How You Livin’
If you were to document the lives of African Americans from our arrival on this continent it would be a daunting task for one to complete. To make it easier one could just focus on eras such as slavery, reconstruction, post-reconstruction so on and so on. In my honest opinion the single most important period of African American life in the United States would have to be segregation. Segregation was the perfect middle between slavery and freedom in the eyes of oppressors such as our “beloved” Governor Benjamin Tillman. Segregation would forever change the lives of African Americans from the south. One of the biggest reactions to segregation was The Great Migration which saw many blacks travel north in hopes of escaping the conditions …show more content…
If you were to try and accumulate a list for issues surrounding blacks in the south during this post reconstruction era, only one could show its ugly head, the villainous act of lynching. Lynching is by far the most sickening act that can be performed on a human being. Ida B Wells created a great account of this travesty. Imagine this heinous crime performed on countless innocent men. The act of hanging a lifeless innocent vessel to be put on display and have target practice on, is enough to drive any person who remotely resembles the constant victims to flee from the region. This became an epidemic in the south. Black men were lynched by white men, the very same white men who were religious leaders in their churches and raped defenseless black women. How could someone who belonged to a race that was under these circumstances truly call that place home? This was big factor in the great migration that made this African Americans leave the south. The north did not possess nearly as hostile conditions for blacks. There may have been the typical personal prejudices but never anything this level. As a black man reading about these times resonate greatly with me. I view it in comparison to present day. It becomes hard to fathom that these situations were once reality. The inability to have a relationship with a woman of the opposite race was seen as grounds for my death by lynching if she says the word was real. The inability to protect my wife, daughter, or mother from rape and have her aggressor roam freely is something I could not live with. For those reasons alone lynching is a social matter that made life in the south as an African American
If you were to document the lives of African Americans from our arrival on this continent it would be a daunting task for one to complete. To make it easier one could just focus on eras such as slavery, reconstruction, post-reconstruction so on and so on. In my honest opinion the single most important period of African American life in the United States would have to be segregation. Segregation was the perfect middle between slavery and freedom in the eyes of oppressors such as our “beloved” Governor Benjamin Tillman. Segregation would forever change the lives of African Americans from the south. One of the biggest reactions to segregation was The Great Migration which saw many blacks travel north in hopes of escaping the conditions …show more content…
If you were to try and accumulate a list for issues surrounding blacks in the south during this post reconstruction era, only one could show its ugly head, the villainous act of lynching. Lynching is by far the most sickening act that can be performed on a human being. Ida B Wells created a great account of this travesty. Imagine this heinous crime performed on countless innocent men. The act of hanging a lifeless innocent vessel to be put on display and have target practice on, is enough to drive any person who remotely resembles the constant victims to flee from the region. This became an epidemic in the south. Black men were lynched by white men, the very same white men who were religious leaders in their churches and raped defenseless black women. How could someone who belonged to a race that was under these circumstances truly call that place home? This was big factor in the great migration that made this African Americans leave the south. The north did not possess nearly as hostile conditions for blacks. There may have been the typical personal prejudices but never anything this level. As a black man reading about these times resonate greatly with me. I view it in comparison to present day. It becomes hard to fathom that these situations were once reality. The inability to have a relationship with a woman of the opposite race was seen as grounds for my death by lynching if she says the word was real. The inability to protect my wife, daughter, or mother from rape and have her aggressor roam freely is something I could not live with. For those reasons alone lynching is a social matter that made life in the south as an African American