President Abraham Lincoln banned slavery in 1863. This was called the Emancipation Proclamation declaring that ‘all persons held as slaves” within the Confederate State “are and hence forward shall be free”. In the southern part of America the law that had been passed by the President was accepted very reluctantly as the sugar and cotton plantations were doing so well and the rich plantation owners needed cheap labour to maintain the plantations and this labour was provided by the black slaves. Although this law was passed there was still discrimination and the black people were treated horribly and were called hurtful names. There was so much discrimination because the white people thought of them as being inferior. Black people were never given any opportunities to better themselves; they were uneducated and were used mainly for menial labour.
Martin Luther King was a freedom fighter in the 1960’s and he was the leader of the African-American Civil Rights movement. A 100 years after the abolition of slavery he was still trying to get equal rights for the black people. “Five score years ago, a great American (President Lincoln) signed the Emancipation Proclamation. But one hundred years later, the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.” This is a part of Martin Luther King’s speech “I have a dream “. This speech shows us that despite what President Lincoln tried to do to abolish slavery, black people were still being discriminated against and treated badly.
Many events in history have been set up to help the lives of the black people and to try and get equal rights for the black