Describe the disadvantages that black Americans faced during the early 1950s
The Black population during the 1950s suffered many problems throughout North and South America. There disadvantages consisted on social life, political life and economical life. Segregation occurred in North and South of America. Segregation between blacks and whites were legal in the south and the Blacks were on the short end of the stick receiving all the disadvantages. Blacks had to use separate waiting stations, attend their own schools and churches and eat in separate restaurants. They were constantly reminded of their inferior status. They were referred to as ‘boy’ or ‘girl’.
The law that enforced segregation in the south was called the Jim Crow law. The origin of the Jim Crow law is from American entertainment in the 19th century. Began in February 1843 were four white people ‘Virginia Minstrels’ were racist performers. They would dress up as black people and start singing and dancing. Jim Crow was named after one of the characters. A song was named after this and then the law. The actual law was passed down to the southern state in 1914 which segregated the black community from the white community, treating the Blacks unfairly.
The Jim Crow law left Black citizens politically, economically and socially disadvantaged. A political example is voting, you had to be educated to vote (read and write) and the black community weren’t given the opportunity to be educated due to segregation of schools. This meant that the white population could vote for laws which were unfavourable to the black community. Other disadvantages were that Blacks couldn’t use the same fountains as white, they couldn’t sit on the same bus seats as whites and that they had to give up their seat for them, they couldn’t have the same education or schools as the whites, they couldn’t eat from the same washed plates as whites and they had to be seated away from the whites. This all made Black people feel...