Synthesis Essay On Equality

Woman have always been held up to certain standards when it comes to their femininity; standards that can determine their success. In an essay called “Pink Think”, Lynn Peril expresses her own opinion on this mindset, shedding down a negative light onto the ideas and outlines created in pink think. Peril ends up mocking and pointing out the realistic ideals about the pink think mindset as well as expressing that pink think never had an intended purpose. Throughout Peril’s essay, she ridicules the standards of pink think harshly; expressing this belief through ironic statements.

Voting in the early 1800’s was limited to white landowning males who paid taxes; neither women, African American slaves, nor the non- landowning/ non-taxpaying white males had the right to contribute to the

In the beginning, when our founders created the constitution, there was a struggle not only between race and color but also between male and female acknowledgement. The Year is 1776 and having land, being over 21, and in some state policies, having a religious affiliation, disqualified many individuals from casting their thoughts into so young a government. Starting with only 6% of the population having the capacity to vote, our country was founded. It has been 237 years and 11 amendments since, and we are still struggling with suffrage. It is 2014, January 15 and while poll taxes and literacy tests are not around to suppress voters, there are still wide spread methods that are being placed into action by political parties to ensure that

Prior to the Jacksonian Era, the law restricted voting, for the most part, to white males who owned property. As suffrage became a popular topic, “men who could not meet property requirements insisted that they were as fit as others to exercise the rights of citizens [voting]” (GME, 357). Through petitions by landless men, the land requirement became invalid and

Society has been significantly revolutionized since the beginnings of the United States. The very history of the country has been cursed with racism and the harsh oppression of minorities. In fact, America’s power and economy were founded on a Marxist theory of a two-class system. On the top of that system were the slave owners, and at the very bottom were the slaves themselves (Balkaran, 1999). Slavery and segregation used to be huge components in the lives of Americans. During those times, “Americans” were white, landowning men; obviously that principle has been altered a great deal. People of color, women, and the poor actually have been given suffrage by amendments in the Constitution. Although the United States’ culture and society

Susan B. Anthony once stated, “Here in…the Declaration [of Independence], is the assertion of the natural right of all to the ballot; for how can ‘the consent of the governed’ be given, if the right to vote be denied?” Her statement is still relevant today, and is a valid argument against the restriction of women’s, and all people’s, right to vote. In the past, long before the Women’s Suffrage Movement taking place throughout the 1900s, women in select states

The United States first began to deal with the issue of voter suppression during the Reconstruction. During Reconstruction freed slaves earned their right to vote and hold office through the fifteenth amendment in 1870. In 1877, Democrats, known as Dixiecrats, began to impose laws that were designed to suppress the African American vote or better known as Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow voting laws required the freedmen to pass literacy tests that they were unable to pass because of no formal education because of their status of slaves. Many states created poll taxes, which many poor Americans, white and black, were unable to pay. Many precincts made their voting precincts “white only” so that blacks would have nowhere to cast their votes. The Jim Crow voter suppression tactics were so successful that only three percent of African Americans in the south were registered to vote in 1940. Although African American males were given the right to vote in

This would not be the first time a certain party would try to hinder a part of the population from voting. According to MassVote, an organization for giving tools to educate voters, and provides a history of voter rights, in 1870 the Fifteenth amendment was passed, giving all men the right to vote, regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”(MassVote quoting the Constitution). Only ten years later poll taxes and literacy tests were enacted in southern states, placing a barrier in the way of minorities who were not educated enough to pass or could not pay the poll tax (MassVote). Until 1965 many more strategies to limit minorities from voting were used, including states simply taking voting rights away from descendants of slaves. Then The Voting Rights Act was signed into law, stopping practices that inhibit minorities voter rights, and

In the late 1800’s, the only people who could vote were white men, and African American men had just received their right to vote. In 1878, a Woman Suffrage Amendment was proposed to The United States of America’s Congress, which allowed women to vote. In the late 1880’s, the first vote on women’s suffrage was taken in the Senate and not passed. While women were not making much headway on this subject, it seemed African Americans were until Louisiana’s grandfather clause in 1896. This clause kept former slaves and their descendants from voting, which resulted in the percentage of registered African American voters to decline. After this, other states such as Alabama, South Carolina, Virginia, and Mississippi enacted their own grandfather clauses.

Throughout the semester we have touched upon many instances for which the legal history of America effects the life of a black America, especially in “We Shall Overcome” Alexander Tsesis takes on the task of looking at civil rights through the “lens of legal history’. “The Ballot or The Bullet” displays the political message that the ‘ballot’ is freedom, and thus power through the freedom to vote. Malcom X hounds in on the political idea that the white man preys on the black man for votes, but then allows filibustering to happen in the Senate so nothing gets passed to promote equality for black Americans. Alexander writes frequently through the book how skewed politics become for blacks once their vote is legalized. That although, they can

On March 15, 1965, the president spoke of the devious ways election officials denied people of color the right to vote. Whenever a colored person tried to vote, they were often told that they had the date or time wrong. Or that they had the wrong polling place, or they didn’t know how to read, or that they filled the application incorrectly. Many excuses were made to keep colored people from voting. The population of African Americans suffered a high rate of illiteracy because of centuries of oppression and poverty. They often were forced to take literacy tests, and then fail. In some cases, even blacks with college degrees were turned away! When the Voting Rights Act passed, in the state of Mississippi alone, voter turnout among colored increased from 6 percent to 59 in just one year

Since the creation of the United States of America, providing freedom and opportunity has shown to be the most essential factor that makes the country a desirable place to call home. However, certain rights have not been preserved for every citizen in society. In the aftermath of the recent presidential election, the citizens of this country are beginning to realize the importance of voicing their opinion and exercising the right to vote. Unfortunately, this country has yet to fully provide equal opportunity for the people it vowed to protect, especially when it comes to voting. Voting rights are still clearly under attack in our country and intentionally impact those who are of color and/or who are disadvantaged as well as women and those

What if we lived in a world where everyone was equal? No diversity, no assuming what people do based on their color or ethnicity, just everyone as equals. Think about what this world would be like if that was true.

According to most people, equality is probably one of the hardest words to define. Like love, equality can mean many different things. But there is one thing about equality we can all agree on. Acceptance. What exactly does it mean to “accept” someone? It means to treat others respectfully, no matter how they act or what they like. It means to welcome someone regardless of who they are. We’re all human. We all have feelings. We all have problems. We all have differences. We, as humans, should respect that.

Through the expanding electorate, and fight for equality in race, gender and socioeconomic class, the right to vote continues to this day. Americans have fought too long and too hard to return to an era where only white men have the privilege and right to vote. In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed, five years after the Emancipation. The Fifteenth Amendment, in theory, gave African American men the right to vote, stating “the rights of citizens… to vote shall not be denied or abridged… on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude” (US Constitution. Amendment XV, section 1). However, there were multiple obstacles in place to any African American man who wanted to exercise his democratic right to vote. First, there was the Grandfather Clause. However, before 1867, practically no Black men could vote, therefore making the Grandfather Clause only applicable for White men. Another deterrent to voting for Black men were the Jim Crow Laws, implemented in the South. These were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation. These laws allowed White people to, beat, kill and threaten Black men. Whites could legally intimidate Black people to prevent them from thinking about voting. For example, a Black man had been lynched and left in public to warn other people not to vote, with a sign that said, “this n***** voted” (Voting Rights for Blacks and Poor Whites in the Jim Crow South). This deterred the Black vote, as these forms of violence were legal, and often went