Slavery in America - Black History

Children and Youth in History | Children in the Slave Trade Colleen A. Vasconcellos, University of West Georgia Introduction From the 16th to the 18th centuries, an estimated 12 million Africans crossed the Atlantic to the Americas in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Used on plantations throughout the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, enslaved Africans were shipped largely from West Africa. Enslavement Like adults, children were unwilling participants within the slave trade that had a variety of sources. Journey to and Sale on the Coast What happened in the days, weeks, or even months that followed their capture or sale was a whirlwind of events that had devastating effects on the psyches of the enslaved. For those children who made it to the coast, they were taken to a factory, castle, or trading post where they were sold to merchants who placed them in holding cells with other slaves. The Middle Passage A Demand for Children How to Cite This Source Colleen A.

Slavery in the United States The slave market in Atlanta, Georgia, 1864 (Library of Congress) When the North American continent was first colonized by Europeans, the land was vast, the work was harsh, and there was a severe shortage of labor. Men and women were needed to work the land. White bond servants, paying their passage across the ocean from Europe through indentured labor, eased but did not solve the problem. Early in the seventeenth century, a Dutch ship loaded with African slaves introduced a solution—and a new problem—to the New World. By the end of the American Revolution, slavery had proven unprofitable in the North and was dying out. Cotton replaced tobacco as the South’s main cash crop and slavery became profitable again. Torn between the economic benefits of slavery and the moral and constitutional issues it raised, white Southerners grew more and more defensive of the institution. The Underground Railroad was organized to help slaves escape north to freedom. Want the Latest?

Civil Rights Act - Black History Kennedy was assassinated that November in Dallas, after which new President Lyndon B. Johnson immediately took up the cause. “Let this session of Congress be known as the session which did more for civil rights than the last hundred sessions combined,” Johnson said in his first State of the Union address. During debate on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, southerners argued, among other things, that the bill unconstitutionally usurped individual liberties and states’ rights. In a mischievous attempt to sabotage the bill, a Virginia segregationist introduced an amendment to ban employment discrimination against women. The bill then moved to the U.S. But with the help of behind-the-scenes horse-trading, the bill’s supporters eventually obtained the two-thirds votes necessary to end debate. Having broken the filibuster, the Senate voted 73-27 in favor of the bill, and Johnson signed it into law on July 2, 1964.

John Howard GRIFFIN, Dans la peau d'un Noir John Howard GRIFFIN Dans la peau d'un Noir (Black Like Me) traduit de l'anglais par Marguerite de Gramont. éditions Gallimard, 1962 John Howard Griffin (1920-1980) est un journaliste et écrivain américain. Étudiant en français, littérature et médecine à l'université de Poitiers, il fut aussi rattaché au service psychiatrique d'un hôpital français lors de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Il prend part à la résistance et sert dans l'armée américaine avant de revenir en Europe à la fin de la guerre. Une blessure le contraint à revenir vivre aux États-Unis où son engagement pour la paix sociale va motiver ses écrits et ses opinions. Les conditions de vie des Noirs américains du Sud sont pour lui insupportables. J.H. Dans la peau d’un Noir Ce livre est un récit autobiographique sous forme de journal. « Une idée m'avait hanté, pendant des années, et cette nuit-là, elle me revient avec plus d'insistance que jamais. Son retour en tant qu'homme blanc ne sera pas sans problème. Extrait

Slavery in Colonial America (Article) Many cultures practiced some version of the institution of slavery in the ancient and modern world, most commonly involving enemy captives or prisoners of war. Slavery and forced labor began in colonial America almost as soon as the English arrived and established a permanent settlement at Jamestown in 1607. Colonist George Percy wrote that the English held an “Indian guide” named Kempes in “hande locke” during the First Anglo-Powhatan War in 1610. English colonists exploited Virginia Indians—especially Indian children—for much of the first half of the 17th century. Some colonists largely ignored Virginia laws prohibiting the enslavement of Indian children, which the Virginia Assembly passed in the 1650s and again in 1670. While colonists continued to enslave Virginia Indians, the first unfree Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619. First slave auction in New Amsterdam by Howard Pyle, 1895. The “triangle trade” largely defines the economics of slavery in the colonial era. Further Reading:

Slavery Images Rassenscheiding in Amerika nog altijd aan orde van de dag Hoewel de hoofdbewoner van het Witte Huis zelf een Afro-Amerikaan is, voelen veel zwarte Amerikanen dat grote gebieden van het land nog altijd segregatie (rassenscheiding) kennen. De lont ging in het kruitvat in Ferguson toen een witte agent de zwarte Michael Brown doodschoot, maar het had net zo goed ergens anders kunnen gebeuren. Ferguson is een voorstad van St. Louis en was tot de jaren negentig vooral een blanke plaats. Bij de volkstelling van 2010 was twee derde van de inwoners zwart. Naarmate Afro-Amerikanen meer toegang kregen tot de middenklasse, verkozen ze vaker een voorstad als Ferguson als woonplaats. De blanken gingen juist steeds verder van de steden af wonen, om te ontsnappen aan de stijgende criminaliteit en omdat ze hun kinderen niet naar zwarte scholen wilden sturen. Het bestuur in Ferguson, en in vergelijkbare kleine gemeenten, bleef intussen ferm in handen van blanken. Verkeersboetes Volkswoede De rellen in Ferguson hebben ook met die onzichtbaarheid te maken.

Montgomery Bus Boycott - Black History As news of the boycott spread, African-American leaders across Montgomery, Alabama’s capital city, began lending their support. Black ministers announced the boycott in church on Sunday, December 4, and the Montgomery Advertiser, a general-interest newspaper, published a front-page article on the planned action. Approximately 40,000 African-American bus riders–the majority of the city’s black bus riders–boycotted the system the next day. On the afternoon of December 5, black leaders met to form the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). The group elected Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-68), the 26-year-old-pastor of Montgomery’s Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, as its president, and decided to continue the boycott until the city met its demands. Although African Americans represented at least 75 percent of Montgomery’s bus ridership, the city resisted complying with the MIA’s demands.

Jim Crow Laws and Racial Segregation - Social Welfare History Project Jim Crow Laws and Racial Segregation Introduction: Immediately following the Civil War and adoption of the 13th Amendment, most states of the former Confederacy adopted Black Codes, laws modeled on former slave laws. These laws were intended to limit the new freedom of emancipated African Americans by restricting their movement and by forcing them into a labor economy based on low wages and debt. Vagrancy laws allowed blacks to be arrested for minor infractions. A system of penal labor known as convict leasing was established at this time. Black men convicted for vagrancy would be used as unpaid laborers, and thus effectively re-enslaved. Convict labor at the State Lime Grinding Plant, VirginiaVirginia; Its Agricultural and Industrial Resources, 1914 The Black Codes outraged public opinion in the North and resulted in Congress placing the former Confederate states under Army occupation during Reconstruction. The Beginning of the End of Segregation John F. For further reading: Blackmon, D.

Africans in America/Part 1/The Stono Rebellion South Carolina, September 9, 1739: A band of slaves march down the road, carrying banners that proclaim "Liberty!". They shout out the same word. Led by an Angolan named Jemmy, the men and women continue to walk south, recruiting more slaves along the way. By the time they stop to rest for the night, their numbers will have approached one hundred. What exactly triggered the Stono Rebellion is not clear. In mid-August, a Charlestown newspaper announced the Security Act. Whatever triggered the Rebellion, early on the morning of the 9th, a Sunday, about twenty slaves gathered near the Stono River in St. The slaves stopped in a large field late that afternoon, just before reaching the Edisto River. Around four in the afternoon, somewhere between twenty and 100 whites had set out in armed pursuit. Uncomfortable with the increasing numbers of blacks for some time, the white colonists had been working on a Negro Act that would limit the privileges of slaves. previous | next

Harriet Tubman: Former slave who risked all to save others Image copyright Getty Images Sometime in mid-October 1849, Harriet Tubman crossed the invisible line that borders the state of Pennsylvania. Tubman, a slave and later prominent abolitionist who has been chosen as the face of the new $20 bill, had escaped a plantation and was partway through a near-90 mile journey from Maryland to Philadelphia, and from bondage to freedom. She left the plantation, in Dorchester County, Maryland, in September and travelled by night. Years later, she recalled the moment she entered Pennsylvania: "When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. In the years that followed, Tubman returned again and again to Maryland to rescue others, conducting them along the so-called "underground railroad", a network of safe houses used to spirit slaves from the South to the free states in the North. But in September 1849, aged 27, Tubman was an unknown slave, uncertain about her future in the wake of her master's death.

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