United States Accountable
Cultural renderings, social influences, artistic achievements, community wellbeing, and heightened endeavours are just a few aspirations realized by previously enslaved peoples that now manifest as uncompromised will to achieve by their erstwhile descendants—and intertwine socially, ethically, spiritually, politically, economically, morally, and ethnically as a force indelibly engraved in the consciousness of this nation to ensure it remains accountable to those moral principles and accolades of justice which it continues to espouse but in reality has yet to achieve.
—Truth Be Known
Angela Arrives
in Jamestown
As the United States marks the 400th anniversary when the first slaves arrived in Virginia, historians are trying to find out more about ‘Angela’ (her anglicised name), the first African woman documented who arrived on the shores of Jamestown in 1619. They see her as a seminal figure in American history — a symbol of 246 years of brutal subjugation that left millions of men, women and children enslaved prior to the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the intensity of enforced Jim Crow during and after the era of Reconstruction.
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Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
US Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws.
Scottsboro Boys (1931)
African American teenagers falsely accused of raping two white women.
Dread Scott (1857)
US Supreme Court ruled citizenship for blacks is not included in the Constitution.
A Legacy of Slavery—Black victimisation in the united states
African Americans & Aboriginal Peoples
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Jim Crow Laws
In the 1940s, African-Americans faced considerable obstacles in their everyday lives because of Jim Crow laws and unwritten, racially biased social codes. These laws and behaviors created strictly segregated barriers, and discrimination pervaded most areas of life. Despite these ongoing hardships, the 1940s was a time of creativity, increased economic opportunity and the beginning of the modern civil rights movement.
Jim Crow laws existed to disenfranchise black Americans and enforce segregation and discrimination. These laws forced African-Americans to use segregated schools, public restrooms, neighborhoods, transportation, and even separate and inferior hospitals. Failure to abide by explicit laws and accepted cultural norms resulted in fines, jail time, harassment, and even outright violence, especially against blacks who sought to challenge this inequitable system. The 1940s also saw an increase in activism and opportunities as the Black Press spoke out about unfair and unjust treatment, while nonprofit organizations and social groups worked to further social reforms. —Read More
Civil Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 contained provisions barring discrimination and segregation in education, public facilities, jobs, and housing. It created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to ensure fair hiring practices, and established a federal Community Relations Service to assist local communities with civil rights issues. The bill also authorized the US Office of Education to distribute financial aid to communities struggling to desegregate public schools.
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Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history.
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Brown v. Board of Education-Topeka
On May 17, 1954, when the Supreme Court ruled in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision that racial segregation in the public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment, it sparked national reactions ranging from elation to rage. As some Americans celebrated this important ruling and its impact on democracy, their early belief in Brown’s power to eliminate racial inequities in the public schools now reflects a hopeful naiveté and the beginning of a decades-long struggle to fulfill its promise. Whether one supported or opposed the Brown decision, it would have a profound impact on the direction of the nation’s educational system that transcends its original intent. While this case led to the growth of the modern civil rights movement and the expansion of educational opportunities for children apart from race, such as those with special needs, its complex history also reflects our nation’s difficulties in overcoming systemic racism and class discrimination. —Read More
Case Studies
A long and brutal history of racist policies has kept African Americans from experiencing social and economic viability through both legal and extralegal means. Case studies are entry-ways to understanding the nature of the African American experience in the United States.
Invalidating Civil Rights (2013)
The Supreme Court struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by freeing nine states, mostly in the South, to change their election laws without advance federal approval. The court had repeatedly upheld the law in earlier decisions, saying that the pre-clearance requirement was an effective tool to combat the legacy of lawless conduct by Southern officials bent on denying voting rights to blacks. These gains are now null and void.
Loving v. Virginia (1967)
Loving v. Virginia was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down all state laws banning interracial marriage as violations of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Civil Rights Cases (1883)
Cases involving application of the federal law were collected in this Case and presented to the Supreme Court (1882-1883). African-American protested their exclusion from various facilities.
Black Struggle For Freedom
The history of black civil rights is the story of America’s caste system. It is the story of how enslaved people were able to rise up and work together with political allies to overthrow a ridiculously unfair system.
Disenfranchisement
After the Reconstruction Era (1863-1877) a series of laws, new constitutions, and practices were deliberately enacted by the former Confederate states to prevent black citizens from registering to vote and voting.Slave Laws
Virginia was one of the first states to acknowledge slavery in its laws, initially enacting such a law in 1661. The following year, Virginia passed two laws that pertained solely to women who were slaves or indentured servants and to their illegitimate children.
Slave Traders
Franklin and Armfield headquartered their slave trading business in a townhouse in Alexandria, Va. Together, they sold more enslaved people, separated more families and made more money from the trade than almost anyone else in America. Between the 1820s and 1830s, the two men reigned as the “undisputed tycoons” of the domestic slave trade.Slavery in Virginia: A Selected Bibliography
Throughout much of Virginia’s early history until the Civil War, slavery was a major feature of life. Although the legal importing of slaves “by sea or land” may have stopped in 1778, the institution of slavery thrived in Virginia. As slaves became an increasingly larger part of society, the origins of Southern laws on slavery lie deep in seventeenth-century Virginia.
Center For American Progress
History of both explicit and structural racism has led to policies that have maintained and exacerbated racial disparities in many outcomes. To combat these problems and close these gaps, policymakers should call for new strategies that appeal to African American communities previously excluded, villainized, or ignored.Truth be known Blog
Revealing that which underpins inaccurate assessments and analogies of the Black experience in the United States since the arrival of the first documented African woman to the shores of Jamestown, Virginia in 1619.
Alligator Pepper
Alligator pepper (mbongo spice or hepper pepper) is a West African spice made from the seeds and seed pods of Aframomum danielli, A. citratum or A. exscapum, a close relative of grains obtained from the closely related species, Aframomum melegueta or “grains of paradise”.
Saffron Spice
Saffron spice is as old as humanity. It has been used since the Stone age. Traces of saffron pigment were proved by modern methods in a prehistoric cave in Iraq and in wall painting in Santorini (Greece).
Baghali Ghatogh Persian Food
To my delight, Baghali Ghatogh was a food I experienced during ny sojourny in Iran several years ago. Baghali Ghatogh, or beans stew, is one of the oldest local dishes of Gilan cuisine. High in nutritional value, it’s a delicious and hearty stew whose main ingredients are Rashti beans, but can be prepared using lima beans instead.
nebulous criterion
A self-declared “superior people” base their manufactured assumption about race primarily on skin color, support defective ideology, turn a blind eye to scientific facts, and wilfully strive to negate social stability. This psychosis, if not properly treated, forebodes a calamitous future for humanity. Near-history is dangerously close to being repeated.
Shackled with enforcing a false sense of racial superiority resulting in black repression to maintain their right to the social ladder, whites engage intellectual discourse using word-play to marginalize racism, and circumvent or minimize that which they believe will endanger their comfort zone, i.e., the ‘race’ bubble. Seemingly, there is little understanding, no remorse, and a lack of moral will to cease those unjust activities exert psychological damage on human society.
This will be difficult because without black repression, whites fear becoming invisible, and weakening racial superiority means diminished social standing. Because their lives are deeply engrained with this nebulous criterion, there are no limits to their desire to maintain a social standard based on ‘race’ and all that spurious concept embodies. Because so much ‘white power’ is steeped in racist ideology, outcomes do not bode well for the future of American society.