African Americans

By: Shranda Call African Americans

Table of Content • Summary • Research Articles • Charts and Tables

African Americans • For many centuries, men and women have been classified as either being Black or White. Whites have always been viewed as the “ideal” race and the “ideal” color so most any one who is not of this color and heritage has had struggles at one point or another in their lives. • Blacks have had quite possibly the biggest struggles because of the relations between slavery which ruled so many of their lives for so many years. • I am centering my power point presentation on the struggles African Americans endured with the creation and the abolition of involuntary slavery and the differences between Blacks and other races in regards to their lives now.

Arriving in the New World • African Americans were the only race to involuntarily travel into the United States. They were brought into the country in large groups to be sold as slaves. • These men, women and children had no choice in leaving their country and families. • At least half of the Blacks believed they would never be freed and discrimination would never end. http://www.trinity.edu/mkearl/race.html

Life as a Slave The living conditions and working requirements for slaves were nearly unbearable • Working sun up to sun down, six days a week • Living in a one bedroom cabin with eight other family members • Weekly rations of one pound of pork and a peck of cornmeal • Only allowed to wear the clothes given to you by your owner • New pair of shoes or a blanket given only every three years • Slaves who fled their master’s presence were risking their lives in order to have freedom. • Slaves fled for many reasons such as psychological abuse, endless hours of hard labor and physical brutality. • Escaping to the North required a journey of a few hundred miles on foot. They had little access to food, water, or shelter. http://manassas.patch.com/articles/the-life-of-a-slave-on-historic-manassas-plantation http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/lincolns-underground-railroad/

Saying Goodbye to Slavery • On January 1st, 1863, in the third year of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. • Although the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t completely abolish slavery, it transformed the war by accepting Black men into the Union Army and Navy. • By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black men had fought for freedom in the United States. • On January 31st, 1865, the 13th amendment passed congress which formally abolished slavery in the United States. • The amendment states, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the Untied States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation/ http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=40

108,435 (11%) Free 893,602 (89%) Slaves 488,070 (11%) 3,953,760 (89%) These pie charts show the increase in the number of African Americans who came to the United States within those 60 years. The numbers significantly increased for both slaves and free Blacks, but the percentages remained fairly constant because of the large amount of Blacks coming into the country. http://www.google.com/imgres?q=graphs+on+African+American+slavery+in+US&um=1&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=598&tbm=isch&tbnid=0mVPLem77wma-M

This information is a best guess on the number of men, women and children who were taken from Africa and transported in slave ships. These estimates were taken from Morel’s calculations as reproduced by Professor Melville J. Herskovits http://academic.udayton.edu/race/02rights/slave04.htm

Income and wealth show major disparities between races. These graphs shows the extreme difference between Blacks and Whites in net worth and home equity and below shows the poverty level. - Race and Ethnic Relations, Eighth Edition P O L V E E V R E T L Y

African Americans