The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1865 in the aftermath of the Civil War, abolished slavery in the United States. The 13th Amendment states: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

14th Amendment
1868

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States—including former slaves—and guaranteed all citizens “equal protection of the laws.”

15th Amendment
1870

The 15th Amendment states: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

 

Segregation is the practice of requiring separate housing, education and other services for people of color. Segregation was made law several times in 18th and 19th-century America as some believed that black and white people were incapable of coexisting.

 

The first steps toward official segregation came in the form of “Black Codes.” These were laws passed throughout the South starting around 1865, that ordered most aspects of black peoples’ lives, including where they could work and live. 

 

Segregation soon became official policy enforced by a series of Southern laws. Through so-called Jim Crow laws legislators segregated everything from schools to residential areas to public parks to theaters to pools to cemeteries, asylums, jails and residential homes.

 

In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that segregation was constitutional.

In the laws there still were gaps, that Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover filled. Lower- income families couldn’t move into middle-income neighborhoods any more.

 

Segregated schools and neighborhoods existed, and even after the world war 2, the white people reacted hostile when people of color attempted to move into white neighborhoods. 

 

Starting in the 1930s created the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and the Homeowners’ Loan Corporation maps with marked areas as known as “red-lining”. The areas marked in red typically outlined black neighborhoods. Then, in 2008, a system of “reverse red-lining, which is the practice of targeting neighborhoods for higher prices or lending on unfair terms such as predatory lending of subprime mortgages.

 

In 1948, the Supreme Court ruled that a black family had the right to move into their newly-purchased home in a quiet neighborhood in St. Louis. But while the Supreme Court ruled that white-only covenants were not enforceable, the real estate playing field was hardly leveled.

The act subsidized housing for whites only, even stipulating that black families could not purchase the houses even on resale

 

Segregation persists in the 21st Century. 

 

 

 

The roots of Jim Crow laws began as early as 1865, immediately following the approval of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States. 

 

At the start of the 1880s, big cities in the South were not wholly committed to Jim Crow laws and Black Americans found more freedom in them. This led to Black populations moving to the cities and, as the decade progressed. Jim Crow laws soon spread around the country with even more force than previously.

 

In Atlanta, African Americans in court were given a different Bible from white people to swear on. It was not uncommon to see signs posted at town and city limits warning African 

 

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which legally ended the segregation that had been institutionalized by Jim Crow laws.

 

And in 1965, the Voting Rights Act halted efforts to keep minorities from voting. The Fair Housing Act of 1968, which ended discrimination in renting and selling homes, followed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Made bus rides trough the south of America to protest against the segregated bus terminals. People that have been in the bus were Afro-American and White protesters.
 
The consequence was, that they got confronted by Police officers and got arrested or worse than that: they got violeced by white protesters who where racists. They mostly confronted them at stations were the bus stopped.
 

Prehistory:

The CORE were modeled after they´re journey of reconcilation in 1947. During this action they tried to test the 1946 supreme court decision in Morgan v. Virginia 

The 1961 Freedom Rides sought to test a 1960 decision by the Supreme Court in Boynton v. Virginia that segregation of interstate transportation facilities, including bus terminals, was unconstitutional as well. A big difference between the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation and the 1961 Freedom Rides was the inclusion of women in the later initiative. 

In both actions, black riders traveled to the Jim Crow South—where segregation continued to occur—and attempted to use whites-only restrooms, lunch counters and waiting rooms.

In 1964, he made a pilgrimage to Mecca and changed his name to el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz.

Born: Malcom Little, May 19, 1925, Omaha, Nebraska, United States 

Assassinated: February 21, 1965, Audubon Ballroom by a Black Muslim at an Organization of Afro-American. He is buried New York.

Malcolm X was an African American leader in the civil rights movement, minister and supporter of Black Nationalism. He urged his fellow black Americans to protect themselves against white aggression. His charisma and oratory skills helped him achieve national prominence in the Nation of Islam, a belief system that merged Islam with Black Nationalism. 

He also wrote an autobiography 

about his traumatic childhood plagued by racism to his years as a drug dealer and pimp. It chronicled his life and views on race, religion and Black Nationalism. It was published in 1965 and became a bestseller. The book and Malcolm X’s life have inspired numerous film adaptations, popularized his ideas, and inspired the Black Power movement. Malcolm X had predicted that he would be more important in death than in life, and had even foreshadowed his early demise in his book.

Before we get to the beginnings of US slavery there is one big topic, which isn’t mentioned as often as Greece ore the US: the middle ages. During that time slavery hasn’t disappeared. At least the circumstances changed a bit to the better, for there were now no more gang system slaves. Most of the slaves were – you have to say bought– to help out in smelteries or to serve the king. Those slaves often lived an at least halfway lifeworthy life alongside their lord.

But all the pain and cruelty came back in the 15^thand 16^thcenturies with the expansion of the western world (which actually got rid of slavery quite universally) to North America. Whereas slavery in the US can be dated back to before 1500, the year 1619 by many is considered to be the birth of modern enslavement.

It began with an English commander called John Jope who set sail with a privateer ship called “The White Lion”to slow down the Spanish settlement on the American continent. He encountered another famous Portuguese ship called “San Juan Bautista”and it came to a battle. The White Lion captured about 20 African men from the Portuguese ship and then continued its journey to Jamestown, Virginia. Soon, there were already 36 of such slave ships.
Unfortunately, much information on the life of these men as slaves got lost to history, but the arrival of the slaves in the English colony remained symbolic for centuries of US slavery...

·       11 Mio. slaves in America 

·       Age: between 15 – 30 years     (ideal slaves)

TRANSPORT TO AMERICA:

·       With ships

·       People were in chains

·       Sometimes thrown into the water

·       Many were ill

AFTER ARRIVAL AT AMERICA:

·       Presented to the buyers

·       Hair was cut off

·       Wounds were painted so that buyers could not see them

AREAS OF APPLICATION:

·       Agriculture

·       Houshold choires

·       Mining industry

Work on sugar cane plantations was hardest form of slavery; living conditions and tasks depended on slave, he also decided if relationships were allowed (kids were good because they automatically belonged to him)

PUNISHMENT:

·       Whipping

·       Got tied up

·       No food and water

·       Got branded

DAY OF A SLAVE:

·       Woken up by the „chef slave”

·       Small breakfast

·       Work in the field began

·       Worked until sun went down

·       6 days a week

·       Slaves worked together in gangs under supervisor

POPULAR SLAVEHOLDER:
George Washington, held his slaves at Mount Vernon

Life at Mount Vernon:

· Often families were separated because he had 5 farms

· Children automatically owned by him →

Had to look after their siblings

· Normal meal: cornmeal and salted fish (harvested by themselves)

Daily ration for an adult: 1 quart cornmeal and 5-8 ounces fish

· Clothing:

Men: One wool jacket, one pair of wool breeches, two linen shirts, one or two pair of stockings, one pair of shoes, and linen breeches for summer.

Women: One wool jacket, one wool skirt, two linen shifts, one pair of stockings, one pair of shoes, and a linen skirt for summer.

·       Housing:

-      One family per house

-      One house often only one room

-      Adults slept on a mean pallet and the children on the floor

-      A small fireplace and some things for cooking

·       Resisting slavery: 

-      Working slowly

-      Pretending to be sick

-      Stealing supplies

·       Got punished (read above about punishments)

The movement was founded by three black community activists in the summer of 2013: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi acted after George Zimmerman's acquittal for the killing of Trayvon Martin and directs against racist violence by police in the US. 

 
In 2020, another African-American was killed in a police operation in front of a running camera in the USA. After the death of George Floyd in 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement grew louder and bigger than ever. Millions of people have demonstrated in the United States. Several thousand have also taken to the streets all over the world. 


More and more people from the Black Lives Matter movement demonstrated against the deaths of several black people by police actions. During the demonstrations, slogans were repeatedly shouted out, reflecting what the victims had to suffer. Slogans like: "Hands up don't shoot” remember to the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson. The 18-year-old was shot dead by a police officer with 12 shots. "I can't breathe". The sentence refers to the death of George Floyd, but also recalls the African-American Eric Garner, who died in New York in 2014 after a police attack.


Black Lives Matter uses the Internet, especially social media, to make public where potential social abuses can be seen. With the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, which was invented in July 2013, the activists reach a lot of people on Instagram. Superstars such as Beyoncé and Rihanna also commented on the death of George Floyd on Instagram.


The movement's network continued to spread across the country, and its fight against racism had tangible consequences: police chiefs were fired, on Black Lives Matter. 

Birth: 4. February 1913

Birthplace: Tuskegee, Alabama

Parents: James, Leona McCauley
 

Education/school: 
segregated schools in Pine- Level Alabama

At age 11: 
City`s Industrial School for girls in Montgomery

1929:
in 11^th grade laboratory school for secondary education

o   Not turn to studies

o   Job at shirt factory in Montgomery

1932: Marriage to Raymond Parks at age 19

1933: High School degree

After graduate 1943:

Activist for civil rights, joining Montgomery chapter of the NAACP

 
o   All along youth and childhood lived with early experiences with radical discrimination and activism for racial equality

 

o   One experience: her grandfather stood in front of the house with shotgun while Ku Klux Klan members marched by

 

 

Against segregated seats for African Americans

 

Took place:
December 5^th 1955- December 20^th  1956

=First large-scale U.S demonstration

 
o   90% Black citizens of Montgomery stayed off buses

Citys minister discussed to make boycott into a long- term campaign

 
Boycott= coordinated by the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) lead by Martin Luther King Jr.

Demonstrated:
 potential for nonviolent mass protest to challenge racial segregation successfully