If you are separate but equal, you're not equal at all

Weekly Article:

     The treatment of African-Americans during Reconstruction and the treatment of the same peoples during the United States Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s was pretty much the same. After reconstruction former slaves became sharecroppers because that was the only option they had. However, they barely earned a living because they had to pay off loans and give most of their crops to the landowners. So it was pretty much the same condition they were in before slavery was supposedly "abolished" but instead of being physically punished they were financially punished and had to pay certain fees if they weren't in compliance with the rules. In addition the "Black Codes" a.k.a. Jim Crow Laws, were put in place, which further impeded their equal rights, and stated that the blacks and whites were separate, but equal. The blacks and whites had all the same facilities as each other, but they were just separated. However, as we would soon learn, if two races were separated, they could never, in fact, be equal. And this was exactly how they Civil Rights Era was also. 
     Even through certain amendments and the constitution stated that blacks had freedoms and the right to vote. We still found loopholes and ways to put them down and make it harder for them. We taxed the blacks that came to vote, making it more inaccessible, but did not tax the whites. We made them sit at the back of buses, go to different schools, restaurants, and even water fountains, We made them endure years of prejudice, violence, and oppression, but they still kept on going, resisting every step of the way. So not only was the treatment similar between Reconstruction and and Civil Rights African Americans, but I feel like they even had the same attitudes. They were courageous and strong people, willing to do anything for their families, their freedoms, and their rights and worked for it every step of the way. It forces you to admire all the hardships they endured and eventually overcame, after hundreds of years, emerging triumphant.