Black Americans
About twenty-seven million people, or a little more than one-tenth of all United States citizens, are descended from people brought across the Atlantic from Africa between 150 and 300 years ago as slave. The consequences of this ancient trade have brought trouble and embarrassment to the American Republic from the time of its foundation.
From the beginning the colonists in Pennsylvania, New York, and New England stayed out of the slave trade, but they could not stop the plantation owners of the South from buying slaves from Africa a trade shared by the West Indies and the southern continent. Towards 1800 the southern states stopped the trade, and from then onwards no more slave ships came in, except for a few which came illegally. But by then there were nearly a million slaves in plantation of the South, and the U. S. Constitution had not changed their status. Southern slavery was ended only with the victory of the northern states in the civil war of 1861-1865. The U. S. constitution was amended so as to outlaw slavery, and to grant automatic citizenship and the equal protection of the laws to any person born in the United States.
But long after 1865 the dominant whites in most of the South were still finding ways of excluding black citizens from real equality. Several of these devices, particularly those affecting voting rights, were found at various dates to be unconstitutional after argument before the Supreme Court of the United States. But even in the 1950s there were cases of southern black people being intimidated when they came to register as voters; and in the South there were still separate school, separate seats in local buses, even separate hospital car parks and whites-only facilities of many kinds. Black opposition to discrimination was led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, with strong support from liberally-minded whites. The 1950s brought the beginning of major change.
Back in 1896 the Supreme Court had ruled that if an education authority provided separate school of black and white children, there was no denial of the equal protection of the laws, as guaranteed by the Constitution provided that the separate school were of equal quality. In 1954 the Court ruled that experience showed that separate school could not be of equal quality, so the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment could not allow states to provide separate education.
At this time a black clergyman, Martin Luther King, became the informal leader of active movements of non-violent protest against racial segregation of all kinds, and he gained admiring support from white Americans in the South as well as in the North. King came to the center of the stage at the time when television was becoming widely available. When defenders of the white supremacist traditions of the South reacted violently against a peaceful campaign for equal treatment, television showed the unpleasant scenes which they provoked. When the University of Mississippi admitted its first black student in 1962, he met with such threats of violence that he had to be protected by large groups of armed soldiers wherever he went. The people responsible for this intimidation soon learned that their actions were seen on television with hostile commentary, throughout the world. They could see that they brought shame, not just upon themselves, but upon their country.
After the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, his successor as President, Lyndon Johnson, expanded his ideas and led Congress to pass laws to eliminate racial discrimination. Southern racism was soon in full retreat, and its downfall owed much to the charisma of Luther King, the symbol of the crusade against it. In 1969, Luther King became a martyr too, and like Kennedy and his brother, he was assassinated. Later the U. S. Congress set aside one day each year as a national holiday in his memory an honor given to only one other man, George Washington, the nations first President.
2008年12月20日3G雅思考试预测
2008年9月18日雅思(ielts)写作考试预测试题
2009年雅思考试听力题型预测
2008年10月雅思写作预测
10月雅思写作集中预测
2008年11月8日雅思听力预测
2008年11月雅思写作预测
2009年1月雅思听力提前预测
2009年1月15/17日雅思阅读部分预测
2008年10月25日雅思写作预测
雅思听力预测
2008年11月8日雅思考试全面预测和复习指导
11月29日雅思口试压题:考试还是老题
2008年11月8日雅思考试预测——翡翠冰糖版
11月8日雅思考试冲刺作文写法指导和范文
2008年10月25日雅思考试预测——翡翠冰糖版
2008年8月30日雅思考试预测——翡翠冰糖版
2008年10月25日雅思写作预测
2008年10月25日雅思(ielts)听力预测
2008年10月11日3G雅思考试预测
2009年1月10日雅思写作预测
11月8日雅思听力预测与精听剑桥方法
2008年11月29日雅思听力预测
11月雅思重点考题:Someone you Admire
2008年10月11日雅思(ielts)写作考试预测
11月8号雅思口语万用TSE原则与范文变形
名师预测:8月全国雅思口语重点考题
2008年12月雅思考试听力预测
08年10月雅思口语重点考题
2008年10月11日雅思口语考试预测试题
不限 |
英语教案 |
英语课件 |
英语试题 |
不限 |
不限 |
上册 |
下册 |
不限 |