Right or Wong ?!

THE SEGREGATION

In the United States, the Civil War which pitted the southern states (slavery) against the northern states, ended slavery in 1865 (remember: in 1848 in French colonies like Martinique!).

During the period of “reconstruction”, black people’s situation improved, which was greatly displeased by many white Americans in the southern states. Black lynchings or black house fires, for example. These crimes and abuses are committed by the Klu Klux Klan.

                                                                                          The Klu Klux Klan group

There are many African Americans who have rebelled or mobilized against this segregation.  They organize peaceful marches to denounce these injustices and demand the same rights as white citizens.

The best known African Americans who have fought against segregation are Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.
Blacks finally obtained their civil rights with the Civil Rights Act in 1964, which prohibited all forms of discrimination in public places, a text supplemented by the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

HISTORICAL FIGURES

ROSA PARKS:

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an activist in the Civil Rights Movement, whom the United States Congress called “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement”

Martin Luther King:

Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 through 1968. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using the tactics of nonviolence and civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs and inspired by the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi.

Malcom X:

Malcolm X (1925–1965) was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans; detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history.

THE SLAVES

Slavery was practiced throughout the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries, and African slaves helped build the new nation into an economic powerhouse through the production of lucrative crops such as tobacco and cotton. By the mid-19th century, America’s westward expansion and the abolition movement provoked a great debate over slavery that would tear the nation apart in the bloody Civil War. Though the Union victory freed the nation’s four million slaves, the legacy of slavery continued to influence American history, from the Reconstruction era to the civil rights movement that emerged a century after emancipation.