Essay On African American Equality

To what extent can it be argued that De Jure (legal) segregation was the main obstacle preventing blacks from achieving equality in the 1920s – 1930s?

The 1960s were a time of upheaval and revolution, in this decade America took great leaps towards equality as activists throughout the country protested and demanded their basic American rights. One of these basic rights, one granted to many Americans by the 15th Amendment, a right which many African-Americans did not have. The “poll tax was revived” in southern states to “to prevent African-Americans” from “voting” (thefreedictionary.com). The right to vote is essential, and the poll tax prohibited the average man from voting, as most did not not have enough money to pay the tax. The 24th amendment was an essential event in the 1960s--setting a new benchmark for equality in America, one that included the African Americans.

African American Studies is a very complex subject. To confuse African American studies with black history is a common occurrence. African American studies is much deeper and more profound than just Black history alone. There are many unanswered and unasked questions among the Black American culture which causes confusion and misunderstanding in modern day society. In unit one there were many themes, concepts, and significant issues in the discipline of Africana studies. Both W.E.B Du Bois and Vivian V. Gordan touched on many concerns.

1 . What issues most concerned black political leaders during Reconstruction? Reconstruction brought important social changes to former slaves. Families that had been separated before and during the Civil War were reunited, and slave marriages were formalized through legally recognized ceremonies. Families also took advantage of the schools established by the Freedmen's Bureau and the expansion of public education, albeit segregated, under the Reconstruction legislatures. New opportunities for higher education also became available with the founding soon after the Civil War of black colleges, such as Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Fisk University in Nashville,

There is a vast number of social issues facing the world as a whole. Yet, the debates on racial differences and politics are far from being resolved. For an example a number of authors argue that even though there are several privileges and rights which are assured by the United States Constitution as well as its subsequent amendments, and the laws that guarantee fundamental freedoms to all individuals, many people particularly; blacks have not gained their civil rights and they are still regarded as inferior to whites ().This points out to the idea that the reconstruction after the Civil War has failed to guarantee full equal rights to black Americans. In the early years of the 20th century (Washington,

"We 're not Americans, we 're Africans who happen to be in America. We were kidnapped and brought here against our will from Africa. We didn 't land on Plymouth Rock - that rock landed on us" (Malcolm X). This quotation symbolizes the sentiments of many African Americans past and present who were involuntarily brought to the shores of the United States of America. Since arriving here, African Americans have been mistreated, misinformed, misguided, misplaced, and misunderstood more than any other ethnic group that has set foot on these soils. In this paper, I will attempt to provide a brief history and describe the timeline of African Americans from the Civil Rights Era until the present day.

African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated; that is 60% of 30% of the African American population. African Americas are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites. “Between 6.6% and 7.5% of all black males ages 25 to 39 were imprisoned in 2011, which were the highest imprisonment rates among the measured sex, race, Hispanic origin, and age groups." (Carson, E. Ann, and Sabol, William J. 2011.) Stated on Americanprogram.org “ The Sentencing Project reports that African Americans are 21 percent more likely to receive mandatory-minimum sentences than white defendants and are 20 percent more likely to be sentenced to prison.” Hispanics and African Americans make up 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population. (Henderson 2000). Slightly 15% of the inmate population is made up of 283,000 Hispanic prisoners.

The passing of various civil liberty movements’, education, employment and voting privileges improved. Fox (2014) stated that southern blacks were impatient in seeking voting privileges. The U.S. Constitution gave all blacks a nominal right to vote, but southern blacks were often blocked at the polls, and racial apartheid was the foundation of a rigid caste system.

One inequality that us African Americans have had was the right to vote. Even though it is one of the most cherished rights of citizenship in the United States it was basically not available to us until recent years. The 14th amendment was ratified on July 28, 1868 which allowed former slaves who had just been freed after the Civil War it was still something we couldn’t do because we basically were nothing. Our voice didn’t matter and only those who were white could vote. This amendment was clear on the

A variety of restrictions were put on African Americans to discourage or keep blacks from voting. Restrictions were put on blacks such as poll taxes, grandfather clause, and even literacy test. In 1967 Malcom X’s speech “Ballot or Bullet” was given as a wakeup call to African Americans. “I think you'll have to agree that we're going to be forced either to use the ballot or the bullet. It's one or the other in 1964. It isn't that time is running out -- time has run out!” (Ballot or Bullet 1964). This speech was to let African Americans see that voting was their right, and if whites were going to fight to keep their rights away from them than blacks would have to fight back. The “Ballot or Bullet” speech showed blacks than whites were not going to give them what was rightfully theirs. African Americans from 1964 to 2010 had to fight for respect in politics and their hard work was finally recognized nationally when Obama was elected as president.

One of the biggest problems Africans Americans faced in America is Segregation, discrimination, racism, prejudice, rebellion, religion, resistance, and protest. These problems have helped shape the Black struggle for justice. Their fight for justice marks a long sequence of events towards their freedom. Provisions of the Constitution affect the operation of government agencies and/or the latitude chief executives and legislatures in the creation and implementation of policies today. The rights and passage of Amendments granted to African Americans in the Constitution serve as a source of “first principles” governing the actions and policies of elected and appointed public servants across the United States. The 15th Amendment Equal Rights: Rights

How did freedom for African Americans become socially, politically, and economically limited from 1865 to 1900? Well To begin with, during December 6, 1865, slavery was finally abolished. The only hard part was fitting in. socially, politically, and especially economically. What I mean is, whites weren’t too accepting. Everything was segregated. The schools for children, the neighborhoods, even the drinking fountains and restrooms at buildings where segregated. The last thing a white family wanted was a “negro” living next door to them. It was tough for black children to go to school. Kids from the white schools would throw rocks and wood and other materials at the buses. A group of white supremacists who went by the name, “Ku Klux Klan” showed much hatred to them. Some nailed wooden crosses to their front lawns and set them a blazed and would chant to scare them. Some even went to the extremities and would kill them. It was written in history that a bus carrying a group of African Americans called “The Freedom Riders” was bombed by the KKK. This event later went down as a big event in today’s history.

Many roles have changed in the last two hundred years, including soldiers, women, ethnicity, and race. In the 1800’s, many of the American people thought of blacks as three fifths of a person, perhaps they were not worthy to use the same bathroom, eat in the same restaurant, work in the same factory, or read from the same libraries as a white person. The role of an African American has changed drastically, blacks are allowed, in the United States, to learn in the same schools, work in the same jobs, etcetera. But wait, the roles of African American have changed even more than that, if you are African American you have a higher chance than a white person of entering into a college, and as an African American, you have the same rights as whites to manage a company, or even become the president of the United States of America.

Some people define race as if it is something solid or concrete, but what they don’t see is that it is a “social fabrication”(Mathew Desmond, Mustafa Emibayer,2009;2). Race is based on the difference in physical appearance which is determined, for example, by the most apparent trait; skin color. Inequality emerges when people living, whether on the same sovereign terrain or across continents, are not treated with the same amount of respect and not given the chance to engage their rights in a free and fair manner. Race and inequality are often linked together because of the “issues that began in the 1800s”(NFB;Journey to Justice;2000) such as racial segregation. Over the years issues of race and inequality have

The black freedom struggle has not yet come to an end – there are still prejudiced and racist radicals that try to negotiate white supremacy and dominance in order to prevent the blacks from their long wait for equality. Consequently, the movement has progressed very sluggishly in the past few centuries. Nevertheless, the campaign for equal rights has led to the triumph over slavery and has led to the accrual of suffrage rights. However, this is still not enough, not after centuries of enslavement, lynching, segregation, and discrimination. Oftentimes, there is still no justice in court houses, especially when black people are accused and convicted, even for the simplest of crimes – as compared to the white and powerful who are charged for heinous misconducts and get away scratch free. Hence, throughout the period of the Blacks’ long fight for freedom and equality, several Black intellectuals have come front with ideas that could administer better treatment for their people. A good strategy to encourage the black populace to fight for their freedom and their rights is by inverting popular ideas so that there is a clear distinction between the reasonable and unreasonable notions of equality and justice. Thus, it was not uncommon for these literati to undermine dominant discourses in order to bolster their own analyses. Among the discussed black intellectuals who inverted prevailing dissertations, three that stood out the most are Frederick Douglass, Anna Julia Cooper, and