Simone Thomas - Driven: A 107 Year Fight for Equality

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free These words are carved on the Statue of Liberty, standing in New York Harbor as a symbol of America's promise of freedom for all. Our national anthem also tells us we're in the land of the free. Since before America was even a country, millions of people have come here looking for a better life. And often they find just that.

But black Americans have a very different history. Most early black Americans did not come here in search of a better life. Instead, they were brought here by force. The first set of enslaved Africans arrived in America on August 20, 1619, over 400 years ago. For 246 years, few black Americans had any freedom or control over their own lives, bodies, or families. In much of America, c hattelslavery lasted until June 19, 1865. Since that time, black people in this country have fought to fully enjoy the freedoms of American citizenship.

Even though the practice of enslaving black people came to an end in 1865, this did not mean that all Americans were ready to accept black people as their neighbors and equal citizens. Many still believed that black people- even those who had never been enslaved- were not as good as others. They wanted black people to stay in their place as second-class citizens. And some tried everything they could to keep them in that place. The fight to end discrimination has been a long and complicated one.

chattel slavery - a system in which the enslaved have no human rights

discrimination - unfair treatment of one or more groups

The War Between the States

Have you heard of the Civil War? It was fought from 1861-1865 between northern American states and southern American states. The war started, in part, because the southern states did not want to free the enslaved people. When the federal government tried to force them to do it, the southern states decided to separate from America and form their own country.

Public Domain Image

The Confederate States of America- Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas- went to war to protect the right of states to make their own laws without the federal government getting in the way. The United States, or the Union, went to war to keep the country together. After four years of fighting, the Union won the war. The Confederate states rejoined the country and were forced to free all black Americans from slavery.

Rebuilding America

What came after the war was a period called Reconstruction. 'Construction' is just another word for 'building.' Between 1865-1877 America was trying to rebuild itself and trying to figure out just what to do with her newest citizens. During Reconstruction, black Americans were recognized as citizens for the first time and given the right to vote. For 12 years, soldiers were sent to the southern states to protect the newly freed people from violence because some folks refused to accept that they were no longer property and now had rights.

In 1877, Reconstruction ended and the soldiers left the south. Segregation quickly became a way of life.

The southern states all passed laws ensuring that black people and white people lived in separate neighborhoods, went to separate schools, and used separate restrooms and water fountains. Some restaurants didn't serve black people at all, and others made them pick up their orders from a door or window in the back of the building. Many public places either kept black people out or only admitted them on particular days. For example, many city zoos had Negro Day on one day each week. All other days were for white visitors only.

Source: Library of Congress

A black person could not even walk into a department store and try on a pair of shoes. They had to draw an outline of their foot on a large piece of paperusually an old grocery bagand carry that into the store to choose the proper shoe size.

Segregation limited almost every aspect of black southerners lives.

Almost 20 years after the end of Reconstruction, one case led the U.S. Supreme Court to make a decision about whether these laws were constitutional or not. And that was about public transportation. In the Plessy v. Ferguson case, the Supreme Court decided that separate but equal was legal in the United States. It was okay to have separate spaces for black and white people, as long as the black spaces were equal to the white spaces. The trouble was, most often the separate part of the law was enforced but not the equal part.

Public transportation was tricky. It would be too expensive to have separate trains and buses for black and white riders. So they found other ways to keep people apart. Usually, the seats in the front were for white riders, and the seats in the back were for black riders. A crowded train or bus meant that black riders had to give up their seats altogether. Often on city buses, black riders had to climb the front steps, pay the driver, get off, and then go to a back door to get back on. Sometimes drivers would leave them after they had already paid their fares.

For trains and buses that traveled across the country, separate but equal was even more complicated. A traveler going from a northern city to a southern city would face one set of laws in the north, and then another set of laws when they entered the south. It was possible that a black rider could ride in the front of a bus at the beginning of a trip, and then have to move to the back once they entered the segregated states.