Equality has always been a serious issue regards racial segregation in the South of the United States, especially in the Jim Crow Era. African-Americans were dehumanized and considered inferior compared to White Americans. They were treated unfairly and restricted in public places for their rights and resources were stripped. Based on the two autobiographical memoirs, Black boy and Separate Pasts, the authors have expressed their own opposite respective experiences of Blacks and Whites to show how the Constitution rights were overturned.
African slaves had to endure brutal working environments and continued to be treated destructively after they were freed. During the Reconstruction, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were implemented under …show more content…
To have witnessed and lived through the Jim Crow era, the African-American author Richard Wright had published Black Boy in 1946 to narrate the brutality that blacks have undergone. The author was born in 1908 in Roxie, Mississippi. He did not understand the racism when he was small, but he had noticed how black people were treated differently. He had brought the attention to his mom: “I had begun to notice that my mother became irritated when I questioned her about whites and blacks, and I could not quite understand it.” (Wright, 121). His mom understood the oppression that blacks had to endure in order be alive and not killed by whites. For instance, Richard’s uncle Hoskins was killed just because his salon was doing well and the white men got jealous. To explain his own perception of skin color more clearly, he quoted: “But the color of a Negro’s skin makes him easily recognizable, makes him suspect, coverts him into a defenseless target.” (Wright 28). Jim Crow laws officially segregated blacks from whites in any physical contacts. These differences created inequality and racist acts toward African Americans. They can be stopped and asked questions to where they were going and what they were doing at any time, especially after dark. These unspoken norms and actions led to racist inequality and became common in the American
African slaves had to endure brutal working environments and continued to be treated destructively after they were freed. During the Reconstruction, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were implemented under …show more content…
To have witnessed and lived through the Jim Crow era, the African-American author Richard Wright had published Black Boy in 1946 to narrate the brutality that blacks have undergone. The author was born in 1908 in Roxie, Mississippi. He did not understand the racism when he was small, but he had noticed how black people were treated differently. He had brought the attention to his mom: “I had begun to notice that my mother became irritated when I questioned her about whites and blacks, and I could not quite understand it.” (Wright, 121). His mom understood the oppression that blacks had to endure in order be alive and not killed by whites. For instance, Richard’s uncle Hoskins was killed just because his salon was doing well and the white men got jealous. To explain his own perception of skin color more clearly, he quoted: “But the color of a Negro’s skin makes him easily recognizable, makes him suspect, coverts him into a defenseless target.” (Wright 28). Jim Crow laws officially segregated blacks from whites in any physical contacts. These differences created inequality and racist acts toward African Americans. They can be stopped and asked questions to where they were going and what they were doing at any time, especially after dark. These unspoken norms and actions led to racist inequality and became common in the American