Racism in America
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“I have a dream, that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed; we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”-1963, march on Washington, an interracial crowd of over 250000 people, a dream that drove Martin Luther King Junior throughout his life.
“For tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today” – 2010, Howick College, yr11 English interracial class, a quote that drove Maxine van Rooyen to help change the world.
We learn from the past; live in the present and we rarely think about what sort of world we are leaving for future generations. But when this thought does cross our minds, so do the thoughts of global warming; over population; poverty and pollution.
As for me, I think about the social interactions of racial discrimination and one large question; has this challenging issue really been discarded from our global nation?
Gone are the days when blacks and whites were allocated different water fountains; gone are the days when slaves were held against their will; gone are the days when blacks and whites were unable to stand together. Yes, this brings me to the heart of racism: the American black civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Many years of the 1900s racism were a large part of society. Gangs such as the Ku Klux Klan, known as the KKK, were prejudice towards coloureds. They would perform tortuous acts like burning their houses down or lynching, a term in which a coloured was hung at the neck on a tree.
It was years that people in South America of a darker skin colour lived n fear of being attacked and murdered. Until the day when i brave lady of colour sat in the white allocated area of a bus. Her name was Rosa Park and she was arrested for refusing to give her seat up for a white man.
This attempt to prove that all people are equal lead to another great act in history. A man by the name of Martin Luther King Junior took a stand and was inspired by Rosa Parks to lead multiple marches and boycotts across the Southern states of America in support to stop legal segregation.
April, 1963, Washington, Martin Luther King Junior presented a speech to over 250000 people, letting them know his dream of living in a nation where one is not judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.
That night, Martin Luther King Junior was killed. The law of segregation was soon passed and became illegal in America. But this issue not only took place in America, it also occurred in South Africa.
1948, the beginning of the South African apartheid. A legal segregation according to skin colour. The government segregated medical care, education and other public services. Apartheid sparked significant violence and imprisonment of those who were anti-apartheid.
Eventually,