At the Jim crow Era, for free black men and women, they began to acquire some of the power resources to enter the mainstream society which dominated by Anglo majority. It was the competitive period between the blacks and whites. But when the North gradually compromised to the south because of the presidential elections, the southern state governments, legislatures, and courts were again controlled by whites in the South and succeeded in passing laws that segregated and disenfranchised African Americans. A series of Jim crow laws mainly aimed at African Americans in the southern states of the United States and amused white audiences. This legal apartheid forced that public facilities must be segregated according to race, and under the principle of separate but equal. Apartheid is interpreted as not sharing the same protection rights guaranteed by the Constitution and thus persisted. But in fact, black people can enjoy were often worse than that of white people, and such differential treatments had also caused blacks to be in relatively weak position in economic, educational and social fields for a long time.
In additions, the rise of vigilante groups, the kkk, mostly used violence, terror, burning houses, shooting and lynching to hurt blacks in the south. Black people experienced a series of painful physical and spiritual oppressions at that time. During the early periods of the caste system, the African-American people’s rights movement rose. For example, a leader, Booker T. Washington, spoke at a segregated fair “separate like the fingers, united by the hand” and contended that the most realistic course was to accept the form of separatism and segregation in exchange for the opportunity of education and economics. After a series of emergence of black leaderships, prohibiting any form of apartheid and discrimination in law, Jim Crow laws officially entered history at the legal level.
Personally, I did not really know about the Jim crow laws, but I know that these were used as ways to restrict African Americans from having the same opportunities as white people. As simple as a water fountain was something that was restricted and could not be shared. Racial apartheid also affected Black people socially, economically, and psychologically. It created a mindset that they could only amount to what abilities the white people would allow. The only job that they could get was working with their former slave owners and the pay was just enough to keep them going but they could never get out of their job there. This affected them psychologically because they then think of themselves not as free people anymore because they were still trapped in this lifestyle of unfairness. At the same time, they wouldn’t participate in white events and had no rights as white people had. The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow goes into depth and I learn some new things that I have never heard before. I learn that education was key as African Americans grew up. They worked harder than we could ever imagine to be able to go to good schools to be able to receive the education that would soon later lead to the abolishment of the laws so African Americans could receive equality. They have an eager mood to pursue racial equality and enjoy the peaceful life. The video describes how the constant humiliation—at best—that blacks faced for a century after they had ostensibly won their freedom came to be. Different perspectives of people also showed how hard African Americans insisted on the pursuit of complete civil rights, argued for complete incorporation into all areas of society and worked to be able to be middle class. Mostly, what I learned from this video is that education is powerful. More powerful than we think it is. It is significant in being able to know what you want out of life and what you will do to be able to get it. Giving up should not be an option when it comes to knowing that you can be able to change the world in a positive way.
