How Did African Americans Change Over Time

Over time, things change, and people change. Think about the year 1990 and then compare the cars people drove, the clothes people wore, and even the way people talked, to the way everything is now. With the twenty-seven years of change, there are hardly any similarities between the two years. Many things with the African American race have also changed over time. Before the Civil War in 1865, African Americans were faced with one major obstacle; slavery. After the war, they were faced with various challenges, including the consequences brought along with Reconstruction, the creation of the KKK, along with many other things. With the help of courageous people who were tired of being treated differently such as; Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther
The Fourteenth Amendment declared that everyone born in the United States was an American citizen and that states could not deny any American citizen their basic rights. On March 30, 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, and it declared that all American citizens could vote no matter what. For a small period of time, African Americans were finally allowed to feel a sense of peace and have hope that things have truly changed for them. Sadly, this peace and hope did not last very long. In the 1890’s, the Jim Crow laws came around. The Jim Crow laws allowed the segregation of “colored people” and “whites”. In other words, this meant separate bathrooms, separate water fountains, separate trains etc. This law was upheld in 1896 when the Supreme Court ruled that “Separate but Equal” was legal, in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case. The Plessy vs. Ferguson case was about an African American man, Homer Plessy, who refused to ride a segregated train car, which was illegal in Louisiana. In this case, the Supreme Court argued that segregation did not interfere with the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments (staff, Plessy vs. Ferguson). Obviously, there were people in the world who were not okay with the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. Voting rights were basically stripped away from African Americans in 1898, when the Grandfather Clause, poll taxes, and literacy tests were introduced. The
There are many people and events that helped bring African Americans out of the pit they were in. Through the Civil Rights Movement, some African Americans gained the confidence they did not have before. Some important people throughout the movement were Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Other than the Civil Rights Movement many important events, like the Montgomery Bus Boycott and The March on Washington, happened that gave African Americans a chance for their voice to be heard. “The only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” -Rosa Parks. Everyone knows the story of Rosa Parks. Parks was a middle aged African American woman who got arrested because she refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man, after she spent a long day at work. To some people Parks is known as the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement. Because of her arrest, people wanted more than ever for their voices to be heard. Then along came Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. When talking about the Civil Rights Movement, King is one of the first names that comes to mind. Because of Parks arrest, King started the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was a movement that protested the use of segregated buses. (Editors). Dr. King is mostly known for his famous speech “I Have A Dream”. In this speech he talks about the lives African Americans lived at the time and how he dreams of African Americans being able to live a peaceful life in the future. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a