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Is yet to be determined if the segregation was worse before or after the Civil War. Before the Civil war there were even certain officials, whose duty was to research and analyze roots and ancestry of the society members for determining their pure background, without any black ancestors. If somebody has black ancestors, no matter, how far in generations they stood, those people were considered Blacks and they were heavily fined, or even enslaved. Kate Chopin's story "Desirees Baby" that was written in 1893, vividly portrays the reality of the pre-Civil War society with all its drawbacks.
Kate Chopin was a famous feminist and in her works she revealed womens search of emancipation, she looked for an understanding of personal freedom that questioned conventional demands of both men and women. The story "Desirees Baby" is her most famous and discussed work, because it rises not only problems by emancipation, but very important and global problems of racism and slaver, physical, as well as spiritual. Chopin's characters are of French descent and live in Louisiana. In this story the author raises important themes of dangerous and destructive racism, the nature of which is so horrible, that nothing can stand against is, not love, not moral values.
People were so afraid of being considered Black, of sharing the destiny of the Black people that very few had strength to accept the truth of their ancestry of that of their relatives. The letter, written by Armand's mother uncovered the mystery of the childs ancestry. But above all, she wrote, night and day, I thank the good God for having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery. Armand didnt possess the strength and dignity of his father, and the fact, that he found out about his background only after the death of Desiree is not a key factor in the theme of racism.
The key factor is authors reveal of the horrible fact, that the white people were well aware of the position, on which they doomed the black people. They were conscious of all the horrors that that filled their every day life, all the injustices. The white people by turning the Blacks into slaves robbed them the life itself, but this blatant fact was considered a norm, until it concerned the welfare of the whites. By enslaving the Black people, by considering them inferior and worthy of such attitude the white people enslaved themselves.
By imposing all these double standards the white people could be officially analyzed by their fellow citizens and proclaimed not worthy to be the members of the society. This sad irony led to further horrible actions, like denial of parents, like betrayal, like murder. The discovery of the letter makes Armand's racism and attitude irrational. His shame, that he experienced for his wife shifted on himself. But his attempt of hiding the new fact reveals his own moral slavery, which was common for the most other whites in the society.
After the Civil War Blacks were able to experience some real freedom, granted by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments and the Civil Rights Act of 1875. But by 1890 the Blacks civil rights in both, North and South states were much less supported and Supreme Courts recurred to segregation, and it terribly contradicted the freedoms, for which the Founding Fathers fought in the Was of Liberty, for which only recently Lincolns army fought in the Civil War, and which were granted in those new Acts and Amendments. From the last two decades of the nineteenth century till 1960 -es many most of the American states enforced racial segregation that was imposed by Jim Crow laws. Segregation and racial inequality was created in several steps. Black people were ordered to read the Constitution since illiterate people had no right to vote; a tax for voting had to be paid; only those people could vote whose grandfathers were legal citizens of the country and had rights to vote. But the majority of the Black people were former uneducated and slaves who didnt possess much money, they didnt qualify to any of the clauses and this law excluded them from those who had rights to vote.
The process of segregation in all the aspects of life existed by law and socially, not legally sanctioned. In many states it was legal to officially punish people that tried to communicate or hover close to the members of the white race. The most common and widely spread laws forbade intermarriage and enforced separate places for different races in the city communes of residence, public places and business establishments. It shall be unlawful for a white person to marry anyone except a white person.
Any marriage in violation of this section shall be void. Georgia, The... Utilities Commission... is empowered and directed to require the establishment of separate waiting rooms at all stations for the white and colored races. North Carolina. These Law were based on the Black Codes that were used on railroads in segregation before Civil War.
The civil rights movement started to the full in the mid- 1950 s and it was mostly a grassroots, bottom-up phenomenon, which was based in religious congregations rather than a movement initiated and supported primarily by outsiders - particularly white, Northern liberals. Black people were excluded from almost all the factors of white society, including church. In the black communities began forming Black churches, which were against what white churches taught... The Black churches possessed power within the black community and represents the community in the white society.
Churches became the only place for Blacks to find refuge since the application of Jim Craws rules. As African-American Christians moved from slavery to emancipation their religious practices and houses of worship also changed. Black church leaders used their authority for combine the teachings of Christianity with political manifestos. Within church based organizations the contemporary events were seen through the prism of the religious history and culture and was formed the political conscious. Many political sociologists and social movement theorists wrote books that expand our perception of religious institutions and their role in expanding of democracy.
In the book Origins of the Civil Rights Movement by Aldon Morris, the author starts by picturing the essential aspects of the Southern black culture, which played very important part in the elevation of the civil right movement including the practices, ideologies, internal cultures, and significant political successes. Martin Luther King was the main force in the civil rights movement. He was moving force of the civil rights movement. Under his leadership the Southern Christian Leadership Conference became the central movement. That organization "was the force that developed the infrastructure of the civil rights movement and it functioned as the decentralized arm of the black church." Martin Luther King was the leader, who could direct the community and its organizations for the progress of the civil right movement and towards the success of this goal. It was the leading guidance of King that gave strength in the protests.
He was the driving power of Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1963 after the first great battles won by the Negro in the South, King started plans for his most massive assault on the barricades of segregation. King's leadership led to the mass protest in Birmingham, there were bombs and shots and multiple deaths in the streets and in the churches, and it was revolution. The events in Birmingham became the symbol of this revolution Martin Luther King was its leader, the symbol of that revolution and the Man of the Century. Police brutality reacted against the marchers, King was arrested, but not silenced: He wrote "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" to refute his critics. "In 1963 there arose a great Negro disappointment and disillusionment and discontent.
It was the year of Birmingham, when the civil rights issue was impressed on the nation in a way that nothing else before had been able to do. It was the most decisive year in the Negro's fight for equality. Never before had there been such a coalition of conscience on this issue. " After events in Birmingham the Black people continued their fight for the civil rights, they took parts in parades and demonstrations. They showed the rest of the world, that they were also the part of the constitution and the amendment Fourteen, which granted every citizen rights and freedom. The Justice Department enforced a bill that granted the voting rights, employment, and the end of segregation in public facilities In 1963 the Black church organizations, led by such leaders as Martin Luther King and inspired by him changed the course of American life.
The American Black citizen made 1963 the year of massive demonstrations, of wins and speeches and soul searching in the suburbs and in the jail cells. Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" was the first convincing telling of this case in a full form. Martin Luther King's abilities to inver's the arguments of the opposite side (the clergymen) is the alertly effective aspect, the essence of the work. King in a rising progression effectively contradicts any arguments of the opponents. Answering the accusations of severe violence, King insists that on an common and philosophic and religious examples, which turns into very convincing statement. King's use of historic and religious examples if very outstanding and efficient in his searches, his prolific use of it in this particular argument is genius.
King's writing appeal to his audience through their religious ties, and the religious and history examples, provided by him cannot be ignored. This creative approach is the key factor of King's argumentation's. The majority of the recent had free access to the education and they could easily understand King; s quotes of such scholars and religious figures as St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Socrates. This evident contradiction between historic figures and contemporary clergymen and their new segregation philosophy cannot be ignored by any educated person, because there easily can be seen the highlighted fault of the segregation.
King mot merely appealed to the education backgrounds and religious side of the clergymen, he tried acces directly into their hearts. In his work King disputes the clergymen's demands that the Blacks should be patient and "wait" for the realizations of their wishes and hopes. This statements is easily destroyed by mentioning recent sad and violent events: "We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights... Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait. " But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million." As Rousseau once said in his works, the children are borned pore and induced, it is society, that corrupted them, and this should be prevented by education. And the awful example of naive children of both, white and black citizens being introduced to horrors of segregation cannot be ignored. King was able to diminish what small doubts I had of present civil rights movements, and time was the only thing now that could heal what wounds remained from segregation.
Martin Luther King's work "Letter from Birmingham Jail" is the greatest display of effectiveness when a rhetorician can make someone realize their own faults in an area of belief that that person did not know existed, and then prove them wrong. This work was very quickly recognized as a masterpiece. The letter helped to increase support for King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference and solidified his status as the leading civil rights leader of his generation. Not all Black population in agreed with King at that time, but his jailhouse letter helped make him an even more respected figure in the African-American community generally, a community that has always greatly admired eloquence both in oral and written form. Bibliography: Chopin, Kate. Desirees Baby, Vogue Magazine, January 4, 1893 Martin Luther King Letter from Birmingham Jail web Morris, Aldon D.
The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change. New York: Free Press. 1984. Wood, Richard L. Faith in Action: Religion, Race, and the Future of Democracy. Ph. D.
dissertation. University of California at Berkeley. 1995. "Man Of The Year", New York Time 3 Jan. 1964 "The Civil Rights Article by MSN Encarta" Civil Rights Movement, 17, May 200, web King, M. Luther Jr. , "Jim Crow" Laws", Lynbrook High School web
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Research essay sample on Martin Luther King Southern Christian Leadership Conference
