The history of African Americans is an essential part of the whole history of the United States. Starting from the sixteenth century and the beginnings of slavery, Blacks had experienced a lot of struggles and had traveled the long path in order to achieve the social and political equality with western people. During their presence in the United States, they underwent a lot of events that contributed to their rise, supported their pride, and highlighted their racial identity. This paper aims to discuss four of such events and to analyze their mutual influence and significance for the establishment of the modern standing of African Americans. The history of Blacks had its ups and downs, but every loss and every victory contributed to the development of their racial self-awareness and led to the modern state of the United States of America as a multicultural and tolerant country.
The first cultural and social event that took place in the 1920s in Harlem, New York and symbolized the flourish of the African-American culture was the Harlem Renaissance or the “New Negro Movement.” It appeared against the background of the Civil War and the following Reconstruction and the imprints they left on the history of the Blacks in the United States. Most participants of the Harlem Renaissance had bright memories about gains and losses of that time periods, and their parents and grandparents had often lived in the days of slavery and had been slaves themselves. Furthermore, Harlem was one of the places of the Great Migration, and, thus, Blacks constituted the significant part of its population.
The Harlem Renaissance brought to the world a lot of talented poets and writers including novelist Zora Neale Hurston and poet Langston Hughes and such artists as Aaron Douglas and Augusta Savage. This cultural movement had a great impact on the American culture in whole and was the time of the new image of African Americans as talented, educated, and gifted people. Furthermore, the historical significance of the Harlem Renaissance lied in the drawing of attention to the issues of racial identity and to the development of the black community. The works of African American people of art took the whole racial group to the new level and proclaimed that African Americans were equal to western people and wanted to lead the same lives. For instance, in his poem As I Grew Older, Hughes writes, “My hands! / My dark hands! / Break through the wall! / Find my dream! / Help me to shatter this darkness, / To smash this night, / To break this shadow / Into a thousand lights of sun, / Into a thousand whirling dreams / Of sun!” (Hughes, 1925). Hughes talks about the empowerment and struggles experienced by African Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century and the wall of injustice that could be broken by the same people who had built it. As well as other people of art, he brilliantly attracted attention to the social standing of the African Americans in the American society.
Except cultural changes, the Harlem Renaissance also contributed to the improvements in the socio-political standing of African Americans. Due to migrations to the North, the image of African Americans as country people changed, and they turned to be the representatives of the middle class. It allowed them to join American and global elite later. Furthermore, the Harlem Renaissance let African Americans join the political life of the country through such organizations as National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and United Negro Improvement Association. Thus, one can call the Harlem Renaissance the turning point in the history of the African American community that symbolized their cultural self-actualization and racial pride and influenced the further cultural and political development of African Americans.
The Harlem Renaissance had brought African Americans a lot of success and flourish, but the 1920s also marked the time of sorrow. The next major historical event that affected a lot of African Americans took place in 1921 and was called the Tulsa Race Riot. The Tulsa Race Riot started on May 31 and lasted for two days. As Krehbiel states, it was “one of the worst race riots in the nation’s history . . . Dozens of people were killed, hundreds were injured and thousands were left homeless” (Krehbiel, 2016). It was the biggest massacre of African Americans in the history of the United States.
The Tulsa Race Riot started when the local newspaper accused a young black man Dick Rowland in the attack on the 17-year-old elevator operator Sarah Page. In the evening of May 30, 1921, a store clerk heard Sarah’s cry, saw Rowland who was running from the elevator, and called the police. Sarah said that there was nothing criminal in the elevator, but the readers of the newspaper started to gather near the courthouse where Rowland was kept for his safety. One should note that in Tulsa, black and white people lived in different quarters as were in very bad relations. The new Tulsa sheriff did not want the same lynching as had taken place during the rule of his predecessor and organized the defense of the court. At the same time, the citizens of Greenwood, the flourishing Black quarter of Tulsa, were ready to defend their neighbor and suggested the sheriff their help. Soon, the gunplay between Blacks and Whites started. About two thousand of white people took after the small group of African Americans, destroyed everything on their way, and killed all Blacks they met. The riot could be stopped only the next day with the help of the National Guard of the United States. However, the consequences of the Tulsa Race Riot were incredibly prominent.
The Tulsa Race Riot brought a lot of casualties and property losses. However, what is more important, it showed that despite the seeming calmness and successes, African Americans still were far beyond the achievement of real equality and recognition from the white Americans. Thus, one can say that the first half of the twentieth century brought the Black community mixed successes.
The second half of the twentieth century symbolized the continuation of the African American struggles with the American government and white Americans and, at the same time, brought them more successful results. First, one should note Brown v. Board of Education. Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that started on December 9, 1952, and ended on May 17, 1954. The reasons of the case originated from the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson, which had delivered a judgment that racial segregation had not violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution if the separated races had had living conditions and services of the equal quality and, thus, had proclaimed the principle “separate but equal.” The Plessy v. Ferguson case decision had recognized racial segregation to be legal and had given the start to its expansion across the country.
In 1951, the parents of about twenty children filed a class action suit against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas. They claimed to abolish racial segregation. One of the parents, Oliver L. Brown, pointed out that his daughter had to attend the school for white people, as it was much closer to their house than the school for Blacks. Furthermore, Kansas’s laws allowed separate schools but did not require them. The District Court solved the case in favor of the Board of Education on the basis of the Plessy v. Ferguson case, and the parents filed an action to the Supreme Court. According to the decision of the Judge Earl Warren and other members, racial segregation was prohibited, as ”segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race . . . denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment” (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954). Brown v. Board of Education became an important victory in the fight against racial segregation in the United States.
One more historical event that significantly contributed to the establishment of the rights of African Americans in the United States was the Black Power Movement that took place in the 1968-1980s. The Black Power movement was a political campaign aimed to achieve a Black Power form and self-determination and empowerment of African descendants. The movement was based on different manifestations of activism and represented other socialist movements that pursued a goal of improving the social standing of Blacks in the United States.
The Black Power Movement developed from the criticism of the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s, and with the course of time, it became more and more violent. According to Hoover, “many young blacks rejected the courage and patience displayed by Dr. Martin Luther King in his non-violent response to injustice in American society” (In Search of African America: One Collector’s Experience, 2004). They could not stand the attitude of the American government towards Blacks and the humility the members of the Civil Rights Movement showed in answer to the governmental use of violence and, as the result, joined the opposite movement based on violence, guns, and deaths. Furthermore, principles of Martin Luther King, Jr. were more suitable for South Blacks, not for the northern working class. The heart of the Black Power Movement was the Black Panther Party founded by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton. The party proclaimed that the use of violence was the only way to achieve the black justice in the American society. The escalation of the Black Power Movement accounted for the late 1960s, and it reached its peak in the beginning of the 1970s. In 1968, it “united” with the Civil Rights Movement; the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. gave birth to the great number of social unrests across the country. Within the next two decades, the movement experienced de-escalation and the further decline.
The actions of the Black Power Movement brought some significant results including the appearance of African Americans in the political circles of the country, the first attempt of African American to become the President, and the significant rise of the black identity. One should note that all events of the Black history of the United States had an impact on each other. For instance, Brown v. Board of Education and the Black Power Movement could hardly happen without the Harlem Renaissance that laid the basis for the rise of the African American self-identity and racial pride. Furthermore, African Americans required the understanding that their victory was still far beyond, and the Tulsa Race Riot brought them that understanding. With every new event, the Black community of the United States became closer to achieving its purposes, and their victories contributed to the rise of America as the democratic and tolerant country.
References
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (Dec 9, 1952 – May 17, 1954). Retrieved from https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/347/483
Hughes, L. (1925). “As I Grew Older.” AllPoetry. Retrieved from https://allpoetry.com/As-I-Grew-Older
In Search of African America: One Collector’s Experience (2004, Jan 17-Mar 21). The Black Power Movement: 1968-1980. Hoover Archives. Retrieved from http://hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/africanamerican/blackpower/
Krehbiel, R. (2016, Jul 18). The questions that remain. Tulsaworld. Retrieved from http://www.tulsaworld.com/app/race-riot/timeline.html
