Historic Context Regarding Conditions & Confrontations in America Relating to Race

During the many years of enslavement in this country, black folks were dehumanized, separated from their families, forced to give free labor to white folks, forbidden to become educated, and as Frederick Douglass said “we are rewarded for subservience and punished for assertiveness”. The subsequent Jim Crow period relegated black people to live in areas that were environmentally unsafe and crime-infested with substandard schools, both physically and educationally. Even for those who might’ve had the financial means to move to better neighborhoods, a policy called “redlining” existed which covertly kept black folks from moving into neighborhoods with better conditions.