Tensions Caused by Racial Segregation and Discrimination in the U.S.

RACE AND ETHNIC TENSIONSByInstitution
Race and Ethnic Tensions
Racial segregation and discrimination existed in the United States on a massive scale before and after the Second World War. Great tension existed between the blacks and the whites with discrimination rife in public places. The immigrants received no better welcome and underwent humbling experiences that dotted that era. In a bid to understand the manner of discrimination that the minority groups underwent, it is imperative to know the situations that led to such circumstances and the effects it caused on the population
Relationship between the White and Black
The onset of the 18th and 19th century saw many black people access freedom from the previous humiliating act of slavery. Their population was growing rapidly in major cities and towns. However, they remained working for unofficial jobs as farm workers, household workers, and unskilled attendants. The lack of proper jobs and opportunities robbed them the need to advance in life and make proper contributions in the society. The black people could not board the same vehicles with white people, employed in the same positions and live in the same neighborhoods as they faced open abuse and segregation in the workplace.
Many black soldiers took part in the First and Second World War where they came to the realization that they were fighting to bring democracy into the world. However, the government strictly followed their practices and openly discriminated them when their actions appeared unethical to the officials. A case example was in France in 1918 where the U.S. army officials arrested black soldiers who walked on the French streets with French women. This appeared unethical, as the army could not tolerate an open show of intimacy by people of color. The blacks faced poverty at home and faced an uphill struggle to make ends meet because the whites controlled very many sectors of the economy.
The most prevalent situation ever occurred in the American history was the white versus black violence that rocked American cities in the early 1900s. The whites protested the employment of black people and committed several violent acts against them in public. There were massive lynching of the blacks in public, including the popular hanging and the burning of Mary Turner in Georgia. Although the blacks responded by killing white people and burning their houses, the solution was unfounded as the federal government did little in ending the animosity. The black people organized the famous Silent Parade in the streets of New York in 1917, which involved about 10,000 protestors with mourning clothes, after the killing of 250 black people in the East Louis riots. The protesters sought to coerce the then president Woodrow Wilson to enact a law against black people lynching and killings.
After the Second World War, there was little progress in the experience of the black population in the United States. An occurrence that sparked public action against discrimination was in 1965 when a bus driver forced a black woman, Rosa Parks, out of the bus seat in order for a white person to sit on it. The woman protested and led a major bus boycott in the city for a whole year, where black people avoided using buses and walked for mi...