Black History
By: Victor • Essay • 1,219 Words • April 22, 2010 • 1,112 Views
Black History
Through out all of history there has been racism, terrorism, and discrimination. The African American society had went through the unfortunate racial discrimination in the United States in the 1800's. In total the many horrible stories about slavery including the emancipation proclamation, the fugitive state law, and the thirteenth amendment. Also the KKK and what they did to the coloured "un superior race." Then the uprising of many good parts to this race as in Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks etc.
First, the unfortunate but true fact is, is that slavery had a big effect on this race during the 1800's and still beyond. Slavery is a social-economic system under which certain persons — known as slaves — are deprived of personal freedom and compelled to perform labour or services. The term also refers to the status or condition of those persons, who are treated as the property of another person or household. Slaves are held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase, or birth, and are deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation in return for their labour. As such, slavery is one form of unfree labour. These slave acts were so horrible many different acts or laws were set to abolish slavery in the United States.
One law that was set that had to help annihilate the slave trade acts was the Fugitive Slave Law. The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slaveholding interests and Northern Free-Soilers (short-lived political party in the United States active in the 1848 and 1852 presidential elections, and in some state elections). The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was a Federal law which enforced a section of the United States Constitution that required the return of runaway slaves. It sought to force the authorities in free states to return fugitive slaves to their masters. In practice, however, the law was rarely enforced. So because this law wasn't enforced as much as some people had wanted they had to resort to other means of law enforcement.
The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order by United States President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War, which declared the freedom of all slaves in the territory of the Confederate States of America that had not already returned to Union control. Issued in September 1862, the order became effective on January 1, 1863. The definition of emancipation is freeing someone from the control of another; especially the power of a man/woman over another human being. So in saying so, the President was ultimately trying to end slavery in the States. The proclamation made the end of slavery a central goal of the war and was highly controversial in the North. It was not a law passed by Congress but a presidential order empowered. This had a great impact on the States but not quite the effect everyone wanted, there was still slavery in some places. So in thinking so, they needed to think of a new law or order to finish of or abolish the act of slavery or the slave trade.
Thus came into effect the thirteenth amendment.
"The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished, and continues to prohibit, slavery, and, with limited exceptions such as those convicted of a crime, prohibits involuntary servitude. The Amendment in practice emancipated only the slaves of Delaware and Kentucky, as everywhere else the slaves had been freed by state action and the federal government's Emancipation Proclamation. But supporters such as Abraham Lincoln (who had issued the Emancipation Proclamation and also supported the Corwin Amendment) supported the Amendment as a means to guarantee the permanent abolition of slavery."
After all these acts and laws that passed and almost all of slavery was discontinued there comes the Ku Klux Klan or KKK. The KKK were and are a group who vouched as believers in white supremacy, whose first incarnation was in 1866. It was founded by a veteran of the confederation war who created the group at the end of the war. He created this group so he could put down freed - slaves in 1868 - 1870. The Klan sought to control the political and social status