The racially tense events that take place today, such as the murder of George Floyd or the differences in economic opportunity between whites and African Americans are the result of a complex historical process of inequality between whites and blacks in the United States, which has its origin in slavery in the British colonies on the East Coast.
Throughout history, people of African origin have been unjustly segregated due to their racial status, which was considered inferior. Thus, during the colonial era, blacks were enslaved by the white population and used as servants and labor in the different economic productions of the colonies.
With the independence of the United States, the north of the country was gradually abolishing slavery and developing positions of equality before the law, while in the south slavery was maintained until the end of the Civil War in 1865, which was caused precisely by the rivalry between the slave states of the south and the abolitionist states of the north.
After the Civil War and until 1964, when the Civil Rights Act was signed, the de facto segregation of the Afro-American population in the South took place, through which these people were treated as second-class citizens with rights of lower quality than whites.
As a consequence of all these situations, a great racial tension was generated in the United States between both ethnic groups, which leads to a constant friction between both populations. Although today there is technically equal opportunities between the two, the truth is that structural differences between the two groups actually continue to exist, which are nothing more than the consequence of a very convulsed historical process.
