During the age of post slavery and other critical historical events there was a complex relationship between race and class. With the rubble, that was the United States, left after the civil war America was finally coming to a place of somewhat stability. Boston being a part of the Union was fortunate enough and did not experience too much property damage but it did suffer economic turmoil since most of the cities funds went to funding union soldiers. With diverse population of freed slaves and wounded soldiers Boston was a melting pot for differences in cultural ideals and economic status.

   Although African Americans were no longer oppressed by the social construct of being considered property there was still a strong presence of oppression since most of the African American demographic could not vote. Women of color were not granted the right to vote until 1928 leaving a large minority population underrepresented. Because the hold of slavery was so great those minorities that had recently seen the opportunity to live as freemen were now forced to take jobs as sharecroppers since they did not have enough education to work jobs outside of manual labor. Although this occupation was supposed to be temporary, starting in 1860s becoming major in the 1870s, it became another form of oppression for those still working under former slave masters because they were earning little to no income as they had to pay the landowners to grow crops on their property (History.com staff). The establishment of Jim Crow laws after the supreme court decision of Plessy v. Ferguson also made it difficult for minorities since it was now legal to treat minorities differently than you would White Americans. This court decision coined the phrase “separate but equal”, allowing minorities to be mistreated without breaking the 19th amendment which abolished slavery. For years to come there would be struggle to transition out of the systematic racism and this caused racial tensions during the the forced busing that made blacks and white share buses in an effort to create a balanced student body (History of Boston, Massachusetts). Discrimination was not only based on the color of one’s skin but the amount of money that a citizen in the twentieth century earned.

   Social status was not just how society viewed you as one person but how you reflected your family name. This being said, those who were born into a white collar family were at an advantage to avoid the factory jobs that plague the northern cities while minorities and people of a blue collar lineage are forced to take jobs with terrible working conditions and barely any pay. These harsh conditions faced by blue collar communities cause riots and strikes against the corporations. One famous strike in Boston was the 1919 Boston police strike in which over 1,100 officers went to the street the protest their pay and working conditions (History of Boston, Massachusetts). Governor Coolidge used this strike as a way to show that he had the authority to be vice president therefor calling the national guard to force the protesters to leave and a little progress was made on the behalf of workers till the Labor Law act of 1978 (History of Boston, Massachusetts). The hostile environment created by the racial division a mistreatment of the lower class had major influence of those living in Boston during the 20th century. Those who lived in Boston experienced the difficulty that came with diversity but that did not stop the state from becoming a place that over 600,000 people call home.