Context: A Time of Fear and Segregation
“O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be--
the land where every man is free.”
- Langston Hughes, excerpt from 'Let America Be America Again' (1938)
Despite the abolition of slavery in the US, blacks were in a subclass way below whites. In the 1960s, Jim Crow Laws separated people by skin color. The segregation extended to schools, restaurants, parks, churches, public areas, and even cemeteries. America was a country of two societies: an upper class white community, and a low class black populace.
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“The poor Negroes know they dare not bring any accusations against the wrongdoers because they must keep their places. In the minds of many, a Negro must suffer any kind of abuse that his enemy wishes to inflict on him.” |
Between 1882 and 1968, more than five thousand people were lynched for breaking Jim Crow Laws. Lynching is the act of publicly executing a person to invoke fear into others. Blacks were beaten up and hung from trees as spectators took photographs.
“Well, lynching was a tool also; it was essential because when other things failed, you had to know there was this violent retribution that could happen if you transgressed the social norm that had been set down by Whites.” |
African Americans were prohibited from voting, so it took pure determination and activism to change the law. In the mid-20th century, the fight against racial divide was escalating. On August 19, 1958 in Oklahoma City, Clara Luper and thirteen students sat down and ordered Coca-Cola and hamburgers at a lunch counter, committing an act of passive resistance.