African American Civil Rights Movement Research Paper

African American Civil Rights movements is argued to have come a long way since the 18th century, but attaining full equality and fair treatment is still difficult in America. Some can argue that blacks in America are treated equal to everyone and that equality has fully been reached. But the truth is that this is far from the truth, blacks have faced many problems in America throughout time that they should never had to endure. In many ways the African American civil rights movement has accomplished so much since the 18th century, but many times they were hallow victories. Emancipation of Blacks to Freedman was a slow and painful process. As Michael B. McCoy stated in his article "Forgetting Freedom: White Anxiety, Black Presence, and Gradual
Abolition in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, 1780-1838" emancipation took decades to be set in motion. Albeit emancipation began in 1780, (141) whites were inept to hurry the freedoms of African Americans. "Pennsylvania's assembly provided freedom to the children of slaves, but only after twenty-eight years of indenture, or term slavery" (McCoy 142). This in many white rural eyes was seen as a horrifying realization that those who they previously owned could possibly become equal in stature to them. This method of taking three decades for the children of slaves was a way to settle rural masters woes for it would enable them to "recoup their original investment and even profit from the slow end of slavery" (McCoy 142). Despite the implication of three decades of servitude, many slave owners neglected to prepare the children of slaves, now adults, to be independent or even know of their ability to become free. (McCoy) Even if emancipation was a big step in the right direction toward equality, it was not as egalitarian nor progressive as it seemed to be Even near the turn of the 20th century in the Post-Bellum South equality and fair treatment was hard to come by.
Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch's journal The Ex-Slave in the Post-Bellum South: A study of the Economic Impact of Racism in a Market Environment stated that "Historians have always argued that racism played an important role in the rebuilding of southern society and the restructuring of agriculture after the Civil War" (Randsom and Richard 134). With the rise of small farms rather than plantation style agriculture of Pre-Civil War Bellum South, the majority of farms were run by family labor. (Randsom and Richard) There was an "extreme prejudice of the whites against land ownership on the part of blacks" (Randsom and Richard 135). This came into the form of credit rating, where white money lenders denied loans to black freedmen, making it impossible to even start their own farms by buying land. So instead of being able to even start a farm. "Only 7.3 percent of all farms, containing 6.7 percent of all farmland, were owned by black operators" (Randsom and Richard 136,137). Those who could not get land either struggled to find jobs as a laborer on a meager salary or became sharecroppers where decisions on all things were made by a landlord (Randsom and Richard 138). "Discriminations in the markets for land and labor meant that black families had to support themselves with fewer acres per family member than did white families" (Randsom and Richard 142) Making a living in rural farms was a difficult for freed blacks, even with freedom, inequalities made life difficult and
unbearable. Even in modern day America, society still blacks are treated unfairly. Jeff Nesbit author of "Institutional Racism is Our Way of Life" in U.S. News & World Report stated unsettling statistics of the education system and biases in U.S. institutions against blacks. Nesbit stated that "Black children make up 18 percent of the pre-school population, but represent almost half of all out-of-school suspensions". As well as how black adolescents are 18 times more likely to be charged as adults than white children, as well as making up 60 percent of juvenile offenders. (Nesbit) "About 73 percent of whites own homes, compared to just 43 percent of blacks. . . The median net worth of white families is about $265,000, while it is just $28,500 for blacks." (Nesbit) These statistics are worrying, it shows a distinct differences in schools and future net worth just from race. This incongruence of treatment between whites and blacks in American society creates tension between blacks and the government. Even if it is stated that under the eyes of the law all men are equal, the difference in treatment says otherwise. Even after nearly 200 years after 'emancipation', blacks are treated unfairly just because of the color of their skin. Yes there were major differences made by the African American Civil Rights Movement, but there is still a lot to be done in the ways of inequalities. It can be argued that from the 18th century there has been consistent improvement, but in its entirety no matter what change that was meant for the better, there is a significant gap between black and white treatment. Despite all the effort put into equality, there is a long way to go, and hopefully one day America's phrase "that all men are created equal" can be fully realized.