However, back in the nineteenth century, violent and open racism was widespread.The Ku Klux Klan originated in the southern states of the US during the "Reconstruction" following the American Civil War. The original Klan was set up in Pulaski, Tennessee, on December 24, 1865, by six former Confederate army officers who gave their society a name adapted from the Greek word kuklos (circle). It was a strong society that gained millions of members and still exists today, but in smaller parties such as The Knights of The KKK. The "Invisible Empire" used the Bible to back their hate crimes and murder against African Americans and ethnic minorities. One such example of this is the Hebrew word chayah, which translates to living thing, but they translate it to "beast". The Bible excerpts seem to all contain mention of a biped beast who "can talk, riot, commit adultery, co-habit with man, work in the vineyards, use his hands, wear clothing, cry unto his creator and sow his seed with other races". The KKK then states that the description must be a "Negro". They were responsible for over one thousand five hundred lynchings (strangulation) to Black people. The Ku Klux Klan was not the only racist society to exist and many more were also set up. They included the John Birch Society, Invisible Empire, NAAWP, White Aryan Resistance, American Front, Nazi Skinheads, Posse Comitatus, Aryan Nations, The Order, and National Alliance. They all had the same purpose, to spread racism.
1930's Mississippi was a harsh place for black Americans. Slavery had long been abolished but white people still treated blacks like slaves. The book "Roll of thunder, hear my cry" is a piece of fictional prose that accurately describes life in the South during the Depression when both black and white people were suffering due to economic instability. The main character is Cassie Logan a young black girl who lives with her three brothers, mother and father and grandmother. The Logans are a proud black family who live on a large, two hundred acre cotton plantation. This makes them very lucky, as many of the other black families must live off other plantations belonging to white owners. The white plantation owner, Harlan Granger, collects cotton from the black families and pays them. He has control over them and can evict them from his land at anytime. The Logans go through many troubles, and see fellow black Americans killed and injured due to the harsh conditions they must endure because of the white residents. Racism in "Roll of thunder, hear my cry" happens in every chapter, to many characters. Some examples of it are when Little-Man opens a school text book and finds that it had had eleven owners, all white, before him. Another is when the Jefferson Davis County School bus purposefully splashes the Logan children as they walk to school. The Great Faith School is where Cassie and her brother attend. It consists of dilapidated sheds and only black children. They have no school bus and, as mentioned before, receive second-hand books from the Jefferson Davis School. This school is primarily for whites and has a "wide sports field" and "long white wooden buildings". This shows the segregation of the two races and how money was spent more of whites than blacks.
Throughout the book, blacks were badly treated, bullied and blamed. It may truthfully represent the state of Mississippi during the nineteen thirties.
Racism has not stopped, and ethnic minorities have always been trying to establish equal rights for all. Dr Martin Luther King Jr was a man who tried to do this. He was an American clergyman, Nobel Prize winner and one of the main leaders of the American civil rights movement. A famous supporter of non-violent resistance to racial oppression, he fought to desegregated blacks from whites and opposed the Vietnam War. His first stand against racism was in 1953 when he was asked to lead a bus boycott in Montgomery. The city's black leaders had organised the boycott to protest against forced racial segregation in public transport after the arrest of Rosa Parks, a black woman who had refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. During the 381-day action, King was arrested and imprisoned, his home was bombed and received many death threats. The boycott ended in 1956 with the Supreme Court banning all segregated public transport in the city. He brought to the world's attention how unfairly blacks were treated. He had the help of millions of Americans, but his strong leadership and power of speech gave people the faith to keep working peacefully even when others did not. However, on April 4, 1968, King was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee.
In South Africa, violence has cursed the people for hundreds of years. This is due to the Apartheid. The Apartheid was a system of racial segregation in South Africa. The word "apartheid" means "separateness" in the Afrikaans language, and describes the extreme racial divisions set up by the white minority on the black population in South Africa. The National Party introduced apartheid as part of its campaign in the 1948 elections. Apartheid became the political policy for South Africa until the nineties. Many laws held together a system of abuse and discrimination, where Blacks and Indians became minorities. White people had large privileges compared to black Africans. After peaceful demonstrations, protestors were fired at by the police at Sharpeville in March 1960, killing 67 black Africans and wounding nearly 200 others. The government banned the ANC and PAC after what became known as the Sharpeville Massacre. In 1990 Nelson Mandela, the former leader of the ANC, was released from prison and in 1994 the first ever democratic elections which stopped racial segregation. Nevertheless, the shadow of apartheid still hangs over South Africa and its people. Black Africans still suffer from the extremely high unemployment, poor education, appalling housing, and destitute living conditions.
Throughout the course of civilisation, humankind has tried to find someone or something to blame for his or her misfortunes. Many people have tried to make up intricate theories to sell their ideas. These were numerous and many followed them. The Nazis were in favour of "purity of the race" idea, but they understand how it worked. Blond hair and blue eyes are recessive genes. Two brown-eyed people can give birth to a blue-eyed child, but two blue-eyed people cannot give birth to a brown-eyed child. Dark skin and dark hair are also dominant genes, so because of evolution, it must mean that the ancestors of humanity had dominant genes. If they had only recessive genes, there would be no dark eyed, haired or skinned people. This leads to the conclusion that all people have a black ancestor. This is backed up by the well-accepted idea that Africa was the starting place of humanity. As African species travelled north to Europe they made the previous inhabitants extinct.
Racism is a worldwide problem that will never be eradicated and there are no simple solutions to it.
