and of most non –African Americans , they had no authority to make decisions about their own lives and could be bought , sold , tortured , rewarded , educated , or killed at a slaveholder’s will. With the Emancipation Proclamation , 1863 Lincoln ordered the freedom of all slaves in those states still in rebellion during the American Civil War. Untill the thirteenth amendament to the U.S.Constitution in 1865, only the states had power to end slavery within their own borders , so Lincoln issued the proclamation as a war measure. Lincoln then sponsored a costitutional amendement to free slaves . The Thirteenth Amendment , making slavery illegal everywhere in the United States was passed late , eight months after Lincoln was assasinated .
Schools , government buildings , and public places were segregate by race , and African Americans were routinely prevented from exercising their right to vote.The integration of the United States armed forces in 1948 gave many people new hope for progress. Soon a new generation of activists made it self known, demanding that the U.S. government provide all its citizens with the rights and protections guaranteed by the Constitution. Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King made a difference .
African Americans in the 1950s couldn’ t go to the same schools as white Americans. On buses and trains, they had to sit a different section from white passengers . African Americans had to go to different hospitals and shops and they couldn’t eat in the same restaurants with white Americans.The law at the time said African Americans were ‘’separate but equal’’ so they had to live separate lives from white Americans.
In 1955 in Montgomery , Rosa Parks ,an African American woman , was on a bus on her way home from work . When she refused to give her seat to a white man , the bus driver called the police . The police arrested her and the Montgomery Bus Boycott began. 40000 African Americans boycotted public buses for over a year . The protest only ended when racial segregation on buses stopped in 1956 . This was the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement in the US. One of the leader of the Montgomery bus boycott was African American church minister, Martin Luther King . He became the leader of the Civil Rights Movement . The Civil Rights Movement wanted African Americans to have the same right to freedom and equality as white Americans. Martin Luther King believed in non-violent protest and he organised many campaigns against racial discrimination .The police frequently arrested him , but he continued to protest. In 1963 , there was an important civil rights protest in Washington.
Martin Luther King spoke to the people about his dream for the future: freedom and equality for all Americans. He began with the words :’’I have a dream’’. In 1964 , he won the Nobel Price for Peace and in 1965, the American government made it possible for all African Americans to vote. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee in April 1968 ,but in july 1968 , the American government passed the Civil Rights Act and finally African American had the same rights as white Americans. The election of Barack Obama, the first black President, in 2008 did not absolve the US of its racist history . The fact of havig a black president unlocked new worlds of hope and possibility in millions of people-young and old- who never imagined that such a thing was possible.
Blog della III B 