Throughout history we have witnessed many atrocities perpetrated by American people, but none more so than the way African Americans have been treated especially in regards to the Twentieth century. The issue of race has been a persistent one, and one that seems to have defined our nation.
For African Americans, this problem has been one that has shaped their very existence since the founding of America. As James Weldon Johnson put it;“because the colored man looked at everything through the prism of his relationship to society as a colored man, and because most of his mental efforts ran through the narrow channel bounded by his rights and his wrongs, it was to be wondered at that he has progressed so broadly as he has” (425).That sentiment is summarily echoed by W.E.B.
DuBois who first speaks of “the problem of the color line” (208).It would be impossible to discuss race without at least mentioning, the role that gender and class have also had, within the African American community. Just like everything from surnames to economic hardships, the African American community took a cue from White society when it came to gender.Inside these communities women were (and I would argue still are) being treated as second class citizens within a second class society. Even in a race already being torn apart, African American women were further demoralized by their places in an already displaced society.
The only real role gender and class served within the African American community was to further divide an already splintered segment of society. This can even be seen throughout much of the literature for this paper.All the pronouns are masculine and everything is assumed male or man. From the hardships to the potential successes, the presence of women is almost non-existent.Throughout the century, examples can be seen of how these ideas shaped the lives of African Americans, most notably beginning with the issue of class.
Johnson points out that during a visit to Jacksonville he notices three distinct classes of Blacks.What’s interesting about his observations is that although these classes are divided up by their relation to Whites, these class divides seem to have also taken hold in the African American communities (426).Economic hardship has arguably been just as persistent a theme as racism for African Americans over the last century. From the moment African Americans set their first reluctant foot on American soil, their reality has been a harsh one.So wrought with economic hardship, most African Americans had to rely on resources mostly within their own communities for survival. They were forced to build their own institutions and populate them just as the Whites had done (Harrold, 120).
Over the years, especially during the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans banned together through many different social change organizations to force a change in the previously accepted norms. Beginning with efforts to change their economic futures, hundreds of thousands of Southern Blacks migrated to Northern urban areas during the Great Migration (Harrold, 87).This was an important step in creating a new identity for themselves, one separate from the norms they were accustomed to under the proprietorship of southern Whites. By migrating North, African Americans were stating unequivocally that they were unwilling to suffer economically at the hands of Whites, when there were plenty of jobs to be shared between the races.Not just jobs were at stake for these migrating communities; there was thought to be less racism in the North as well as much better schools for African American children, something of a Promised Land.
Both held the possibility for success in the African American communities.Gender roles within the African American community have also been challenged, most notably during the Civil Rights Movement when women were seeking out their own voices. Speaking out mostly on the injustices suffered by African Americans as a whole, the women also began to speak out on more gender specific issues.For the African American woman, this was a time of exploration and discovery with the virtually simultaneous movements of Civil Rights and Feminists. It finally gave Black women a voice to speak about their own unique experiences.Whereas in the past the African American woman was property with which the (slave) owner could do whatever he wished, the modern African American woman is independent and politically active.
Throughout history there is a pattern of norms being forced upon the African American community, those norms being rejected and in some cases, followed by retaliation.How effective these challenges have been are left wide open for interpretation, depending upon the subject. For African Americans that migrated North, this was a highly effective method of challenging previously held notions of Black and White.Although there was still racism, it was much more difficult to treat them differently because the lives of African Americans paralleled that of White Americans in the North, the one exception being where Civil and Constitutional rights were concerned.The most extreme example of retaliation would have to be the tremendous amount of violence against the African Americans during the entire century, but finally erupting during the Civil Rights Movement.
The methods employed during this time were varied, but most in the end were very effective, eventually leading to the passages of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.Beyond methods, the most important factor in this success I believe is that for the first time in history, the African American community was working as a successful unit rather than the splintered groups that have enabled racism to prevail for more than a century.Arguably the most disastrous and ineffective challenge to these previously-set norms was the idea that instead of focusing on gaining certain rights (voting, civil rights and education), African Americans should focus on “industrial education, accumulation of wealth and conciliation of the South” (DuBois, 37).These are the three tools most likely to increase African American independence and it would seem that even in the present day, many are following his example to their own detriment.These social constructs still influence the lives of African Americans just as they influence the Whites. And just as African Americans challenged many of these constructs they will continued to be challenged as long as there are disenfranchised groups who are denied the inalienable rights guaranteed to them by the Declaration of Independence.
Works CitedDuBois, W.E.B., James Weldon Johnson, Booker T.
Washington. Three Negro Classics. New York: Avon Books, 1965.Harrold, Stanley, Darlene Hine, William Hine. The African American Odyssey: Volume II. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2005.
