Racial Inequality In Henry Thoreau's Civil Disobedience

Imagine earning less money than someone with a different hair color, even if the same amount of effort was put into a job, or not being able to do something all because a group of people with the same hair color said only they can do that something. This is an example of what racial inequality feels like. A majority ruling and creating certain rules that are unjust. Just because a majority has a decision on an issue, it doesn’t mean that the majority is right. This what Henry Thoreau is trying to clarify in his writing Civil Disobedience; “when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest” (Thoreau 4). Racial inequality hasn’t disappeared throughout the history of America; however, racial inequality has decreased ever since the ‘Jim Crow’ laws. Although, there is people in today’s society where they consider themselves ‘racist’ and want only one race to rule society. Another issue of racial inequality is the wage gap between races hasn’t had a big change within the years.

Back around the 1870’s when slavery was ended and black people were freed is when racial inequality was shown with the Jim Crow laws. Black people and white people were segregated and weren’t allowed to interact with each other. About two decades later, there was a Supreme Court case named