The Fight For Equal Rights In The 1970's

The full text of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) reads as follows, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex” (qtd. in Stewart 33). These twenty-four words would become some of the most controversial of the twentieth century. Under the nineteenth amendment, American women obtained the right to vote in 1920. This amendment inspired Alice Paul to draft the first ERA which she then introduced to the United States Congress in 1923. After this first proposal, the ERA would eventually be proposed in each succeeding session of Congress (Stewart 33). Despite its introduction every year for fifty years, the ERA did not accumulate a strong opposing force until after it

After Being Dragged out of their homeland, brought to an unknown country, and forced to be slaves, African-Americans saw a road trip to equality through the eyes of Martin Luther King, Jr. Even after being emancipated from slaves to citizens, African-Americans were not ready to wage the battle against segregation alone. The weight which African Americans carried on their back, was lightened when they began to see what Martin Luther King, Jr. brought to the table against segregation. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the single most important African-American leader of the Civil Rights Movement and was responsible for dramatically improving the chance of equality for African-Americans. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the key individual, which helped

In 1921, women were granted suffrage, but suffragists were still hungry for more. Knowing that the right to vote would not eliminate sex discrimination in America, Alice Paul wrote the Equal Rights Amendment to step closer to equality. After half a century of struggle, women in America are still fighting for rights that men were given to when they were born. Even though women are just as intelligent, capable and hardworking as men, if not more, they are not considered an equal under the U.S. Constitution. Can you believe that today, in the 21st century, we still degrade women and treat them as inferiors to men? Can you believe that just because you are a woman, you are less than equal to the male population? Look around you, all those boys and girls are not equal to each other under our “just” country’s laws. As it is long overdue, the Equal Rights Amendment should be ratified because there is no other amendment that talks about sex discrimination, it would eliminate any inequality in regards to sex, and it would make the judicial stance on sex discrimination cases much clearer.

In the years leading to 1930, the Great Plains experienced a healthy amount of rain. The drought began in 1930 when the rain ceased. That year proved tough for farmers in the Great Plains, but they had no idea what was yet to come. In 1931, dust storms began to sweep through the Great Plains. Behind the dust, families stayed hidden inside their homes using wet clothes and such to guard the window sills and door frames. The families affected by the Dust Bowl were trapped inside of their homes for the six years of raging dust storms. The Great Depression was a number of years that consisted of workers being laid off, no job openings available, and an overall economic low in the United States. The Great Depression, which started in the years leading up to the drought, resulted in poor living conditions, including little to no income, scarce food, and unclean water. The Dust Bowl amplified those conditions for the affected families. (Steinbeck, Lewis, “Dust Bowl”

In the early 1900s crops for farmers where it was fertile and productive investment, until the climate started to heat up and dry out all of the land. The wind was turning the soil the wrong side up (Egan, p. 114). The High Plains were the most affected, and the wind was the contributing element that made it dangerous for people to live there. In the early 1930s, people were forced out of their homes and had to head somewhere safe. The climate had been dangerous with the wind erosions for a decade or so, and the dust was tearing away the crops, putting dust and other particles in the air, making it thick and hard for people to see when traveling across the country. People were afraid that in the future they would not be able to survive in the High Plains and feel secure that it was a safe place. The Worst Hard Time focused on the Dust Bowl and how it affected people in the High Plains. Parched land was one of the main conditions that lead to despair being found among the people living in the High Plains. Another issue that brought up the theme of despair in the text/book, is the economics of the Dust Bowl. The Great Depression was a major effect leaving many people without their life savings. Lastly, the Dust Bowl coincided with the events leading to Black Sunday, as the winds and the declining economy started to take a toll on people and their homes. In states like Texas and Oklahoma there was dust in people’s eyes, and they were unable to see anything in front of them.

Since the 1920’s, women have been fighting for equal rights. Women’s groups spent decades working to pass laws that would ban gender discrimination. Finally, in 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment was passed by Congress even though

During the decades of the 1920s and 1930s, the United States underwent a series of changes that had a drastic effect on people across the nation. As the economy began to slow to a halt, millions of people were left broke and without jobs. As the country’s farmers were paralyzed with debt, food prices increased radically (McElvaine). During the mid-1930s, a series of droughts coupled with poor agricultural methods led to years of soil erosion and dust storms known as the Dust Bowl, a catastrophe that destroyed farms throughout the Southern Great Plains (Shafer, Low). As a result, many farmers were forced to abandon their land to seek employment elsewhere. These migrant workers, attracted by the fertility and familiarity of the area, traveled to California towns such as Salinas, where they labored tirelessly for wealthy planters (Cayton, Gorn, Williams). The events of the Great Depression Era, following years of difficulty and poverty, paved the way to an entirely new way of life for Americans.

Many leaders arose during this time and called for a change in the treatment of African Americans such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. With the ideas of hope for a better future many African American communities decided to hold protests to change the way the government acted towards them. The government was supposed to help the people not disregard them when they are in need of help or focus on one group of people all together. Throughout the Civil Rights Movement each time they protest and it threatened the stability of the country the government gives in to them and granted them their rights such as the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The 1965 Voting Rights Act was put in place to make up for the holes in the 15th amendment which has allowed the passing of the Jim Crow laws as well as the unconstitutionally approval of the Plessy v. Ferguson case. As people saw the African Americans being hit with tear gas, being beaten, and whipped by the state troopers and still pushed forward showed the lengths they will go to achieve their dream of a new future.

During the 1930s, the United States faced various struggles such as The Great Depression- a time in which farmers suffered severely through many challenges. One of the challenges faced by farmers was the Dust Bowl tragedy; a dust storm affecting many farms throughout the midwest. The tragic Dust Bowl was a consequence due to lack of rainfall in the dry prairie lands, decreasing crop growth, and overproduction in farming causing more exposed land. It occurred because of advancements in farming technology, drought in the Great Plains, and the harvesting of grasslands.

The 1930s were seasons of extensive hardship on the Great Plains. Settlers managed with the Great Depression, as well as with years of droughts that dove an already suffering society into an attack of tireless dust storms that lasted for months. The Dust bowl conveyed an enormous agrarian and monetary hit to the Great Plains and destroyed what was left of the United States Economy during the Great Depression. It continued for a decade, 1930 to 1939, and wrecked ranches and lives all over Texas, Oklahoma panhandles, Colorado, parts of New Mexico, Canada, and Kansas. Monstrous dust storms wrecked pretty much everything from harvests, overwhelming ranches, in such a way it crushed the income and careers of thousands of farmers.

The Great Depression was a horrible time in American history, with as much as one-fourth of the population out of work. One of the hardest hit areas of the population was the agricultural center of the United States in the area that would come to be known as the Dust Bowl. The problems that the people of the Dust Bowl dealt with however were not a result of the Depression as a whole but instead were the result of a combination of bad farming decisions and a horrible drought. Even though the timing makes it seem like the Dust Bowl experience in the 1930’s was a part of the Great Depression as a whole it was a totally different disaster that was occurring at the same time. The experience of the families that lived in the Dust Bowl during the 1930’s cannot be described in any way but as horrible, depressing, and almost hopeless.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s a momentous movement broke out in the United States in pursuit of making a change in our nation for the better. This movement, titled the Civil Rights Movement, spread like a wildfire throughout the nation and made it possible for African Americans to have rights equal to those of whites. While at the end, this movement was successful in desegregating everything and achieving equality in the laws that were passed, it was not successful in integrating all people and changing the actions of others so that African Americans were treated equal to the white’s. Civil Rights Activists Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, Rosa Parks, and many other inspirational black leaders played key roles in lighting the fire that was

The civil rights movement is one the significant historical movements in America. African-American struggled in the mid twentieth century to achieve freedom. The dream of being free seemed impossible as to reaching the unreachable star. Even though nearly ten decades after President Abraham Lincoln issued Emancipation Proclamation to abolish slavery in America, African-American were still suffering from racial inequality in southern states. The segregation of schools, housing, jobs, public transportation, public spaces, military service and prisons was the biggest challenge of the African-Americans. The African-American still suffered from injustice access to the basic privileges and rights of the U.S. citizenship. Although the civil right

The civil rights movement was a political, legal and social struggle for African-Americans in the United States to be full citizens and it was possible because of the union between grassroots activists and the black population. This movement was the first and most important as a consequence of the racial segregation that separated African Americans from whites. African Americans had schools, transportation, restaurants and parks just for them, but of worse quality than those of whites. Grassroots activism influenced the success of the civil rights movement because; the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was possible, A. Philip Randolph directed with grassroots activists the March of Washington of 1963 in which he Martin Luther King Jr, gave his famously known discourse “I Have a Dream” which became the key element for the success of the Civil Rights Movement and it also brings up the Supreme Court and presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman in their respective time to take action in order to ensure the protection of black people liberties.

During the 20th century, male and females were not being treated equally a lot of women started getting mad because they weren’t getting jobs or the right to vote as men, so it led to the Civil Rights Movement, the Equal Rights Amendment was involved, because women weren’t treated equally or given the same rights as males. The Civil RIghts Movement was when there was a lot of racism and black and white people weren’t given the same rights, it was unfair to the black because they couldn’t do so many things like vote and also there was sex discrimination. In 1923, Alice Paul, leader and founder of the National Woman’s Party, considered that ERA should be the next step in the 19th Amendment in granting equal justice under the law to both sexes, male and female, in the U.S. Alice Paul said “ We women of America tell you that America is not a democracy. Twenty million women are denied the right to vote.” A text from the amendment said “Equal of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”