The 1950s and 1960s were a terrible time for many Americans of all races. From lynchings to sundown towns to the Klu Klux Klan, African Americans and other races were treated very harshly. They were refused the ability to purchase goods and other items, they were brutally beaten, and unjustly lynched. This essay will focus on sundown towns, lynchings (lynch mobs), and African American treatment mainly during the early to mid 1900s.
During the early 1900s, sundown towns were very popular. Not all Americans know about sundown towns but if you were a person of color during the 1900s, you certainly did. “A sundown town is a town, city, or neighborhood in the United States that is purposely all-white, excluding people of other races” (Sundown Town). Sundown towns not only made life hard for African Americans but also people of other races like Native Americans. To keep African Americans and other races out of these towns the whites used many different tactics. “Whites drove out black…show more content… “ lynching came about during the Revolutionary war as a system of extralegal justice.” ( The origins of lynching culture in the United states ) it was supposed to be applied equally to blacks and whites but became racialized in the later 1800’s. In the book How to kill a Mockingbird a black man is being accused of raping a white women, infact lynching during the 20th centuries white men said it was to protect white women from rape, where infact rape was not the biggest factor for lynching. It was the third greatest factor right behind homicides and “other causes” which is code for unknown. “ Mississippi had the highest lynchings from 1882 - 1968 with 581. Georgia was second with 531, and texas was third with 493. 79% of lynching happened in the south.” ( lynching statistics ) Missouri