Personal Reflection On African Americans

This course was something I thought would be of a big interest for me personally. Being a communications major I have taken the same basic classes for two and a half years now. During my freshman year I took an introductory class about African American history and thought this would be something that would draw my attention. African Americans in the history of our country have been put down for far to long starting from the time of slavery up until basically now where we are still seeing race issues in our country. During the first class period we talked about what we thought leadership was. Personally I believe leadership is the ability for a person to mobilize a group of people toward a common goal. The person must have some sort of charisma …show more content…
He joined the contract buyers club, which was a group of black homeowners in Chicago who wanted equal treatment then the others. Personally being from Chicago this was something that I had never known about and found to be irritating. Another thing I myself found to be unfair was the treatment of the houses African Americans lived in compared to white Americans. In Coats article he talks about Weatherspoon who visited her white friends houses and realized not only were they getting ripped off with the price of the houses but also what was inside. At the end of slavery the major labor force in the south were African Americans and whites took advantage of that. Although black people were free of slavery. In the south they passed what was called Black Codes. They were laws that basically restricted the freedom of many African Americans. Making them work terrible labor jobs with minimal pay. Another big topic that we spoke on during class was the idea of ideology. Ideology is a coherent set of beliefs that brings order to our understanding of how society works. African Americans in our nations past have been though a lot more then many of us may think. Though the first few readings I have already learned more then I would have thought and am excited for this semester to