Author’s Intention Review of Related Theories
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marriage between African American and white people. African American cannot get any kind of property by buying or inheritance either. African American
―could not engage in litigation or enter into civil contracts; they could not testify against
whites in cour t, nor could they sit on juries‖ Stampp, 1956; Starobin, 1970, p.7,
as cited in Aguirre Turner, 2011, p.115. Since 1865, the biggest population of slaves lived and worked on farms
and plantation in Southern America; North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. While it
was time for Northern America to end slavery, the Southern refused to follow the decision. African American in Southern were still discriminated based on racist
laws called Jim Crow South African History Online. The discrimination affected many fundamental aspects of life: housing, political, economical, and educational
discrimination. When African Americans experience housing discrimination, they were isolated from white American areas. While all the business is growing in the
city, African American lives far outside from it. According to Aguirre and Turner 2011, ―90 percent of all African Americans remained in the South, 75 percent
living under oppressive conditions in rural areas .‖ p.126. As the consequence,
not only they could not get employment, but also lost the access of good schools, public facilities and services. They were not allowed to vote either South African
History Online. Even though their presence among white American was objectionable, a
lot of African Americans were still working for white families. The racial discrimination against African American is higher than any other races in United
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States because their skin color is more identifiable. It makes them the easiest targets of discrimination, especially when they socialize with white Americans as
their employers in inner city Aguirre Turner, 2011, p.147. Along with the the African Americans population escalates in the inner city; the segregation level
also escalates quickly. Armstrong 2012 mentions racial segregation as ―a form
of institutional racism ‖ p. 33 because of the separation by law and action in
daily activities including the use of public facilities and transportation. This statement is supported by Calmore 1993 as cited in Aguirre and Turner 2011:
Segregation of African Americans means that this minority is concentrated in inner cities and in city public housing. The result is that African
Americans have 1 reduced access to jobs because many companies have moved to the suburbs, 2 reduced capacity to go to good schools
because many inner-city schools are underfunded, overcrowded, and plagued with problems ranging from drugs and crime to high dropout
rates and 3 reduced ability to live and grow up outside the sphere of rampant crime, drug use, and gang activity p.107.
Segregation is violating African American ‘s civil rights. Civil rights are the law of
protection and freedoms given by nations to all citizens within their territorial area. When African American
‘s civil rights are not being granted, they form Civil Rights Movement to receive equality. Armstrong 2012 describes The Civil
Rights Movement as: an effort by blacks and whites in the mid-1950s to late 1960s to achieve
civil rights equal for blacks as those of whites, including equal opportunity in employment, housing, and education, as well as the right to vote, the
right of equal access to public facilities, and the right to be free of racial discrimination p 32.
Civil Rights Movement hit the highest point in the 1950s-1960s Aguirre Turner, 2011, p.112 and encouraged more people to fight for their rights,
including women.
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