Life after Slavery

Essay # 106424

African-American Studies > Civil Rights
Film
History > U.S. After 1865

Life after Slavery

Looks at the civil rights problems after the abolishment of slavery in the U.S.

1,405 words () | 4 sources | APA | 2008 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper relates that the jubilee of the abolition of slavery in the post Civil War period contained more promise than reality. The writer first explains this by describing how slavery was soon replaced by segregation, through Jim Crow state constitutions and laws, and how freed people saw their emancipation turn into the new prison of segregation through the passing of the 1896 Supreme Court landmark case "Plessy v. Ferguson", which legitimated "separate but equal". The paper then reviews issues of equal civil rights, such as suffrage, land-ownership and education. In addition, the paper relates the story presented in the HBO film "The Boy Who Painted Christ Black" as an example of the history of African Americans, which is filled with struggles and triumphs.

From the Paper:

"Once slavery was abolished, those who believed that the battle was over withdrew from the fight. Others, both blacks and whites, saw that the nation still had much to do if the former slaves were ever really to be free. Theirs was a long, lonely, and often dangerous battle to try to eliminate pervasive racism and provide full citizenship to America's black population. When the Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery at the close of the Civil War in 1865, Jim Crow laws and customs became a new means of ensuring white supremacy."

Sample of Sources Used:

Asante, M. K. (2003), Erasing racism: The survival of the American nation, Prometheus
Hine, D.C. , Hine, W.C. & Harrold, S. (2007) The African American Odyssey, Prentice Hall
Mobley, J.A., (2006) Wood, P.H & Clayton, T.H. The way we lived in North Carolina, The University of North Carolina Press
Thompson, R. S., & Tyler, A. (Producers). (1995). America's dream [Film]. (Available from HBO, Inc., 1100 6th Avenue, New York, NY 10036) HBO.