Leaders of the Equality Movement Essay

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

The Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King The Civil Rights movement is still identified by people across the world with Dr Martin Luther King. His day of birth is remarked with a national holiday in the United States and there are

Equality in America Equality is something Americans strive to provide and maintain. It has become an integral and necessary part of our mosaic culture. Even now to the point that when people think of America, they naturally think of freedom and equality. People of many different races, disabilities

During Reconstruction, African Americans’ freedoms were very restricted. There were strict regulations on voting, relationships, employment, firearms, and other freedoms that white people had. African American faced disenfranchisement for years after being freed and becoming citizens. In What a Black Man Wants by Frederick Douglass, Douglass angrily demands the freedom to vote that every American deserved. He assesses the black man’s contribution to society and wonders why this contribution has not led to more rights. Those who were supposed to be fighting for the rights of freed slaves were not speaking up. Even the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society was not fighting for the rights of the freed slaves. Because of the restrictions on voting, African Americans did not have the same power over their own lives that white people had. Disenfranchisement is just one way white people limited freedoms of freed slaves.

     In conclusion the question “why...can we not withdraw this vexed question [of slavery in the US] from politics”posed by Stephen Douglas can be answered in this way. The reason why the US could not just forget about the slavery issue and let people decide for themselves if they wanted slaves

So in basic sense what Douglas was forced to say, Reconstruction failed. It did not permanently guaranteed the basic rights of the former slaves. Writing in the 1930s, W.E.B Du Bois in “Black Reconstruction In America” used an interesting phrase, “a splendid failure”. Why splendid? He said it failed, but not for the reason most white people expected to fail, the incapacity of the former slaves. It actually demonstrated their capacity for freedom, for citizenship, for participation in democracy, things widely denied in 1865, and in fact still denied when Du Boise was writing in the

The idea of peacekeeping and the maintaining of order began centuries ago. However, long ago women were not involved in this. As women did enter within 20th century their role was limited. As time passes, change takes place.

That is why today we must make a change. In fact, instead of moving beyond subjugation, fierce battles and compromise led to three-fifths compromise which codified viewing Black’s as subhuman. Next, it failed to give our Black friends, even those that have been freed from slavery, the right of equal suffrage. To achieve this right and put an end to our hypocrisy, we must act now.

Washington wanted his race to have an opportunity to flourish like white men. “The individual who can do something that the world wants done in the end will make his way regardless of his race.” (Booker T. Washington) He gave speeches to white men on how to treat black men thus explaining that “all men are created equal.” Similarly, Douglas believed in equal rights, for he always gained a white man’s respect which was an extremely hard task at this time. Without a doubt, both men desired and dreamed of a world without slavery and segregation.

Jesse Jackson, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B DuBois are all African American leaders. All of these men were leaders in their own time and their own sense, living in different eras with different views, but they all shared common ground. All four were African Americans trying to overcome

By supporting the Revolutionaries actions to break free from British Rule, Douglass alluded to the similar fight that the American population faced to attain the same liberty that white citizens had. With the same courage the Founding Fathers had to create a free country, the American generation of 1852 faced a similar test to uphold the values of the Declaration of Independence, and liberate American slaves.7 After applauding the Founding Fathers, Douglass acknowledges that the emphasis of his speech is not to give praise, but to call on America to act on it’s own failures and begin to faithfully fulfill the nations oath.8 He asks his audience, “Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us [African Americans]?”9 This rhetorical question Douglass presents, challenges America to reevaluate what they are truly celebrating on the Fourth of July, for it is surely not the freedom in which they claim to have achieved. Douglass asserts that asking black people to rejoice in the “shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery”10 and do not respect the courage, and steps the Founding Fathers took to create a free, liberated nation.11

Douglas believed that the nation can be existed forever as half slave and half free. The reason he believed so was because the founding father formed. The founding father formed was basically the people that were on the lands from the begging before the slaves. Douglas said that if the slavery was in the territory from the begging in because the founders that did not stop it from being exist or spread over other lands. Douglas declared “it was the policy of its founders to prohibited the spread of slavery into the new territory.” Douglas tried to blame the founders that because of them the slavery existed and the people that now on the lands do not need to take care of it. Douglas asked the question “why can’t we let it stand as our fathers

The struggle for equal rights has been an ongoing issue in the United States. For most of the twentieth century Americans worked toward equality. Through demonstrations, protests, riots, and parades citizens have made demands and voiced their concerns for equal rights. For the first time minority groups were banding together to achieve the American dream of liberty and justice for all. Whether it was equality for women, politics, minorities, or the economy the battle was usually well worth the outcome. I have chosen articles that discuss some of the struggles, voyages, and triumphs that have occurred. The people discussed in the following articles represent only a portion of those who suffered.

Most people do not realize the sacrifices and risk that civil right leaders had to make. Civil right leaders constantly risk their lives and their freedom. Civil right leaders fought for equality and freedom for African Americans. Over 70% of African Americans were experiencing segregation and discrimination during the civil right movement. African Americans only had one another for support, so during this time African Americans appreciated civil right leaders. During the civil rights movement, many leaders helped African Americans cope with changes that they were experiencing. Some African Americans looked up to civil rights leaders, because they were African American, so they knew how it felt to be mistreated by whites. African American

During the time Reginald Rose wrote the play Twelve Angry Men America was not an equal place for all people. A democracy is founded on the ideology that all Americans should be given a fair trial in court before being declared guilty. The twelve jurors in the play come from various backgrounds but initially, all but one vote in favor of the boy’s unforgivable sentence; while two other jurors lift two strong social stigmas and overcome their bias. One juror decided to stand up and take the time out for proper reasoning that resulted in teaching the others two jurors a lesson. Final verdicts should be made on justifiable grounds or the foundation of America’s society could be left at risk for collapse. Justifiable final verdicts are skewed