Compare and Contrast the Social, Political, and Economical Histories

For centuries the African-American has been thought to be inferior due in part to the color of their skin. In fact “Environmentalists, attributing black skin to the effects of the tropical sun, assumed each race was peculiarly to its geography and climate.” (Rogoff, 1997) Most of the issues that African-Americans were faced with in southern states were that they not only considered inferior but also considered a piece of property that a white man would own to help with everything from raising the children of the white man and cooking the meals to planting and harvesting crops from the fields. As an example of the differences in northern and southern states one could take a look at a small town in Iowa between the years 1900 and 1926. “There was a coal mining town, Buxton, where a type of racial equality existed.” (Beran, 2002) In this community the blacks and whites worked side by side in the mines where they earned the same wages rather than the blacks being paid less and considered pieces of property that were owned by the mining company. However this type of racial equality was not simply a fluke that only happened in the mining company but also spilled over into the community. With the African-Americans making the same as the other white people in the community they were able to participate in some of the social and civic activities within the community. “Many of those activities, particularly sports and entertainment, were provided through the Buxton YMCA.” (Beran, 2002) While the fact that an organization like the YMCA to provide activities within a community with no concern of the participants race is not uncommon in this day and age but during the years 1900 and 1926 the United States was struggling within itself to deal with the racial diversity. The main reason that a town in Iowa was able to put aside the differences found throughout the nations in those years can be traced back