OPPapers.com

‘Discuss The Experiences Of / Attitudes Toward Negroes In The Deep South In 1969’

Reconstruction of the South began when the Civil War ended in 1865. The Union employed military governments that ensured reconstruction and equality between ‘white and black’ Americans in the Confederate states. When the Union withdrew troops in 1877, the southerners had regained political control and rights achieved by the African Americans were undermined as gradually, the government passed laws that re-established ‘white power’. Although the Negro community were not forced into slavery again, their lives were not much better. The African American community faced segregation, abuse; both physical and verbal by the community and racist organisations such as the ‘KKK’ (Ku Klux Klan) and they were also denied basic human rights including the right to vote, freedom of speech, freedom of association and more.

African Americans were treated like they carried a deadly plague. In the South, they were segregated from the Anglo-Saxon community in almost every way possible. Public transport including railroads was, by law, segregated with all the sections, other than specified areas being unavailable to ‘coloured’ people. All through the towns, signs saying “White’s Only” were not uncommon, being displayed in shops, restaurants, parks, movie theatres and various other public places. As seen in the film “Mississippi Burning” the Negro community were forced to sit at isolated tables in cafés and it was a great shock to the community to see a ‘white’ person seated there. The segregation reached the extremity where the two cultures expressed their faith in different Churches. Breaching these rules / outlines of what is permissible behaviour by the African American community result in serious punishment, not by the authorities, although they would do nothing to prevent the crimes that would later be committed by the white supremacist groups.

Being pulled from your bed in the middle of the night and being beaten within an inch of your life then left to hang off a tree and...