“How has civil rights changed?” Someone asks. Your first thought is, “completely! Racism totally got abolished with the Jim Crow Laws!” But… That’s not actually true… Is it? This essay will analyze how equality has improved, inspiring leaders, and the role of our generation. Before you get mad at me… Yes! Equality has improved! America has come a long way! We’ve made progress! But we haven’t completely abolished it. Nevertheless, let’s focus on the bright side: How we improved. One of the biggest rights taken away through the Jim Crow laws was the right to vote. “Beginning in the 1890s, southern states enacted literacy tests, poll taxes, elaborate registration systems, and eventually whites-only Democratic Party primaries to exclude black
Prior to the establishment of this act, African Americans faced many legal restraints prohibiting many of them from voting- a right guaranteed to all citizens under the fifteenth amendment. When African Americans attended the polling booths, they were often asked to complete a literacy test or pay a poll fine to vote. These tests caused a vast demographic of African Americans to be exempt from the voting process, excluding and discrediting their voices. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally outlawed any discriminatory voting prerequisites used by many Southern states at the time. The development of this act is often seen as a crucial turning point for the Civil Rights Movement and one of the nation’s most significant accomplishments since Reconstruction.
Honore de Balzac once wrote “Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn into a fact.” There will always be talk of equality but, equality is essentially impossible to achieve. The society from “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and the society from “Is the U.S a land of liberty or equality?” by Robert J. Samuelson, both speak of equality and have fundamentally reached that main goal, but their aspects of equality are conflicting and are completely different. Both societies want equality, freedom, and liberty. Samuelson’s article from The Washington Post argues how the society of the United States must preserve freedom and promote equality.
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 brings mention to the way equality is perceived by society. Equality is safe, it’s comfortable, people don’t worry when they have no one to judge themselves against. Some forms of equality are not completely natural, “not everyone born free and equal as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal” ( Bradburry 55).
I believe Eric Foner does a brilliant job depicting Americans’ newfound devotion to equality. He explores the ideals of equality through suffrage, slavery, religious, and patriotic freedom by various author’s excerpts. Equality is threatened and greatened after the American Revolution, but the Revolution within America was the real struggle to maintain our achieved independence. A devotion to equality doesn’t happen overnight and Americans found that out quickly. Americans had to be confused because of all these exceptions to the mission statement of the free world that is the United States.
In addition, Taylor goes onto describe how racism in America was present long before the Civil Rights movement. Paragraphs in this text could easily be applied to why the Civil Rights movement still affects us today because it describes why the people back then were angry about this which are the same reasons for their anger today. It also describes what the World was like before the civil rights movement which is relevant to today with all of the riots happening. This text is from Taylor Branch who is widely known for his award-winning trilogy of books about the life of Martin Luther King Junior and much of the history of the Civil Rights Movement. The validity of the author of this text adds value to the text overall because it is a reliable source.
Observably, the Jim Crow laws passed by southern states effectively disfranchised African-Americans from the late nineteenth century until well into the 20th century. In the ongoing of Reconstruction, after the Civil War, African Americans in the south briefly enjoyed voting privileges because they felt nearly equal to whites. However, around 1890, legally sanctioned disfranchisement occurred abruptly. For example, during the years’ right after the Civil War, African Americans made up as much as forty-four percent of the registered electorate in Louisiana, but by 1920, they constituted only 1 percent of the electorate. In Mississippi, almost seventy percent of eligible African Americans were registered to vote in 1867 and after 1890, less than six percent were eligible to vote.
American history was made July 2, 1964. The Civil Acts was signed and enacted. The act outlawed segregation on race, sex, religion, or national origin. This act really helped change America for the better. It gave other people of any race and color equal voting rights.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of civil rights legislation that was enacted to protect the voting rights of African Americans and other minority groups. The law was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6, 1965, and has been credited with increasing the political power and representation of minority groups in the United States. This essay will explore the background, significance, and impact of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the current challenges and controversies surrounding the law. Prior to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, voting rights were often denied to African Americans and other minority groups through a variety of discriminatory practices, including literacy tests, poll taxes, and other measures.
Eventually over time and after a civil war, rights had been given to African Americans through the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Although these amendments gave rights, they were met by the force of discrimination, segregation, and the Jim Crow Laws. All of which blocked the rights or freedoms for African Americans. The Jim Crow Laws were laws that disenfranchised African Americans by making them pay a poll tax, pass a literacy test, and by making it to where African Americans could only vote if their grandfather had. This was called the Grandfather Clause.
Looking back in the history of the United States of America, African American were given the right to vote on February 3, 1870 by the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Even though they were given the right to vote they were placed under undue pressure to keep them from voting. Tactics such as, violence, literacy tests, poll taxes, ridiculous registration practices, Voters ID, Redistricting, and other obstacles were used. This was especially done in the South where slavery was popular. Many African Americans experienced violence and were even murdered to prevent them from voting.
Civil rights have evolved largely over time. During the eighteen hundreds, fight for civil rights largely centered on equality for African Americans and women. For African Americans, even though they were free men and women, they continuously were treated as less than “whites”.
In 1856 the vote shifted to all white males. In 1870 the right to vote was given to all African Americans, but it did not last because of Southern State’s Jim Crow laws in 1889. These disenfranchisement laws were placed to once again limit the rights of all Black Americans. To severely prohibit the ability for blacks to vote, people did all they could to make it as difficult as possible for most free slaves and their next generation to simply stay out of the nominations entirely. These Southern states would remake franchise laws to enable a strict regulation on being eligible to vote.
We have made many strides toward equality. I can only trust in the one thing that will never change. The power of
Introduction: The civil rights movement of 1954-1968 has made a huge impact on the history of African-American equality. All the great leaders of the movement have gone down in history for their courageous work and outstanding commitment to the civil rights movement. One of the most famous of the activists was Martin Luther King Junior (1929-1968) . King is still remembered today for his legendary speech entitled “I had a dream”.
Even though the government adopted the Voting Rights Act in 1965, African Americans’ suffrages were still restricted because of southern states’ obstructions. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was important for blacks to participate in political elections, but before this act was passed, there were several events led to its proposal. The government gave African Americans’ the right to vote by passing the 15th Amendment, but in the Southern States, blacks’ suffrages were limited by grandfather clauses, “poll taxes, literacy tests, and other bureaucratic restrictions” (ourdocuments.gov). As times went on, most African Americans couldn’t register their votes.