Racism initiates a multitude of conflict, since “[u]ntil [such] philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war” (Marley). Such confrontation was evident in organized violence at the polls barring African Americans from true political participation, circumventing the 14th and 15th Amendments that prohibited denial of the rights to citizenship and voting. While the departure of immigrants during World War I triggered an influx of job opportunities in the North, Jim Crow laws and sharecropping in the South restricted African Americans with involuntary servitude and outweighed advancements from 1880 to the 1930’s. The Piano Lesson, a play by August Wilson, demonstrates
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After Lymon is arrested for stealing wood, “Mr. Stovall [comes] and [pays his] hundred dollars and the judge say [he] got to work for him to pay him back” (Wilson 37). Desperate to regain cheap labor lost from the end of slavery, Mr. Stovall has the financial capability to pay bail that Lymon is unable to afford, essentially buying him as a slave and depriving him of economic independence. In this way, African Americans were forced into harsh cycles of poverty under conditions mirroring slavery, trapped under an agrarian lifestyle that prevented them from rising to higher class jobs necessary for a stable income. However, some economic progress in the North was evident in Harlem, where “new-comers did not have to look for work; work looked for them” (Harlem). Even though job opportunities allowed African Americans to become valued as crucial components of a strong economy, the prevalence of racism in the North continued the exploitation of black Americans as whites refused to yield well-paying jobs at the risk of losing authority to those they deemed inferior. Denied the same opportunity as whites to achieve the American Dream, most African Americans were limited to fulfilling immigrant job openings that were generally lower-income jobs. Furthermore, Harlem’s high black American demographics categorize it as an exceptional case unrepresentative of the entire African American population. Unable to benefit from job opportunities, sharecroppers in the South faced similar situations as Lymon’s, since they could not “work off the plantation when there [was] any work to be done on the land [they had] rented” (Sharecropper). Due to the illiteracy of many African American sharecroppers, white landowners could easily exploit them by incorporating strenuous demands in contracts that inhibited
After Lymon is arrested for stealing wood, “Mr. Stovall [comes] and [pays his] hundred dollars and the judge say [he] got to work for him to pay him back” (Wilson 37). Desperate to regain cheap labor lost from the end of slavery, Mr. Stovall has the financial capability to pay bail that Lymon is unable to afford, essentially buying him as a slave and depriving him of economic independence. In this way, African Americans were forced into harsh cycles of poverty under conditions mirroring slavery, trapped under an agrarian lifestyle that prevented them from rising to higher class jobs necessary for a stable income. However, some economic progress in the North was evident in Harlem, where “new-comers did not have to look for work; work looked for them” (Harlem). Even though job opportunities allowed African Americans to become valued as crucial components of a strong economy, the prevalence of racism in the North continued the exploitation of black Americans as whites refused to yield well-paying jobs at the risk of losing authority to those they deemed inferior. Denied the same opportunity as whites to achieve the American Dream, most African Americans were limited to fulfilling immigrant job openings that were generally lower-income jobs. Furthermore, Harlem’s high black American demographics categorize it as an exceptional case unrepresentative of the entire African American population. Unable to benefit from job opportunities, sharecroppers in the South faced similar situations as Lymon’s, since they could not “work off the plantation when there [was] any work to be done on the land [they had] rented” (Sharecropper). Due to the illiteracy of many African American sharecroppers, white landowners could easily exploit them by incorporating strenuous demands in contracts that inhibited