Context to better understand the play
Living Conditions in Ghettos
by Alexia Babili
• In Modern-day ghettos, the living conditions are difficult
The inhabitants of these neighbourhoods usually have to face is starvation due to shortage of food. They can't afford a medical care therefore many die because of it.
•Unfortunately, there is consumption of narcotics and the usage of these illegal substances often lead to violence and gangs.
•Finally, a serious struggle these people have to face on their daily basis are unsanitary conditions, such as dirty toilets, houses full of insects, overflow of garbage in the streets, etc... These conditions affect their health in a bad way and can cause many sicknesses.
The Jim Crow laws
by Gotsis Artemis
A) What are these laws about?
• The Jim Crow laws forced racial segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America.
• Public facilities for people of colour were consistently inferior and underfunded compared to the facilities for white Americans.
B) What was the object of segregation?
The private places that were the object of segregation were:
- Public transportation
- Public schools
- Public places
- Drinking fountains
- Public restrooms
The public places that were the object of segregation were:
- Restaurants
- Universities
- Workplaces
C) Where does the name Jim Crow come from?
Thomas Dartmouth Rice, a white actor, played the role of a dumb and clumsy black slave called Jim Crow. The name picked up in popularity again in the late 19th century during a raise of anti-black laws.
Jim Crow laws
by Fenareti Dillon
Plessy v. Ferguson
• In the 1890s, Homer Plessy, an octoroon (a person of seven-eighth white and one-eighth black ancestry), went to court for using the wrong public transportation. His lawyers defended him by saying that the “separate but equal” doctrine went against the fourteenth Amendment. According to the separate but equal doctrine, it is acceptable to have separate public services for each race as long as they are of equal quality. The fourteenth Amendment addresses citizenship and equal protection rights to all American citizens (people of colour included). Homer Plessy’s case was rejected and taken to the Supreme Court of Louisiana (the highest federal court in the United States, consisting of nine judges).
• The judges issued a 7-1 decision (it is interesting to note that one of the judges was absent but the case took place all the same) against Plessy which ruled that the “separate but equal” doctrine did not violate the fourteenth Amendment, as the different facilities were supposed to be equal (hint: they were not).
A “coloured” drinking fountain in Oklahoma City, 1939
Brown v. Board of education
• In 1954, there was another case concerning the “separate but equal” doctrine : segregated public schools weren’t working well, and the Supreme Court of Kansas unanimously (9-0) decided that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” and therefore violates the fourteenth Amendment.
• However, the court only ordered to desegregate “with all deliberate speed” without giving any method on how to do so.
Activism
by Milian Halai
Angela Yvonne Davis
Who is she?
- American political activist
- philosopher, academic
- author
- feminist (WOMEN, RACE & CLASS is one of her most famous book)
Her background
Davis was born on January 26, 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama. She was brought up in a middleclass neighborhood called Dynamite Hill. They had no choice to live somewhere else due to the ku Klux Klan burning black people’s houses.
Her father’s name was Frank. He owned a service station. Her mother’s name was Sallye. She worked at an elementary school and was an active member of the NAACP. She took some inspiration off her.
What is the NAACP?
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909.
Wanted?
August 1970, Angela Davis became the third woman in history to be placed on the F.B. I’s “10 most-wanted fugitives”