"I hear that melting-pot stuff a lot, and all I can say is that we haven't melted." -- Jesse JacksonThe history of black civil rights is the story of America's caste system. It is the story of how for centuries upper-class whites made African Americans into a slave class, easily identifiable because of their dark skin, and then reaped the benefits--sometimes using law, sometimes using religion, sometimes using violence to keep this system in place.
Activists have made incredible progress over the past 150 years, but institutional racism is still one of the strongest social forces in America today. If you'd like to help do away with it, here are some organizations to look into:
- The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
- The National Urban League
- The Southern Poverty Law Center
- ACLU - Racial Justice Program
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- History of the Atlantic Slave Trade in America (1528-1807)Frederick Gooddall's "Song of the Nubian Slave" (1863)
- History of Slavery in the United States (1808-1865)Harriet Tubman (1911)
- History of the Early Jim Crow Era (1866-1920)Ex-Slave Henry Robinson (1937)
- History of the Early Civil Rights Movement (1921-1953)Waldorf Negro Elementary School in Charles County, Maryland
- History of the Civil Rights Era (1954-1968)The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom - August 28, 1963
- History of the Civil Rights Backlash (1969-1992)Ronald Reagan Accepts the 1980 Republican Party Presidential Nomination
- History of the Modern Civil Rights Movement (1993-)NAACP Rally Outside Supreme Court - December 4, 2006
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