ivil rights movement and the black power movement forcing changes in the sixties. My generation lives a different life than most of our parents did and they lived a very different life than their parents. Many people in my grand parent's generation were able to take advantage of the booming steel and auto industry at least in the urban areas. There were certain jobs that blacks were perfect for. Jobs involving hard labor and any kinds of jobs that no one else wants such as cleaning the sewers, slaughtering pigs and other distasteful jobs. Before the 60's blacks were almost solely employed in the domestic areas cooking and cleaning (for women) and in the hard labor fields (for men). With the civil rights movement came a new awareness of the blatant prejudices that Americans held and a realization of how the racism overflowed into everyone's social and economic life. Blacks were underrepresented in every aspect of life. With the passing of the 1954 civil rights act and the demonstrations that followed slowly things began to change. Finally the oh, powerful federal government was setting standards for the way that black people were to be treated, in public and in the work force. Obviously the government can't force people's minds to change but in the public sector they had a lot of control. Government contracts were used to wheel and deal. Those companies who hired blacks in large numbers received contracts. Those who didn't tended not to. So now what do we have? We have a large number of African Americans getting jobs that in the past were impossible. Jobs opened in large corporations that offered room to advance up the ladder. At times in order to get hired you had to have a skill but other times you were hired to fill the quota and taught to work as the time went on. Collins speaks about how blacks were hired as a means of control. If your working
             ...