Have you seen a book called Roots? If you have read it, you will be struck by the miserable life of black slaves, vividly described in the novel. With the growing demand for the Southern cotton industry, many people from Africa were brought to the New World against their will to work as forced laborers. These African men, women and children were shipped out in smelly, crowded conditions to begin their long and bitter lives of slavery. Meanwhile, he also began the pursuit of freedom and equality. Over a long period of time, black slaves were controlled by various brutal means. However, forced to work long hours, they managed to found their own churches and develop their own music. And they also expressed their desire for freedom in some way, such as "escape", but such resistance was always brutally tamed. For black Africans, the first triumph in the pursuit of freedom and equality occurred in 1865. It was in that year that the 13th Amendment to the Constitution made official the abolition of the slave system. Prior to this event, conflict over slavery between the Southern and Northern states led the nation to Civil War in 1861. President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the Northern states, with the help of black volunteers, gained victory and freed the slaves. As time passed, however, blacks gradually realized that the abolition of slavery did not bring them equal treatment. A civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, describes the situation in his famous speech: "....The Negro is not free. The life of the Negro is still unfortunately paralyzed by the shackles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.... " Most Southern blacks couldn't eat in some places to eat. There were separate areas for blacks and whites in public places. And there were also separate schools for black children and white children. At that time racial separation was part of the institutions. In the 20th century, blacks, dissatisfied with such treatment, began to fight for equal rights. In 1954 they achieved another triumph. The famous cases, known as Brown v. Board of Education, began the slow process toward desegregation. Rev. Brown and some other black parents wanted to send their children to the school near their home. But the state court upheld the “separate but equal” rule and barred the children from attending the nearby school.