“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to be in favor of freedom, and yet devalue agitation, are men who want crops without plowing the land. They want the ocean without the terrible roar of its many waters.” Frederick Douglas said this in 1857 because of the constant struggle blacks faced in gaining their civil rights. Like many sociological ideas, racism has familiar uses and countless everyday meanings. The sociological perspective views race as fundamentally a social category and examines race relations with reference to social constructions and development. According to Philomena Essed in her book Understanding Everyday Racism, “The specific forms that racism takes are determined by the economic, political, social and organizational conditions of society.” Many people are unaware of racism; people may wonder how racism is embedded in our lives? Why do black people even believe that individuals are racist towards them? These are constant questions that perhaps aren't asked but are certainly questioned. The answer is control. Control is the factor in racism. The more you can tear down a group and make them feel belittled, the easier it will be to control them. Now let's look at the history of black slavery. It all began in Jamestown, Virginia, where the first slave ships entered in August 1619. As Black people became angry at being enslaved as indentured servants, they began to rebel against white supremacy. There were riots in New York in 1712 and another in South Carolina in 1739. With the riots ongoing, white supremacy feels the need to change the laws to get to the point where blacks have stricter laws. The bad part is that at that time these laws applied to both slaves and “free negroes.” This, as I said before, puts black people under control, giving them restrictions and telling them what they can and cannot do to scare them into not rebelling and just accepting the change that was happening. Philomena Essed states: “Black people in the United States have tried just about everything in their struggle for liberation: rioting, petitioning, armed attacks, economic boycotts, demonstrations, riots, lawsuits, voting, alliances, [and] black nationalism.” This made blacks distraught and hopeless because it seemed that whatever they tried to do was never enough to end the countless fights. Slavery had lasted for several years. During the 1820s and 1860s disputes began to emerge between the North and the South.