Racism has played a tremendous part in the history of the United States and is still a common problem in today’s society. Even though many races have endured racial discrimination, African Americans have experienced by far the worst forms of discrimination and hatred towards them. In the early 1920s, a wave of violent racial conflicts against African Americans began to emerge and was known as one of the most socially violent times of American history. During this time period, African Americans had to withstand Jim Crow laws, race riots, and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. (Lecture Notes) Twenty years prior to the existence of Jim Crow laws, African American men were granted “full citizenship and equality” under the fourteenth amendment. (Lecture …show more content…
There were over twenty five riots between the months of April and October alone. One of the major riots of this time was the Chicago riot. An African American child was swimming in Lake Michigan and ended up on the whites’ side of the lake. Whites became infuriated and began throwing stones at the child. African Americans were enraged when they saw what had happened and attacked the whites. This riot lasted for a couple of days until the U.S. Marshalls were called in. An average of forty people was killed and over five hundred were injured due to this riot. (Lecture Notes) Another major riot that took place during this time was the Tulsa riot. In 1921, a white elevator operator claimed that an African American man had assaulted her and without any further investigating, the man was arrested. Whites were very outraged about the elevator incident and began to act on their anger. They set African Americans’ homes on fire and vandalized their businesses nearly destroying the entire community. As for African Americans, they were all imprisoned for over a week. An average of three hundred people was killed and over eight hundred were treated for injuries. …show more content…
Everything that happened during that time paved the way for how society is today. If those events had never occurred, the world we know today probably would not exist. Even though racial discrimination is not as extreme as it once was, it still has significant impact on society