Eyes On The Prize: The Fight For Equal Rights

During the late 19th and early 20th century in America, the rise of Feminism challenged the traditional gender roles. The female authors of this time period represented realistic aspects of women’s struggles, which often reflected limitations from society and their own lives. The three female authors who advocated women’s struggles in their writings were Sojourner Truth, Willa Cather, and Edith Wharton. In the speech to the American Equal Rights Association, Truth reveals that women do not have rights to present their voices in the court. Cather addresses women’s devastating labor life after the marriage in “A Wagner Matinee.” Likewise, in “April Shower”, Wharton portrays men’s criticism upon economically successful women. American female authors of the late 19th and early 20th century demonstrates the ideas of Feminism by men objecting to representation in politics, prohibiting career over marriage, and criticizing economic self-sufficiency.

James Baldwin “Sonny’s Blues” and “Battle Royal” Ralph Ellison are two stories by young african american men in the 50’s. Racial abuse was in abundance during this era. In both stories race has an important role however, in “Battle Royal” Ellison used race as the driving force of the story. In “Sonny’s Blues” Baldwin uses race as an important theme but is subtle as opposed to Ellison who directly addresses race as the issue. “Sonny’s Blues” and “Battle Royal” depicted the suffering of young black men in harlem, and illustrated the struggle of generation past and present; and the vicious cycle of the stereotype of african americans. African americans during this time endured in environment of hatred, but not only by whites but also by themselves, they hated who they were because they weren't white, in order for a person to be accepted in society or seen as valuable african americans believed they had to be white.

At this time, they were getting only a portion of their rights and some of

It shows how the book is informative on how people treat slaves and whites as not equal, and also sees the daily/ extreme lengths people will go to seek

In the beginning chapters of the book, we get a glimpse of the typical home and community of an African American during segregation. Many Africans Americans were too adjusted to the way of living, that they felt

I found it to shed a light of all the events that has been happening throughout the country today. The film discusses how they redesigned the racial past. This film has shed light on what life is like for African Americans during and after the 13th amendment in the Unites States. It addressed how black people ended up in jails from laws purposely to put them there to suppress them and not to gain equality. It showed the movements of how people fought to be free and what it took then, to get as far as they are today although there’s a long way to go.

During the Reconstruction era, supporters of women’s rights employed a legislative and organizational means in their battle for equal rights and suffrage. The successes and failures experienced by the 14th and 15th amendments helped shape the landscape of the American suffrage movement that culminated in the 19th amendment. The assigned readings addresses the legislative and organizational avenues that were actively utilized by advocates of women’s rights and suffrage, albeit in slightly different ways. The two readings align well with each other, each bringing an unique perspective of a significant historical phrase within the women’s rights movement in the United States.

Retired women are twice as likely as retired men to live in poverty. Although many people believe that the United States doesn’t fit into the category of unequal rights for women because of the rights women in the United States have compared to the rest of the world, that thinking couldn’t be farther from the truth, since the United States culture and the world culture around women is not favored towards women.

Between the years of 1972 and 1982, women and other supporters were fighting one of many fights for the Equal Rights Amendment. “Women and supporters lobbied, marched, rallied, petitioned, picketed, went on hunger strikes, as well as, committed acts of civil disobedience.” One of the very first problems for advocacy was the significant difference of equality for men and women. In this time of history, the Constitution only granted rights to the individuals who had all the power of decision-making and influence: white males. Social traditions and ideas of common law were defined for women from an English influence. With English tradition as the biggest influence, many women were denied many legal rights. Some of these rights included: denied

The black people are told that they are worthless and savages, yet everytime they try to do something about it, they are kept afraid and treated horribly because they are apparently stupid and aren’t able to amount up to the same standard as white people. The main character is told by his grandfather on his deathbed that, “After I’m gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy’s country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion’s mouth,” and that stuck with the main character throughout his life (CX). The rest of his family immediately tells everyone to ignore it and make sure to never bring up what their grandfather had told them, and to simply follow the rules that they had always been living, and then life will be “perfect” (CX). Most of the black people truly believed that they were going to have to live that way forever and never had a choice, but some people knew that they had to stand up and fight for what they know was right. All of the black people had been told their whole lives that nothing will ever change and to never hope for it. They were mostly all “blindfolded” except for the few that were able to “take off their blindfolds” and see what was really going

The smell of blood in the air grew thick. You hear the screams of the slaves with big, bloody scars all over their backs. You see the look of horror on people’s faces, and then noticed the expression on the slave owners face, an expression of pure malice. This was the treatment of the slaves back in the 1800’s. They experienced a lot of unfairness and racism for being African. These events can be compared to the racism people experience today. Racism and unfairness are issues and ongoing problems that need to be addressed because they both lead to violence. This is showing that history repeats itself and will always come back.

Levine, the author of Black culture and black consciousness, put a lot of time and effort in his studies to write this book. He read several books on civil rights leaders to begin understanding the Afro-American version of their life. He then broke down categories and studied songs and trickery stories that were told during this era. He used all of his findings to create a voice for the slaves and let their feelings tell the

At this time period (circa 1930s) it is understandable for the common perspective to be racially biased given the fact that the peak of the Civil Rights Movement was decades away. However, as a socially conscience individual I feel that it is ignorant and inexcusable to inaccurately make claims based off emotions or events that occurred to benefit a person of any particular ethnic background because wholistic facts are not considered due to the overflow of cultural emotion. If possible, could anyone imagine how extensively tedious it would be to include every aspect, of every nature, to determine which race is superior in strengths. In a way, it can observed that this fight is figuratively substituted as a cultural show down where the victory is accredited to the whole race and not Louis himself. This victory symbolises as a cultural advance in the African American race as portrayed by Angelou and the other store patrons through actions and strong comparison to oppression through violence throughout the excerpt. “My race groaned. It was our people falling...It was a white woman slapping her maid for being forgetful.”(Paragraph 16) In connection, this can be associated with the fact that the outcome had such a strong emotional effect as said best in Paragraph 17: “This Might be the end of the world. If Joe Lost we were back in slavery and beyond help”. ( M.Angelou,”I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”,1969) The Author uses this overstatement and many others in an attempt to relate the passionate emotions of racial separation and the perspectives associated. From the perspective of the Author it seems as if the defeat will cause such a cultural embarrassment so much so that it could be equal to

First, in the opening of the movie, we see a battle that give a sense of brutality, the brutality was there to show the shocking realty of civil war. However, the purpose of the movie is to show the loop of inequality and injustice that have very tragic consequences and shaped the structure of the inequality in American societies on the earlier time. In addition, it approve the idea that blacks and whites had equal rights. As Lincoln says, “Slavery, sir, is done.” It is very simple idea to accepted now, but back then it took 150 years prove.

In the light of, the director makes good points through the whole movie about what they went through. I like this movie because it gives me more information of the people who were involved or who were there during that time. Like, Ann Lee Coper (Oprah Winfrey), Martin Luther King (David Oyelowo), and the rest of the people who help fight for African Americans to be able to vote. The movie also shows the difficult and the happy time they went through. Even the problems with their family. No matter what’s going on, they were still focus and full invested in having freedom. What I learned from this movie was that they did not let all the obstacles of what they went through mess up their main goal because of that I am able to take those lesson for my