White Supremacy in America

American history teachers from our youth to high school have taught us the general ideas of slavery, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights movements. But failed at giving students the details of the time eras leading to Civil Rights, they left out the impacted African-American lives due to white supremacy. In what ways did this shape black lives due to this problem? How did people try to change it? These questions are raised due to the progress and setbacks during the end of Reconstruction to the Great Migration.

White supremacy in America during these time eras uncover how black lives were shaped due to making a living for themselves, World War I, and The Great Depression. African-Americans needed to provide for their families and themselves but had many hardships to do so. Being a black person in America during the Great Migration had difficulty on finding good, solid jobs especially in north. African-Americans before the Great Migration were forced into making a living for themselves by the black codes in the south, which was the sharecropping system that made it hard for black folks to make profit from the work they were doing. Later, black people from the south were promised good jobs and a better life if they moved to northern, western states. When they arrived, it was not what they had expected, housing was hard to find in bigger cities for black people and white housing owners had restrictions for people of color.

So, they were unable to buy or rent houses in certain areas of the town, black folks also would have to pay higher rent in poor housing conditions. Living in white neighborhoods had many downfalls with the violence that would occur because of people not being open to the idea that black families were living near them. Jobs for black folks were “promised” due to WWI but when the white soldiers came back, the white men would get their old jobs back and African-Americans were out of a job and it was difficult, almost impossible, to find another job that would pay the bills. White supremacy impacted black folks trying to make a living for themselves and made African-Americans have major setbacks due to World War I.

World War I made life hard for black folks trying to make their way up in the world, just said in the last paragraph, black folks were forced out of jobs when white soldiers came back from war. But even before this, the United States needed soldiers but why would African-Americans fight in this war? They were not free, why should they fight and risk their own lives for others freedom? W. E. B. Dubois spoke out about black people going to war and wearing the uniform to show white people their value and earn their respect. This was not the case for some in the south, when black soldiers returned home in their uniform, white men were insulted. These black soldiers were either attacked by these white men or worst case, lynched. These white supremacists impacted these black soldiers, who fought for the freedom of others during the war, by demanding respect and showing these black soldiers that they will never be considered an equal to a white man. White supremacy made these black soldiers feel inferior to what they had just done for our country, they were never treated with the respect that W. E. B Dubois attempted to do for these black American soldiers. This would make African-Americans scared to speak out or do things that were against what white men thought was not right because it could be at the cost of their own lives.

The Great Migration in no way was the “safe haven” for African-Americans, they still faced inequalities in both the north and the south. The Great Depression had an impact on African-American lives, but they were already impacted beforehand. According to scholar 1Cheryl Greenberg in Sex Workers, Psychics, and Numbers Runners written by LaShawn Harris, writes “Most African-Americans did not have far to fall when the Great Depression arrived. Even before 1929, the vast majority lived in desperate poverty. ” A large portion of black folks already lived in poverty, due to the injustices of white supremacy impacting high rent black folks had to pay and lack of a steady job. This statement said by 1Greenberg just demonstrates the difficult lives African-Americans had to face during this time era. Even before the Great Depression, African-Americans were in difficult living conditions and were barely getting with providing for their families. Black families having to pay for housing, children’s necessities, food, clothes, and other expenses, but not having a good paying job to cover all these things because of the lack of jobs. Jobs in solid working conditions were hard to find, which is why many African-Americans struggled. Not only was it hard for white people to find jobs during the Great Depression, but even more difficult for black folks. In a way black people were already use to this way of life even before the Great Depression, most white people living in bigger cities never really had to worry about things that blacks had to worry about until the Great Depression hit.

Life for African-Americans during this time era had a large impact due to white supremacy, they faced inequalities that made life so much harder. Black folks never got the chance that they deserved as being a person of the United States, they had to work much harder or found ways to outsmart the system. These struggles of making a living for themselves, World War I, and The Great Depression all made the community of black folks stronger in the hardships of white supremacy. They wanted to change the ways of America, these problems of white supremacy that was all around them, made them want to fight against the injustices, racism, and inequality.