Places And Forms Of Power

In politics and social science, power is the ability to influence people's behaviour. In order to live together members of a community accept rules, regulations, laws. This helps to create social cohesion but can also lead to conflicts and tensions. Even when authority seems absolute, there are always counter-powers which question it, aim at limiting its excesses and resist it.

Example can be: inequalities between blacks and whites - the fight against oppression and segregation of United States

- From 1609 till 1808, an important population of Africans, coming generally from western Africa, was brought by strength on the American continent, to constitute a free workforce for the colonists

- On January 1st, 1863, President Lincoln abolishes the slavery in United States.

- In the 50s and 60, the American community, driven by minister Martin Luther King, asks for the equality of the civil rights by using the boycotts, the walking and the nonviolence. In March, 1963, during the walking towards Washington, thousands of people, any origins, meet for these ideas. Martin Luther King pronounces his famous speech in front of the Lincoln Mémorial there.

- Today the Afro-Americans represent 12.7 % of the American population. The middle class constitutes an important part of this community: in 1996, more than 44 % of the blacks-Americans exercises a qualified work, 23 % of 18-24 years study in a university. However the average income remains lower than that of the Whites

- In judicial subject the Africans-Americans represent two thirds of the people sentenced to death, while they weigh only 13 % in the population of the United States.

Our study led us to see that the Afro-Americans evolved and that the efforts of the old their allowed the freedom. However the history of the Africans of America must not be forgotten and not become identified with " Black history month ". As says Morgan Freeman « I don't want a black history month. Black history is Ame

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