Slavery to Civil Rights 美国概况 教学 讲义.pptVIP

Slavery in the United States began soon after English colonists first settled in Virginia in 1607 and lasted as a legal institution until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865. Peter, a slave from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1863. The scars are a result of a whipping by his overseer, who was subsequently fired by the master. It took two months to recover from the beating. From 1654 until 1865, slavery for life was legal within the boundaries of much of the present United States. The wealth of the United States in the first half of the 19th century was greatly enhanced by the labour of African Americans. With the Union victory in the American Civil War, the slave-labour system was abolished in the South. Simon Legree and Uncle Tom: A scene from Uncle Toms Cabin, historys most famous abolitionist novel. During Reconstruction, it was a serious question whether slavery had been permanently abolished or whether some form of semi-slavery would appear in its place. A large civil rights movement arose to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all Americans. In many cities and towns, African-Americans were not allowed to share a taxi with whites or enter a building through the same entrance. They had to drink from separate water fountains, use separate restrooms, attend separate schools, be buried in separate cemeteries and even swear on separate Bibles. During the last decade of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, white vigilantes lynched thousands of black males, sometimes with the open assistance of state officials, mostly within the South. No whites were charged with crimes in any of these killings. The Ku Klux Klan, which had largely disappeared after a brief violent career in the early years of Reconstruction, reappeared in 1915. The Klan focused on political mobilization, on a platform that combined racism with anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic and anti-un