Civil War Magazine Article Thing...

The Mind of Diversity

Mariyah Gillis

On a plantation from sun rise to sun down, A small hole-filled blanket on the damp floor served as a 'comfy' place to rest each night. In 1815, blacks were put on a stage and humiliated in front of any willing bidder. Like furniture in an auction, they were looked at as an 'it' instead of a 'person'. Once sold, one wrong decision could result in discipline as harsh as an ongoing lash slashed across a bare back, or a tight noose around the neck... attached to a tree. The law did nothing to stop this, or prove that it is wrong. To have something to smile about was a blessing.  Others were persecuted as well. Native Americans were robbed of their land, and their culture. They were forced into the same slave-lives as blacks. The people, considered Americans, saw nothing wrong with this because they owned the land, the supreme all-mighty people.

Today, that same child, that would have been slaves to a wealthy white man, is sitting next to the 'white mans' child. The same expectations are put on the colored student as put on the white student. The man that would have been hanging from a noose on the tree is a doctor at Kaiser Permanente. As dark as his skin may be, he’d never have to worry about being hung or whipped because of something he might have done. Native Americans now have their own reservations, land only for them, where they can preserve their culture and won't forget their history as the first on North American soil. Labor, involuntarily and unhealthy, is against the law, and against the moral standards of most people.

Why the change? It's good to think that the civil war, "America's Second Revolution", started the beginning of modern America today. For 400 years, the United States was close-minded and couldn't look past skin color and 'non-White Christian' culture. As people started to open their minds a little, the state broke into two, the Union and the Confederates. The North against the South. The Republicans against the Democrats. Thus causing the Civil War. After 4 years, the civil war was won by the Union (the people going for the freedom of the slaves). The country made new laws to give rights to the slaves and to make sure no one else could be enslaved in such harsh circumstances. Equal rights came, slowly but surely. But with every major change, there's always people that have an opposition. In the south, the Ku Klux Klan came about after the Civil War to make sure former slaves didn't get the same opportunities as the whites. The red shirts and the white league sprouted out from the KKK to put fear across the face of every colored person that wanted to take a stance in the country. Across the nation, segregation held blacks back from the same good opportunities whites were offered. The few organizations that tried to provide support and protection for the blacks [i.e. the Freemen’s Bureau] didn't have back up from the government, because the justice system was highly unreliable. For a while, even the president, Johnson, didn't support the change. And the few presidents after him that did agree with the change wasn't aggressive with making the change possible. America started off with baby steps towards diversity and eqaul opportunity. But with every struggle and conflict, America's steps got bigger.

New ideas and outlooks came about, and people started to look at diversity and different cultures in a different way. Yes, there is still racism, and yes, there are still groups like the KKK and the red shirts who focus on white supremacy and a superior race above all others. 400 years cannot be completely erased with 150 years of trying to change. America is still a country of opinions and cultures, and not everyone is going to agree and go along with the majority way of things.     

But with the help of many, races other than white were able to make a stance in America; the country that first pronounced them an 'it'. Many new black minds came about after the civil war; like Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass. 1875; Robert Smalls, a former slave, got elected into the House of Representatives. Daniel Hale Williams, a black surgeon, performed the first open heart surgery. Cesar Chavez started a strike against unfair work, and made the country re-look at how people are paid.  Now we have a black president, and amendments that state every person is equal, no race excluded. From a nation of racial conflicts and oppression of anything different, to a diverse country that accepts every, and any race, for equality and opportunity.