Still today, many people treat African-Americans if as though we are still in the eighteenth century as well as call them nasty names, especially with Don Imus calling some African-American women "nappy headed". Even though times are still rough, we would never have gotten close to this much "progress" without the heroes who really got the ball rolling for the betterment of African-Americans.
It all started with one of the most famous African-Americans, Harriet Tubman. She led slaves through a system called the underground railroad to help flee to safety. She helped transport over 70 slaves to safety. After the Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850, she even helped escaped slaves get into Canada and find jobs.
The next people who have been of great importance to us are the two great men who wanted to change this country; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were some of the greatest African-American men to have helped this country.
Malcolm X and MLK both believed that African Americans had just as much right as white person to ride on a bus, vote, or even eat wherever they wanted. Even though these men only met for only a minute in 1964, they both helped create a place where toleration could be a real thing.
Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech
This video really shows us how MLK really felt about the segregation and how he wanted to change it so much.
Malcolm X on the KKK
The Last person that I would like to talk about would be Rosa Parks. She was a woman who refused to give her seat on the bus to a white man, and because she did she was arrested for it. Many African-Americans were outraged by this and even caused the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Ms. Rosa Parks received many honors including the Springarn Medal, she was a courageous African-American woman who changed the way white people viewed African-Americans.
Ms. Rosa Parks' interview about her arrest
Poems:
Maya Angelou
THE BLACK FAMILY PLEDGE
THE BLACK FAMILY PLEDGE
BECAUSE we have forgotten our ancestors,
our children no longer give us honor.
BECAUSE we have lost the path our ancestors cleared
kneeling in perilous undergrowth,
our children cannot find their way.
BECAUSE we have banished the God of our ancestors,
our children cannot pray.
BECAUSE the old wails of our ancestors have faded beyond our hearing,
our children cannot hear us crying.
BECAUSE we have abandoned our wisdom of mothering and fathering,
our befuddled children give birth to children
they neither want nor understand.
BECAUSE we have forgotten how to love, the adversary is within our
gates, an holds us up to the mirror of the world shouting,
"Regard the loveless"
Therefore we pledge to bind ourselves to one another, to embrace our
lowliest, to keep company with our loneliest, to educate our illiterate,
to feed our starving, to clothe our ragged, to do all good things,
knowing that we are more than keepers of our brothers and sisters.
We ARE our brothers and sisters.
IN HONOR of those who toiled and implored God with golden tongues,
and in gratitude to the same God who brought us out of hopeless desolation, we make this pledge.
I really like this poem because Maya Angelou portrays very well how African-Americans should come together with everything and learn and soak in as much knowledge as they can possibly soak up.
African-Americans have been treated quite badly but along the way, these heroes have helped to push away the view that African-Americans are bad people. Even though MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech is not quite fulfilled, we are on our way to truly understanding our differences and being able to live harmoniously together, side by side.
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