First of all, as a means of gaining respect and happiness African Americans protested through strikes. One example of a strike involved the laundry workers in Jackson, Mississippi. The women were fed up with the low wages that they were receiving. They complained that the wages were not enough for them to carry on honest and decent lives. '"The present high prices of all the necessaries of life", the petition read, "and the attendant high rates of rent, while our wages remain very much reduced," made it "impossible to live uprightly and honestly"'(75). It was o

Another example of protest by African Americans in their hunt of happiness was the contracting of petitions. In Atlanta, by the 1860s blacks were growing irritated with the lack of representation in higher up positions in society. This led them to petition federal and local officials. "In the 1860s and 1870s, they [blacks] had petitioned local and federal officials to hire black police officers and teachers, to provide jobs on the state railroads, to build school buildings, to pave streets, and to deliver potable water and sewer connections"(85). Unfortunately, in the year of 1870, not due to the lack of effort on the part of African Americans, only two blacks were elected to city office. This, of course, did not keep blacks from running for office. "African Americans would continue to run for office until 1890, although no others would be elected until 1953"(84). It is obvious that petitions were efforts used by African Americans to move forward toward happiness.

Secondly, another method used by blacks to gain happiness and respect was the forming of secret societies and trade organizations. "In early July of 1881, twenty women and a few men met in a church in the Summer Hill neighborhood to form a trade organization"(88). That meeting was the start of the Washing Society, an organization that elected officers, appointed committees, designated subsidiary societies, and established a uniform rate for wash. According to Hunter's book, Atlanta's domestic workers' associations adopted the institutional framework of secret societies. This meant that these societies were resilient and generated labor-inspired protests. Another organization that was created was the Working Women's Society. Hunter's book defined this society as being a mutual aid and trade organization that instituted an alternative to the moneylenders by lending funds to its members without interest. Secret societies and trade organizations were developed by African Americans to help each other gain the happiness and respect that they so deserved.

African Americans also protested against injustice through marches. Protests were definitely

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