HIS 206 The Separation of the American People

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Apr 3, 2024

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1 The Separation of the American People The University of Arizona Global Campus HIS 206 United States History II Instructor Donald Burnette December 11 th , 2023
2 The Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, was ratified by President Abraham Lincoln. With freedom, African Americans traveled up North, finding “their new home to be the promised land they sought” (Barnes & Bowles, 2015, 6.3 The United States in the Great War). Just to be met with discrimination and violence, while those who stayed in the South had to deal with much suffrage. Unfortunately, African Americans would spend years fighting for equality. Facing difficulties achieving fundamental rights such as having an education, having the right to vote, or even being able to sit with people of another color. Although there are so many challenges in front of them, they still have the strength to overcome and continue to prosper. This paper will look into events that defined and shaped African American history, like separate but equal to desegregation. An 1892 incident sparked the legalization of separate but equal. When a one-eighth black man sat in a white-only train car and refused to move. Homer Plessy was arrested and charged with breaking the Separate Car Act in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Plessy versus Ferguson case was later tried by the Supreme Court in 1896. According to BlackPast (2017), Plessy argued that he “was entitled to every right, privilege, and immunity secured to citizens of the United States of the white race” since no race was above another. Unfortunately, Plessy lost the case, establishing a separate but equal policy. The Plessy v. Ferguson case played a pivotal role in shaping African-American history. It caused a halt in the ongoing civil rights movement, slowing the progression of the movement. There was now a constitutional justification for segregation, allowing all public places to be separated.
3 Although Plessy versus Ferguson caused a significant disruption in the civil rights movement and segregation gained ground, it was not much different than what African Americans were already facing. On the contrary, it gave somewhat of a push or motivation for the civil rights movement. After the abolishment of slavery, African Americans set out to find employment; some remained farm workers, while others found employment in factories, as servants, and in other low-paying work. In 1912, President Woodrow Wilson, a supporter of white supremacy and segregation, upheld the separate but equal policy. He separated his administration by race and only hired southern democrats who supported segregation. African- American activists did not take this lightly. Activists like A. Phillip Randolph began to rally by 1925, creating The Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters. The goal of the union was to protect and improve work conditions for African Americans. A. Phillip Randolph’s actions led to one of the most significant events in African-American history, the Fair Employment Practice Committee. In 1941, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the Fair Employment Practice Committee after activists like A. Phillip Randolph threatened to march on Washington if a policy that protected people of color against employment discrimination and employment segregation was not created. In return, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created Executive Order 8802, banning all discriminatory practices in federal agencies and unions that were engaged in war-like activities, which meant the military could no longer segregate soldiers. This order opened more opportunities for African Americans to find employment and created a window for the advancement of desegregation. By the 1950s, the civil rights movement started gaining significant traction, and African Americans continued pushing forward. Due to Anti-literacy laws, it was illegal for African
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