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I believe that the African Americans had the most diffcult time being accepted in America. They had
to deal with so many hardships and I believe they are still not truly accepted or considered equals in the U.S.
African Americans are the only nationality that did not, at least in the begging, migrated to the U.S. willingly
for a new beginning, and to add their culture to the great melting pot of America.
Before they were African Americans they were Africans. The humans that all other humans came from.
Some historians consider ancient Africa the cradle of human civilization. In Before the Mayfower,
Lerone Bennett, Jr., contended that the African ancestors of American Blacks were among the major
benefactors of the human race. (everyculture.com/African-Americans/History)
Much like the Native Americans they believed that the land belonged to the community. (everyculture.
com/African-Americans/History) African artisans maintained a steady trade in clothing, baskets, pottery, and
metal ware, but farming was a way of life for most Africans. (everyculture.com/African-Americans/History)
Before the slave trade started in the Americas, in Africa it dates back to the mid-ffteenth century where the
African owned slaves and regarded prisoners of war as sellable property, or chattel, of the head of a family.
(everyculture.com/African-Americans/History) unlike the slave holders in America,in Africa the children
of slaves could never be sold and were often freed by their owners. (everyculture.com/African-Americans/
History)
They frst made their way to America [i]n 1619, [when] Dutch merchants delivered the frst Africans
to Virginia. Before that, African had been used as slaves for hundreds of years and [i]n 1443, the frst African
slaves were taken by the Portuguese. The frst American Africans were labeled the Charter Nation. They were
a group who had participated in the Atlantic economy as businessmen and traders before being enslaved.
(Olson & Beal p97)
Te African Americans were unique in the manner in which they settled because they, unlike any other
nation were brought against their will, and forced into slavery. All other nationalities in Americas history,
besides the Native Americans, came here willingly and ofen risked their lives doing so.
African American faced almost constant obstacles from the power structure which at frst started with
the whites, soon to be slave owners. The need for cheap labor grew and the treatment of Africans began to
quickly decline.
By the second half of the 1600s, however, white colonial landowners began to see slavery as a solution
to their economic woes: the fateful system of forced black laborachieved through a program of
perpetual, involuntary servitudewas then set into motion in the colonies. Africans were strong,
inexpensive, and available in seemingly unlimited supplies from their native continent. (everyculture.
com/African-Americans/The First Africans in America)
Being forced into slavery was only the beginning of the obstacles that they would have to face. They
would eventually have to fght for all their human right that are now taken for granted. Most of the obstacles
they would have to face was the continually marginalized and exclusion.
History casts a dark shadow on the entire issue of black assimilation in the United States. For hundreds
of years, people of African descent were oppressed and exploited purely on the basis of the blackness of
their skin. The era of freedom that began in the mid-1780s in post-Revolutionary America excluded
blacks entirely; black Americans were considered less than human beings and faced discrimination in
every aspect of their lives. Many historians argue that slaverys legacy of social inequality has persist-
ed in American societyeven 130 years after the post-Civil War emancipation of slaves in the United
States. (everyculture.com/African-Americans/Acculturation and Assimilation)
African Americans had to deal with many more laws and acts of racism than any other nationality had to. There
were many methods of specifcally targeted black to prevent them from voting and tried to take away their
rights.
The Fifteenth Amendment, ratifed in 1870, granted black American men the right to vote. But the voting
rights amendment failed in its attempts to guarantee blacks the freedom to choose at the ballot box. Poll
taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses were established by some state and local governments to
deny blacks their right to vote. (everyculture.com/African-Americans/Politics and Government)
There were many Supreme Court Cases that marginalized and excluded African Americans. Plessy v.
Ferguson 1896 stemmed ...from a Louisiana law passed in 1890 that required separate accommodations for
blacks and whites on railroads; separate railroad cars (Packet p 16) Dred Scott vs. Sandford further condemned
blacks. Te Supreme Court ... ruled that slaves could not fle lawsuits because they lacked the status of a U.S.
citizen; in addition, an owner was said to have the right to transport a slave anywhere in U.S. territory without
changing the slaves status. (everyculture.com/African-Americans/Politics and Government) Also, the Jim
Crow laws of segregationallowing for legal, systematic discrimination on the basis of racewere accepted
throughout the nation. Voting rights abuses persisted. (everyculture.com/African-Americans/Politics and
Government) There were laws, acts and Supreme Court ruling that helped African Americans gain their
freedom, but they were slow in coming and Blacks had to fght for them. It wasnt until Brown v. Board of
Education was overturned that children werent forcibly segregated to diferent schools. In 1957, afer federal
courts had ordered Little Rock, Arkansas, to integrate its all-white high school, Governor Orval Faubus called
out the Arkansas National Guard to prevent African-American students from enrolling. (Olson & Beal p251)
Martin Luther King, Jr. was crucial in helping African Americans overcome the obstacles and getting
them their civil rights.
The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., took the helm of the fedgling civil rights movementa
multiracial effort to eliminate segregation and achieve equality for blacks through nonviolent resistance.
The movement began with the boycott of city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, and, by 1960, had
broadened in scope, becoming a national crusade for black rights. Over the next decade, civil rights
agitatorsblack and whiteorganized economic boycotts of racist businesses and attracted front-page
news coverage with black voter registration drives and anti-segregationist demonstrations, marches, and
sit-ins.(everyculture.com/African-Americans/Politics and Government)
Malcolm X also contributed to the civil right movement. His style was completely opposite to that of
Martin Luther King, Jr. Malcolm X advocated change ...by any means necessary... (everyculture.com/African-
Americans/Politics and Government) These two men, even though they had very separate styles, were able to
get this movement into the news and make real change.
Because African Americans were taken from their homeland and forced into slavery, many of their
customs and cultural identity was lost.
Legally excluded from the white world, blacks were forced to establish their own social, political,
and economic institutions. In the process of building a solid cultural base in the black community, they
formed a whole new identity: that of the African American. African Americans recognized their African
heritage, but now accepted America as home. (everyculture.com/African-Americans/Acculturation and
Assimilation)
Fortunately African Americans were resilient. They found a way, even under the watchful eye of the
slave owners to incorporate their culture with that of the white man. Except for proud frst-generation Africans
tenaciously holding to the faiths of their fathers, most slaves converted to Protestantism, but they imbued it with
an emotional spirit that was all their own.(Olson & Beal p104) They learned English, but it morphed into an
African American English that dropped predicate verbs, possessive constructions and gender pronouns (Olson
& Beal p104) Eventually they ...began to employ the European tactics of petitions, lawsuits, and organized
protest to fght for their rights. (everyculture.com/African-Americans/Acculturation and Assimilation) These
changes were less about losing cultural identity to be accepted and more about retaining ones sense of self for
survival.
African Americans have contributed to every facet of Americans lives. Samuel L. Kountz, an inter-
national leader in transplant surgery, successfully transplanted a kidney from a mother to a daughter, (every-
culture.com/African-Americans/Science and Technology) Maya Angelou, a renowned chronicler of the black
American experience, earned national acclaim in 1970 with the publication of the frst volume of her autobiog-
raphy, (everyculture.com/African-Americans/Literature) and Hattie McDaniel was awarded the 1940 Oscar for
best supporting actressthe frst Oscar ever won by an African American performer. (everyculture.com/Afri-
can-Americans/Film, Television, Theater,and Dance) My favorite is Neil deGrasse Tyson, a Writer, Scientist,
Television Personality and Astrophysicist who makes science and learning entertaining and fun. (biography.com/
biography.com/Biography)
African Americans have come a long way since1619, when they frst landed in America. As a group they
have shown immense strength and fortitude and perseverance. Of all the nationalities that have immigrated to
America, African Americans had the most difcult being accepted. I think that have added so much to American
culture and hope that soon African Americans will be truly accepted as equals.