1970s Social Equity

There have been echoes of inequality among various social classes since as early as the late 1800s. Inequalities made on the basis of poverty, gender, and race have left many Americans at a disadvantage. Andrew Carnegie described the American flag as the "guarantor and symbol of equality", yet it symbolizes pain, inferiority, and unworthiness to many. The Gilded Age was praised as a pinnacle time of industrialization for the United States. This time period created a hierarchy of power that brought wealth to the top-tier and left everyone else to merely survive. However, The Progressive Era's focus was reform after economic hardships. Through the use of primary source documents, contemporaries allow insight on how they perceived the United States

Due to the heightening tensions within the ideas of equality, a fire was ignited and a rebellion had begun. Many argued about the inequality of women and slaves. The arguments came from the disproportion in wealth, the beliefs from christianity and the changing ideas of republicanism. These ideas and thoughts have been spread through many public speakers and writers throughout the 1840’s-1860’s. These speakers included: Frederick Douglass, David Walker, Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, the authors of Mechanics' Union Preamble and the Ten-Hour Circular. All of these authors ideas curved together at a crucial time in history.

During the 1950s, America was at its prime. At that time period, the United States had the world’s strongest military power. Its economy was booming, and the fruits of this prosperity included, but was not limited to, new cars, suburban houses and other consumer goods. During the 1950s, about four million babies were born each year. Between 1945 and 1960, the gross national product more than doubled, growing from $200 billion to more than $500 billion. Rates of unemployment and inflation were low, and wages were high. However, the 1950s was also an era of great conflict. A growing group of Americans spoke out against inequality and injustice during the 1950s. The struggle against racism and segregation entered the mainstream of American life.

Income inequality in the 70’s and the 80’s demonstrated a significant difference in comparisons with today’s income inequality. In the 70’s, the top one percent generated 9% total income in US and today, 30 years later it nearly doubled generating at 24% total income in US. A CEO would earn approximately 40 times more than his or her average worker in the 70’snand the 80’s however, in today’s case a CEO earns 500 times more than his or her average worker that’s about 13 times more grossed income of CEO in a span of 30 years. (Frank, preface VIII) In the 70’s and 80’s the ten percent would earn about $1,500 a week and the average middle class would earn about $720 a week. But, today the ten percent earns nearly $2,000 a week and average middle

America: home of the free and land of the brave, a land of hope and prosperity, equality and unity for people. But what if you are colored, do these rules still apply? The United States forgot to mention that this land of prosperity and unity works, but only if you are of the white descendent and fall in the middle to wealthy class system. In the 1950s and 1960s the anger of the past and impractical living of the now made the African Americas break there silence and began to stand up for their freedoms and demand the respect and honor that they felt was deserved. Famous figures and writers such as McKay, Cullen, and Dunbar began writings of the problems that their people faced in pursuit of their efforts of race equality. Many poems and writings

What was it that defined an individual in the United States during the mid-twentieth century? Typically, certain aspects come to one’s mind. Perhaps it would be level of education and character, or maybe a person’s heritage that justified where they stood in the American social classification system. Although these components were thought of, they were not the two standard determining factors. Social standing was reflected upon a person’s financial success, and unfortunately, other “traditional” ideals like the color of one’s skin. The economic classes established the hierarchy of society and this standing determined the opportunities available to the individuals, and furthermore, determined their success. However, in the South, a new version of this social classification had risen, placing blacks at the bottom regardless of their economic standing.

The Granges ultimate goal was to help farmers “gain economic leverage and strengthen the commercial position of the American farmer” (Globalyceum, The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, 1877-1914). The Labor Unions and the Grange set up social justice for the workers during the Gilded Age. They both built social solidarity and collaborative action, as well as empowered the workers to exercise self-determination, realize their full potential, and fight for what they deserved as workers.

Equality twinkled through in the birth of the civil rights movement. Homogeny was a central point in American life in the 1950's, whether known or not. One may contend that people have a natural preference for their kin, at least at an instinctual level. American immigration policy reflected this on non-European nations, excluding Russia. Americans feared migrants would change the present culture, supplanting the population. This revolution ignites in Brown vs. Board of Education. Overruling Plessy vs. Ferguson, it ended public segregation. African Americans saw "separate but equal" would change, igniting a civil rights movement. For example, the 1957 forced integration of the Little Rock Nine came in the wake of the decision. Nine African-American

The Great Depression was an unfriendly time for millions of Canadians, certainly not just Canadians, but those internationally. This decade of despair contributed to not only the negative effects to the economy, but as well as the pessimistic social justice issues. The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) did provide some hope for those who sought out aid and solutions; however, were unable to assist those in need; furthermore, life wasn’t so fun for those of lower-class and or part of religious or ethnic minorities as well.

Most local governments had a laissez faire approach to prostitution and that motivated several social justice reformers to band together during the Progressive Era. Iowa became the first state to pass injunction and abatement laws in 1909. Again, state prostitution laws didn’t exist up until that point in history! Although, every state eventually followed suit by passing those same laws, which allowed police to shut down brothels as “public nuisances” as long as there were complaints from concerned citizens and the judge agreed with their opinion. Consequently, many cities began shutting down their red-light districts, but some notable cities such San Francisco, New Orleans, and San Antonio didn’t enforce the new laws.

Has equality between the sexes changed? Have women enjoyed the same rights and freedoms as men, throughout history? Unfortunately, no they have not. Depending on time period you look at you will quickly notice that, as the societal norms change, women remained oppressed in different ways. Customs have come a long distance since then, and their place in society continued to change. In the 1960s women were not as oppressed as they were once, in the decades before , still they were not given the full rights, opportunities and freedoms that a man would have.

Jackson shows the complexity of class identities in Harlem through different arguments from social scientists about race and class. Some theorists believe that poverty is due to one’s own actions and if one should “behave properly” (4) such as working harder, stopping devious acts, finding a spouse and producing less offspring; one would be able to overcome one’s poverty. Another popular theory is that it is more difficult for people who do not have “soft-skills”(4) to thrive in the job market because these “soft-skills” provide the upper hand in competing with other candidates for a job. These “soft-skills” are viewed as the separation between the middle class and the under class. Another theory is how we express our behavior in certain locations

The new era of television was in full action with the introduction and production of relevancy television shows; these shows no longer hid from social problems and injustices, but rather used the world around them to create relevant and slightly more complex storylines. Shows like Chico and the Man and Mary Tyler Moore Show were examples of how television in the 1970s looked at social issues in spheres that had been previously ignored by network producers and became platforms that allowed the spread of information to the public about social, economic, and political struggles of minorities and women. Even though the 1970s demonstrated a new and different mindset when compared to the programming that had been broadcasted in the ‘50s, these progressive

One reason that there is so much government regulation involving social responsibility issues, is due to the public putting pressure on them to do something about all the bad social conditions occurring to people back in the 1930’s. The government involvement prior to that was centered more on the American business. People had to endure poor working conditions and low wages, without much hope of things improving. There were no advocates for the working class. The change did not come until pressure was put on the government to do something.

It is important for schools to have written policies that specifically deal with social disadvantage and equality. Marginson (n.d, p.4) encourages leaders to create public policy that aspires to raise the general level of scholastic accomplishment over the entire level of learning achievement across all of society, but especially focusing on students who are socially disadvantaged due to belonging to low income families. This means it is important for each school, whether public or private, to be creating policies that encourage diversity within the education system and aim to help those from the poorest communities. Every state in Australia has suburbs that are classed the most disadvantaged in the state. According to Biddle (2013, p.7) some of the most disadvantaged suburbs in each state are as follows: Broadmedows, Victoria (VIC), Busby, New South Wales (NSW), Riverview, Queensland (QLD), Elizabeth North, (SA), North Mandrua, Western Australia (WA), Risdon Vale, Tasmania (TAS), Gray, Northern Territory (NT) and Namadgi, Australian Capital Territory (ACT). Every one of these disadvantaged suburbs contains at least one public primary school. Upon investigation only two schools contain information on their web pages that displays to the public that the school leaders understand and have addressed some of the challenges faced by being located in a low socioeconomic area. The first school website to contain helpful information was Busby Public School website