New World Slavery In America

Slavery was different for America then it was for the rest of the world. For the rest of the world, it wasn’t a race thing they just enslaved the people that they had conquered. They did not care what the color of their skin was it was just about the need for labor. In the article “New of New World Slavery” it explains how slavery was different in America than in Europe. “Slavery in the classical and the early medieval worlds was not based on racial distinctions”. In America, it was all about race and discrimination. It started out the same just a need for free labor, but since it was mostly black slaves it led to the thought that black people were only good for slavery. This made people think the black people were inferior just because of

Laws of segregation started in the north during the civil war (William V. Moore). Black people were segregated from railway cars, theaters, schools, prisons, and hospitals. After the 13th amendment was passed, slaves had some freedom, but then Andrew Johnson took up the presidency when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and he was a supporter of states rights. Taking advantage of state’s rights southern states started to pass the “black codes”. Mississippi enacted the first law of the black codes. This law required all black people to have proof of employment every January. If they backed out of their contract and they would have to forfeit their earlier wages or be arrested. If they were arrested it would be like they were a slave again with the loophole in the 13th amendment, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall be duly convicted...”. This loophole is saying that no one can be used as a slave unless they were a criminal. This led to black people being arrested for minor crimes like loitering or unemployment. After Mississippi enacted their first black code, then South Carolina enacted one of their own. Which forced black people to only work as a farmer or a servant and if they did not they would be taxed $10-$100. Soon after, all southern states had their own

Like it is mentioned in the movie 13th “The so called war on drugs was a war on communities of color”. So, now black people are being arrested much more than White people even though the drug use is close to the same as Angela F. Chan points out in her article for the Huffington Post. “Even though Black people use drugs at the same rate as White people, they are incarcerated for drug crimes at 20 to 50 times the rate of White people in some states”. A law that was passed during the war on drugs was mandatory sentencing. This law led to people being arrested crack being sentenced to much harsher punishments than those for cocaine. The people being for crack were predominately black and for cocaine predominately white. “Crack was largely a inner-city issue and crack was largely a suburban issue”(13th). After the war on drugs Bill Clinton became president, and pasted more to crack down harder on crime. One of them being mandatory minimums this didn’t let the judges decide the crimes. It set mandatory sentences for the crimes. So, this shifted the power from the judge to the prosecutor, and 95% of elected prosecutors are white(13th). This shows that still today racism and the effects of slavery are still being felt 151 years