African Americans were originally brought to the United States as slaves, arriving from Africa in 1619. Slavery ended in 1865 with the Civil War, but African Americans still faced discrimination under Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation until the 1950s-60s Civil Rights Movement. The movement used nonviolent protests and demonstrations led by figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks to fight for equal rights and desegregation, gradually bringing about social and political change that continues today.
14. Children in Alabama, 1898.
•
Children in Alabama in the 1890’s. This is the time when “Of the Coming of
John” takes place.
15. Professor and graduates at an African American teachers’ college in the 1890’s. In
the story, John attends a college like this.
16. Slavery ended with the Civil
War, in 1865. However, laws in
many places still kept African
Americans down.
This was called the “Jim Crow”
era. It lasted for about 100
years.
17. Jim Crow laws in many states,
especially in the South, kept
black and white people
separate.
19. Black people who broke the Jim Crow
laws were punished by lynching.
“Lynching” means that white people
could kill them outside the law, but the
white people who did this went free.
The next two pictures are of
lynchings.
20.
21.
22. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, the
Civil Rights Movement worked
to end Jim Crow.
23. In 1957, African American students tried to enter the white high school in Little
Rock Arkansas.