Racial Segregation In America Literature & Language Essay (Essay Sample)

Ailyn
Class, Subject
Name of Professor
December 10, 2019
Racial Segregation in America
Gertrude Samuels’ article Even More Crucial than in the South, Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun all explore the perils of racial segregation subjected to African Americans in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. The undignified and inhumane treatment subjected to African Americans by the laws of segregation pushed them to the brinks of various protests which brought to light the formation of various civil rights movements. Samuels contemplates in the article that segregation in the South is much more conspicuous than the North as whites in the South physically prevented black from moving into the neighborhood for fear of ‘devaluing’ rental properties CITATION New63 \l 1033 (Samuels). King in his ‘‘Letter from Birmingham’’ Jail explains his reasons for coming to Birmingham in support of Civil Rights for African Americans and reminds his fellow clergies of the inhumane experiences such as public lynching that has prompted his actions and further points out to the fact that the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 that outlawed segregation in public schools should be obeyed CITATION Ali63 \l 1033 (Ali-Dinar). Hansberry’s play ‘‘A Raisin in the Sun’’ explores the psychological challenges that an African American family—Walter and Ruth’s family— faces in the south side of Chicago while struggling to provide for food and raise children in a racially tense environment. Hansberry brings out the perverse and outright segregation that exists in the south of Chicago with regards to housing when a family is barred from enjoying their newly bought for fear of being harmed because of being black CITATION Lor95 \l 1033 (Hansberry). In a conclusion, the play explains why African Americans feel the need to step up make their voices heard as they strive to demand respect and human dignity that the ‘‘stinging darts of segregation’’ have not accorded them as King says in his letter from Birmingham Jail.