Conflicts in 1960s America: economical and social impacts to Black people

Authors: Alice Wilcki, Luca Junqueira, Rebeca Esperandio, Igor Gaggiato.

America in 1960 was full of important historical facts and events such as: Black lives matter, girl power, the second world war and how it affected some parts of America l, and how some kids feel when they don’t feel loved by their own parents. 

The book One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia takes place in the 60’s, and talks about one girl that is named Delphine, and her 2 sisters that travel to Oakland to visit her mother Cecile, but Cecile don’t care about them and abandoned them when Delphine was younger, so Delphine feels Obligated to take care of the girls. For Cecile to get out of the girls, she put them in a Black Panthers camp.

Sometimes in real life, some kids don’t have the love of they’re mother, and just accept it, but not in a good way, they accept because they need to accept, because there’s nothing to do, like Delphine and her sisters. They’re mothers don’t like them and they can’t do anything. They don’t like this situation, but it is what they have, so they are forced to accept it. Maternal absence and lack of attention generate in the kid  a necessity to search for a transitory object; this child may show maladaptive behaviors, such as; theft, insomnia, regression behaviors, antisocial tendency, dependence and even delinquency.

According to peopleskitchencollective the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPP) was founded in October 15, 1966 at Merritt College in Oakland, California by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. It was a direct, active, communal response to the ways in which Black people have been systemically and institutionally disenfranchised in American society. 

One of the consequences of the WW2 is the BPP, because they decide to create the movement because some Black People fight in  the 761st battalion with the Nazi people, and these people after the war still being misstreated in their country, so the Black Panthers were outraged with this, so they want to do someting for the people to give credit to this heroes that fight for their country.

In the book Until Tomorrow, Mr. Marsworth by Sheila O’Connor, there is a girl in Missouri (USA) in  1968 whose family faces a money crisis because her family spends all the money on cancer treatments for the mother. After the mother’s death, Kelly and her brother Billy moved to the poor grandma’s house. The family does not have money to pay the curse at Mizzou. And if they don’t have money for college then her brother Billy will be forced to enlist in the army and  fight in Vietnam. The main character is trading cards with an adult old friend of her mother that is like a passtime to Kelly(Main Character) because she really likes trading cards with Mr. Marsworth(Old friend). With all these things happening Billy lost all the hopes for going to Mizzou.

To get the brother money he needs to pump gas and still he gets a very low quantity of money, so Kelly and Mr Marsworth are trading cards to see if their situation in happiness and in money gets better.

The Vietnam war started at 1954 and ended in 1975, the conflict is from Comunist vietnam(North Vietnam) and south Vietnam, the US side. The war caused the deaths of approximately 58 thousand people. It can be placed in the context of the Cold War. And in that era, people were scared to fight and most times ran away from their countries, or found a college to study( If they were younger than 18 years.) In this case the character’s family doesn’t have money because of the treatments.

 According to wikipedia the US population opposed the war with moral ground appalled with the devastation and violence of war, with this we see that the American population wasn’t in favor of the war. The population had made a lot of peace movements that involved childrens, pregnant mothers and the youth community. 

 In Midnight Without a Moon, written by Linda Williams Jackson’s set in Stillwater Mississippi in the summer of 1955. The “white folks’ ‘ (white people), white people that were racist and just care for their power and people. The Robinsons (the white ones) don’t wanna lose that power in the city, because with all the power they have they can do everything  they want in the city and gain money, because otherwise they will lose their power. Sometimes they even kill the “colored folks” (black people), they killed this people because they knew that they we’re going to vote for someone that would do the right thing, and would make everyone have the same rights and make that city better, but the Robinsons would lose their power source, that was the only reason they wanted to be in the power. 

 Like I said, people there didn’t have much, according to the Robinsons it was “enough”. What they had was all from the Robinsons; what they had was “ruined” things that the Robinsons gave them, since they didn’t have much condition they couldn’t afford home furniture, or they got from the Robinsons or distant relatives brought to them. Happily there was Ms.Bertha, an old woman that was able to buy one small grocery, with some necessary things but not much. The white folk hated that because no matter how tiny the power of the black person is they didn’t want it. The white ones  were biting each other in anger because of that. They didn’t want any colored people to have any kind of power in the city, just them. The black people needed to read the Robinsons newspaper because it wouldn’t have anything about politics, mayor or models, anything like that or that could change their mind about their power, nothing that could encourage them leaving the city.

The people that were lucky enough ran away like Rose Lee’s mother Annemarie with Rose’s stepfather. They, like everybody else, went to Chicago looking for better life opportunities for their family, not just living the rest of their life in that awful city that wouldn’t give them anything unless it was a despicable life.

 Rose wasn’t that devastated because her mom moved away, her mom didn’t like and cared for her at least what it was what she felt from her mother, her mother never really treated her as her daughter. 

Then she started to call Rose “sister” and her stepchildren call Rose, aunt Rose. But after all Rose was sad that her mom didn’t like her and treated her like was just some child, not her biological daughter. 

Ma Pearl Rose’s grandmother was really tuff with everybody in the city,  but just not with one person: Queen Rose’s cousin, she was 16 three years older than Rose. When the Queen was born there were rumors that the Queen’s mother had an affair with a white man. that it was a kind of a crime. No one knows who Queen’s father is unless Queen’s mother Aunt Clara Jean, not even Queen knows.

 These are just rumors, people suppose that because Queen is lighter than the others, and her mom never told nobody who her father was, and it was no problem telling who the father was since he was black right? Well like mother like daughter right?! 

One night Rose Lee saw Queen sneaking out at night to be with Ricky Turner a white guy.Rose warned Queen about it and that could go really wrong, but Queen did not hear her obviously . After 2 months in chicago Annemarie send Rose a letter about her life and the job they offered her and she didn’;t accepted because she could do that in Stillwater. then she said that Sugar and Li’man (her step siblings) they were very happy but missing Rose and Fred a lot. Annemarie said that Aunt  Clara Jean was coming to Mississippi. Rose was really excited because they haven’t seen her for a long time. The part Rose was more excited was that she always bring presents for them, since where she live doesnt hd that fancy pretty clothes.When aunt clara jean got here rose was really happy because she always bring thing from city, cool things, but this time aunt clara just brought fancy clothes to Queen. She got really upset because never had the opportunity to buy things there. Aunt Clara said that is because her mom said that she wasn’t going to school anymore, and that she didn’t need anything, so doesn’t need to bring anything for her. She was sad because she was living at school but just her Fred and Queen they could stay there, they said that she was really useful in the cotton field and the work at home.

And Because a boy was missing in the city, he wasn’t even from Chicago but he came to visit, and it was now missing. What Rose was really sad about was that her aunt cared more about one teeneger that she had never seen than her own family. Days later the boy was found in the river tied in a tree, he was in the river for 3 days. He was killed by some white folks. The reason why was just because he talked to one white lady, just being gentle. Wheel that murder of Emmet Till stopped Mississipi stillwater city everybody was moved because of that and choked that the colered folks couldn’t do anything that it was a reason so they could be murderd.

 In the book Betty Before X ,by Renné Watson recommended for age ten to thirteen year old , the story happened in 1945 Detroit, the end of the second world war, with a lot of people being harmed it’s seen perfectly in the story, told by the main character Betty ,that during the war some supplies were lacking and some basic supplies such as food were lacking and the economy was directly affected, according to the Brazilian website “Estado de Minas”, “the countless ruins of the 20th century that reveal the decadence of Detroit, the most grandiose is the old factory of Packard, the brand that was the maximum symbol of American luxury cars until the Second World War, and which shut down its assembly lines in 1958. The 325,000-square-foot structure is an unwitting monument to the golden age of industrialization in the United States, when the city was known as the car capital of the world”, and author still complete: “In the 1950s, Detroit produced half of the vehicles sold on the planet and had 1.85 million inhabitants, making it the fourth largest American city. Since then, its population has dropped steadily and today stands at 685,000 people – a 65% reduction.”  

The book talks about one girl called Betty Shabazz ,which was the unplanned result of a relationship between a teenager Ollie Mae and Shelman Sandlin,a 21-year-old guy. But her grandmother Matilda and her aunt took care of her after seeing that Ollie Mae abused and assaulted the baby. After Betty’s grandmother and aunt passed away, Betty lost all that comfort and security she had in those two people who loved her so much. Betty feels rejected by her father who didn’t make a point of being part of her life, and rejected by her mother. Betty lives with her mother, her stepfather, three sons and daughters from their union, three children from her stepfather and she feels alone, because her mother treats her different compared to stepchildren and other children, she is even extremely uncontrolled to the point of hurting her, and doing terrible things to Betty, even though she’s already a pre-teen. But Betty had achieved happiness, at the end of the book.

 Betty is a black girl, so she has already suffered a lot of racism in her life, so Betty always fought against this inequality that racism causes, also the judgments, looks and demotion.   

Before the war Detroit didn’t produce only cars, they produced airplanes too. According to the   website Detroit’ news, “its role in the war, when the auto factories turned out tanks and warplanes, earned it a place in history as the Arsenal of Democracy. 

 According to wikipedia The Arsenal of Democracy is the was the central phrase used by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ,in the threat to national security, delivered on December 29, 1940. Roosevelt promised to help the United Kingdom fight Nazi Germany by selling them military supplies while the United States stayed out of the actual fighting. The president announced that intent a year before the Attack on Pearl Harbor 7 December 1941, at a time when Germany had occupied one part of Europe and threatened Britain. 

Now in Detroit, according to the Brazilian website TVBrasil, “it is now known for its high level of crime and for its abandoned houses and buildings.” In the rural exodus, the government of Detroit declared bankruptcy in 2013, and only those who are able move from the periphery to the center of the city, where there are more opportunities for employment and education.