I feel that the statement “the abolition of slavery is a success” is a very biased opinion and I disagree with it.
Although laws were set up in the late 19th Century , black people were still treated the same way they had been before even in the 20th Century 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 Americans. Many of these events were not successful but still had some effect. Events like the Freedman’s Bureau were set up to try and solve problems that the blacks had.
The organisation opened up over 4000 schools and educated approximately 250,000 black children.This meant that the blacks had a better chance of being educated and had higher chances of getting a good job. The organisations also opened up orphanages and hospitals for the black people. Unfortunately the schools that they had built were being destroyed in 1877 by the white racists and the lives of the black people were being threatened.
White terrorist groups like the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) and the White league would threaten the lives of the people who tried to teach the black people to read and write and the black people.People died as a result of these terrorist groups. It was very hard to stop these groups as policemen and judges were often members of this group. There was segregation between the blacks and the whites.
Black people had to have separate schools, hospitals, toilets, and water fountains and these facilities didn’t even come close in comparison to the white people’s facilities. As a result of the segregation it was unbelievably hard for the black Americans to get proper education and because of that they couldn’t get a good job.In conclusion even though slavery was made illegal, black people were not given total freedom. They have been suffering much poorer living conditions, schools, hospitals and schools than the white people.
Even today in America the majority of the poorer people in the major cities are black people. These are in great cities such as Seattle, New York, Washington D. C and San Francisco. However things are improving and there is hope that one day soon there will be no discrimination, especially with events like President Barak Obama being the first African-American president.
