Research Work

Slavery

Blacks became slaves in the American Colonies during the 1600's. People were getting more slaves in the South where large plantations grew cotton and other crops. These plantations needed many workers to take care of the farms. People in the North didn't need slaves because they didn't have as many large farms as the South did.

U.S. slaves came from West Africa, mainly Nigeria, Ghana, Angola, Senegambia, and Congo.

Plantation owners were mainly the ones who bought the slaves and owned them. The region then was dominated by plantations and there was a need for workers to help in the workforce required in those plantations.

There were laws the slaves had to abide to. Slaves could not marry the whites or else they would be fined. Also, runaway slaves who refused to be arrested might be lawfully killed. Slaves were forbidden to carry arms, offensive or defensive, or to go off the plantations of their masters without a written pass, or to lift a hand against a Christian, even in self-defense.

Civil Wars

The southern states of America: Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, south Carolina, north Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Washington D.C., Maryland, and Delaware.

The president who proclaimed war against the south was Abraham Lincoln.

The civil war was fought because the southern states seceded from the union as they did not want to abolish slavery and the government saw that as a rebellion, thus the civil war started.

The war was fought from April 12, 1861 to April 9, 1865

In the end slavery was abolished in the southern states and the slaves all freed from slavery.

The civil rights movement began on December 1, 1955

The civil rights movement was a mass protest movement against racial segregation and discrimination in the southern United States.

In December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man, which lead to her arrest and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In another incident, to pressure the government and Congress to act more quickly on the civil rights agenda, a massive march on the nation's capital was planned, scheduled, and carried out on August 28th, 1963. According to estimates, over 250,000 participated in the peaceful demonstration which culminated in the speech given by Reverend Martin Luther King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott and Scottsboro trials

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was sparked off by the ruling of the court, which issued a fine to a Negro woman, just because she was unwilling to give up her seat to a white woman on the bus. Rosa Parks, who was the victim, appealed, but failed to receive any satisfactory answer. The crowd then began the boycott and was successful. This trial held great significance as because of this, the Alabama and Montgomery laws which required racially segregated bus was abandoned.

The Scottsboro trial made history as it was the first time a Negro was not issued a death penalty although he was convicted of rape. It was also the first time a Negro received a fair trail, impartial juries and decisions not made out of racial discrimination.

In the novel, Tom Robinson is also convicted of rape although he did not commit this offence, somewhat similar to the Scottsboro Boys case when the boy was also convicted of rape and they tried to fight to prove their innocence. The Tom Robinson case also made a “mark of history” as it was the first time a Negro rape-related case took so much time to come to a verdict. As stated in the book, one of the jury fought for Tom Robinson’s innocence, just like the Scottsboro Boys case which was the first case to receive a fair verdict. Both lost the case at the first attempt, but the appeals both made was successful.

Jim Crow's Laws

The Jim Crow's law states that African Americans are inferior to the white Americans and declares a wide racial segregation to be put in place, for example on buses, where people of different races are segregated and would be punished if they did not follow the segregation.

They were angry and tried to fight for their equality that they felt that they deserved.

An example of Jim Crow's law that was evidently shown in the novel was the Tom Robinson case. He was treated unfairly by all the members of the jury except one just because he is a Negro. He did not receive a fair judgement and this is also because of the Jim Crow's Laws.