Starting on December 1st, we will take you on a jolly adventure we're sure you'll remember even months after. Whether you love all things Christmassy, or you just prefer to witness all the festivities from afar, while enjoying peace and quiet, you w...
Even after the Civil War and the resultant progressive steps taken to liberate them, Black people in the United States would still face racist attitudes. Throughout it all, Black people would continue to show resilience as they demanded equal rights for themselves. Movements of resistance would rise as a reaction to acts of injustice, showing the fortitude of those who believed in what is right rather than what everyone said was right.
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Estimated to have operated from the late 18th century up until the Civil War, the Underground Railroad was a network of people Black and white offering shelter and aid to escaped enslaved people from the South. The roots of this effort seemed to have been laid by Quakers by determining routes and setting up shelters for escapees.
A lot of the escapees were from the border states of Kentucky, Virginia, and Maryland. 'Conductors' guided the enslaved people to shelters such as schoolhouses, churches, and private homes. These shelters were called 'stations', 'safe houses', or 'depots'. The people operating these shelters were called 'stationmasters'. There were several well-used routes including the ones going west through Ohio to Indiana and Iowa and those going north through Pennsylvania to New England or through Detroit to Canada.
🌟 Notable Names
The Underground Railroad was operated by common people, farmers, business owners, as well as ministers and some wealthy people. Some notable people involved with the railroad are as below:
Harriet Tubman – most famous conductor for the Underground Railroad, guiding several groups of people to Canada.
Frederick Douglas – former enslaved person, famed writer, and a stationmaster who hid fugitives in his home in Pennsylvania.
John Brown – a conductor of the Underground Railroad, established the League of Gileadites which helped fugitives escape to Canada.
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The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil rights protest against segregation during which African Americans refused to ride the city buses in Montgomery, Alabama. The boycott lasted for approximately a year. Only four days prior this, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat in the 'black' section of the bus which was against the rules that stated that if the white portion of the bus was full, Black people would be asked to give up their seats to accommodate white people.
Following this incident, the Women's Political Council (WPC), a civil rights organization of Black women, began distributing flyers calling for the boycott of the bus system. As news of the protest spread, African American leaders started lending their support as well. The boycott lasted for 381 days and to sustain it for that long of a period, African American cab drivers reduced their charges and people simply started walking to their destinations.
Initially, the boycott did not involve abolishing segregation of public transport, but once it was taken up, the courts had no choice but to grant it as 70 per cent of the people riding the buses were African Americans.
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The Selma to Montgomery march was a part of a series of civil rights protests that occurred in Alabama. In an effort to register Black voters in the South, protestors marched the 54-mile route from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery, but were confronted with violence from local authority and white separatist groups.
In February, a group of peaceful protestors was attacked by white segregationists in Marion, Alabama. In the resultant chaos, a state trooper shot a young African American, Jimmie Lee Jackson. In response, King planned a massive protest march from Selma to Montgomery. A group of 600 people set out on March 7, but were met with a barricade of state troopers wielding whips, nightsticks, and tear gas on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The brutal scene that followed was televised and sparked international outrage. On March 9, King led more than 2,000 people across the same bridge, but was once again met by state troopers blocking their way. King stopped his followers and led them in prayer. At this point, the state troopers moved aside, but King turned the protestors around, suspecting that the state troopers were trying to create a situation which would help them stop the march.
On March 15th, President Lyndon B. Johnson addressed the nation, pledging his support for the Selma to Montgomery march. He said "There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem." Following this, 2,000 people made the march from Selma to Montgomery, protected by U. S. Army troops. 50,000 supporters met the marchers in Montgomery where they gathered in front of the state capitol to hear Black leaders speak.
On 17th March, Congress passed the Voting Rights Acts of 1965 granting the right to vote to all African Americans. It specifically banned literacy tests as a requirement for voting.
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In a Facebook post, Alicia Garza mourned the acquittal of George Zimmerman who killed a Black teenager a year previously. Her post contained the phrase 'black lives matter' which soon became a rallying cry. The hashtag became a movement when there were subsequent killings of several African Americans such as Michael Brown and Eric Garner at the hands of local law enforcement or would-be-vigilantes like Zimmerman. It all came to a head in May 2020 after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers and the movement sparked protests and debates surrounding the issue.
The movement saw the support of people from all over the world and the kind of unity that creates inspiration and hope. Graphics and posts containing details of the victims of racial injustice began circulating social media, creating awareness and sparking further outrage against the flawed system.
