This article is focused in the reasons due to which Colored Americans are not a major part of Columbian exposition. Also, the tough times which these colored Americans faced after the end of civil war and life of postwar freedmen of south. How progress of colored people overtime has not been displayed properly in commercial and educational fields such as Literature.
Important points of the Article
Key Events which influenced exclusion of colored Americans from Columbian exposition:
This chapter uncovers the sufferings of colored Americans post civil war and abolition of slavery. Southern states which were seceded from the union agreed to free their slaves but never accepted their former slaves with equality as these colored American faced problems like vagrant legislation, election frauds, convict lease system, refusal of land sale to Negroes, political massacres and keeping colored laborer’s wages.
Convict lease system and Lynch Law
Lynch Law and convict lease system are two infamies of United States from the era which followed Civil War. Under Lynch Law, convicts which were mostly counterfeiters and horsethieves were suppressed on the basis of defiance to laws of the land. Success of lynch law emboldened and further encouraged the whites into outrages upon community.
Under convict lease system, convicts were leased out as workers for mining corporations, railway contractors and farm plantations. Companies took charge of convicts and made the work for cheap payments by paying states revenue of their labor. 90 percent of these labors used to be Negroes.
Differing Opinion: Progress of Colored Americans
With time and increasing population community of colored Americans made progress since emancipation in the fields of education, wealth, literature, professions and many others.
Despite this role of American Blacks or former slaves in shaping American history has excluded totally been excluded from a national platform like Columbian exposition and attempts to get some exposure on this area from the nation and its government felt on deaf ears.
Between the periods of 1900 to 1980 many Blacks migrated from rural southern states to northern. Many of the educated colored population of south started to migrate to north to cities like Chicago and New York where they found work and were treated in much human manner compares to southern states.
Works Cited
African American History Timeline: 1801-1900. http://www.blackpast.org/timelines/african-american-history-timeline-1800-1900. www.blackpast.org. Web
