How have African-Americans worked to end segregation, discrimination, Essay

How have African-Americans worked to end segregation, discrimination, and isolation to attain equality and civil rights - Essay Example Now this is about the same time that African Americans also first started making their appearance in the military. To maintain unity and to help stop aggression black were beginning to be recruited. Still at this time the racial tension between the blacks and whites was very critical. The battle to end slavery was supposed to have ended, but in reality had just begun. In 1863 Abraham Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation to allow blacks to join the military. However the American society still largely discouraged any social relations with people of different color. So, although the process of integration had already started there was still a huge battle to be bought for everyone involved (Massey, Douglas S., p.110). During the Civil War, the South literally depended on black labor to help them maintain their present economy. Without the black at this time, the south would not have had enough people to produce the grain in which the completely relied upon. The Confederated autho rities also used their slaves to construct forts, and some states such as Virginia even required slave owners to lease their slaves out for labor. The south was also very hard and cruel to their slaves. The Confederate leaders treated the blacks as if they were animals and forced them to do as much hard work as they could. The south still basically believed that blacks were meant to be slaves and should remain under complete control of their masters. Now the North, at the same time was now employing about 200,000 of approximately one half million blacks that escaped slavery into the Union territory. As the first steps in the desegregation of the nation the North was letting the former slave come into their land and was employing them as teamster, carpenters, cooks, nurses, and scouts. Many of the escaped blacks even worked for the Union army as informants to explain many of the Confederated armies’ plans and information (Godsil, Rachel D., p 1110). The blacks eventually becam e a very important part of the military service in the Union military forces. Even though most of the leaders were still white, the African American people had finally started making real progress with the integration into the white society. This first major step into society was basically seen as a trial by blood. It was simply known that whenever someone was willing to give his life in the line of battle for the same cause as his military force, it was considered the ultimate sacrifice and was now completely accepted in on the battle lines. However, even though the blacks were now helping with the labor and even the fighting by their own free will now, there was still much hatred and conflict between certain groups of people who still wanted racial segregation in their land. Even though it was considered illegal to act in violence just because of the race of a person, there were still many groups even in the North country who just could not completely accept the colored people amo ng them, and this also lead to much bloodshed in their own territory. There were 38 African American people lynched by the Klu Klux Klan in 1917, and 58 more lynching the following year. After the civil war 70 black veterans were also killed in cold blood because of all of the hatred still within the general society as a whole (Payne, Richard J.,p. 91). The Klu Klux Klan was a racial hatred group that was responsible for many murders of the blacks at that time, and even still