Not Counting Slavery
’40 Acres And A Mule’ was proposed in congres, for black people newly emancipated from slavery. The bill was voted against leaving most black people with nothing when they left bandage.
But the ex-slave owners were compensated by the government for their losses (reparations). Also white indentured servants were rewarded land when their term ended. This allowed them foundation to build on.
Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States, except for a man in prison. This loophole gave them incentive to arrest, convict and jail ex-slaves for petty crimes.
These unfortunate men found themselves on chain-gangs to do the same work they did during slavery, some ended up on the same plantations from which they were emancipated. What a coincidence, to this day black men are stopped constantly and are jailed for things other people are not. And they make brand name products for slave wages.
The name Jim Crow was from a popular minstrel show in the 1800’s. These racist shows mocked black people and attempted to make blacks look inferior. The Jim Crow laws began after the reconstruction period and ended with the civil rights movement.
These laws were made to separate blacks in parks, movie theaters, stores, restaurants, hotels, employment and just about any place people congregate. These laws resulted in inferior schools, housing and employment for black communities.
The lynching era began when slavery ended and went into the 1900’s. The main reason was that black people came out of slavery with a hunger for knowledge, for prosperity and for the American dream. And constantly disproving white supremacy.
Whites in the south feared losing their status to upwardly mobile blacks, so they did everything in their power to keep black people in their place. One of their strongest tools for this was lynching.
There’s so much proof of this because they were so proud of what they were doing. They kept souvenirs, pieces of the bodies and photographs of the charred victims. And newspapers documented the show lynchings were sometimes crowds reached over 10000, watching a black person being tortured for hours.
Black communities had a history of being destroyed when they were more prosperous than white communities around them (Greenwood, Rosswood and others). In 1919, when soldiers were coming back from World War I, there was tension because of a shortage of jobs and housing.
White Supremacists did not want to compete with Black Men for jobs and Black Men coming from the war were not going to put up with being treated less than a man. In an effort to squash black peoples new found confidence White Supremacists attacked black communities all across the country, burning, killing and rapping.
In order to rebuild America, after the Great Depression, banks gave loans to Americans but excluding the black communities. Whites signed agreements stipulating they would not sell their property to a black person.
Through racist zoning laws, local governments in America were able to segregate black people and push them into inferior housing. So, while most whites were able to lay their foundation for the American Dream, most black people were not.
It’s a painful history that our fellow African’s faced in the diaspora. We turn to be locked in the disaster of neocolonisation and forget the value of international humanity and justice. Our struggle is far from completion. Let’s all stand and be counted for full freedom and economic emancipation of African origin.
This is very enlighting.And course ot not taught Schools as well should be.Its is also very 😔 for our Ancestors where treated horribly