Five Founding Ideals Of African American Equality

Equality is described as “the condition of being equal, especially by, about having the same political, social, and economic rights.” Ever since the United States was established, equality meant a symbol of hope, freedom and the chance to live a fair life with many opportunities. Nevertheless, Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of America who was part of the National Union Party and Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister who became one of the most well-known leaders in the Civil Rights Movement. In Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address Speech and King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, both convey the significance of equality during the time.

Often times our society confuses equality for equal. Although the words may look same and share similar letters, the two have completely different definitions. As an African American citizen living in America I feel like we focus much on being equal opposed to having equality. Thus when having equality you are giving equal opportunity and more door become available, despite when being equal you are just like everyone else. However, unlike the novel “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I would rather have equality than to be one hundred percent equal to someone else. When making everyone equal you take away ones individuality, creativity, and strengths; eliminating competition and status feuds. Yet in order for them to make everyone equal they must instill fear and diagnoses everyone with false handicaps.

America was founded on the astute principles of democracy and the potential benefits of freedom it derives. America, unlike many of its foreign counterparts has long recognized the benefits of individual rights, freedoms and privileges and has fought to the death to protect them. Currently, America aims to spread these principles of democracy around the globe in an effort to create a better quality of life for all mankind. Even with these lofty and ambitious goals, America, on occasion fails to uphold these principles within its own borders. Too often, America has overlooked the problems prevalent within its own country while criticizing other nations about their own circumstances. Many of these overlooked issues including slavery, discrimination, women's rights and others have left an unfavorable image in American history. The African American community in particular has worked very diligently over the years to end segregation as a means to achieve equal rights for its entire constituent base.

As many people are aware, African Americans struggled a lot when trying to receive equal rights. Even though the Civil War that took place from 1861 to 1865 had accomplished to abolish slavery in 1865, African Americans were still being treated poorly and weren’t receiving civil rights. “Civil Rights are the rights of all Americans to equal protection under the law, as provided by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution” (Bardes, Schmidt, Shelley 92).

America is treasured because of its ability to offer equal opportunity to all people, no matter what race, gender, or religion. However, America’s prized equality has not been available all through the country’s lifespan. Many acts and laws have had to be put in place in order to create an egalitarian country. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 both were both created on the same topic: creating a fairer country that provided equal opportunities to all. Essentially, they work hand in hand, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 provided equal opportunity and rights to those with parents born in other countries, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited any sort of prejudice or discrimination concerning sex, religion, and race.

"So ladies and gentlemen, I am officially running for president of the United States." Our current President-elect, Donald Trump, announced his candidacy on June 16th, 2015. If he follows through with all his plans, Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream for America, could very radically be changed. MLK’s dream of diversity and equality could become a reality of uniform color. We could soon be living in a country where instead of welcoming uniqueness and variation, people are denigrated and harassed for the color of skin. We may not be faced with the same issues regarding color Dr. King was faced with but this is not the dream of color I have for America and it is certainly not the dream Dr. King envisioned for America.

The foundation for African-American participation in the Civil War began more than a hundred years before the outbreak of the war. African-Americans had been in bondage since early colonial times. In 1776, when Jefferson proclaimed mankind’s inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the institution of slavery had become firmly established in America. African-Americans worked in the tobacco fields of Virginia, in the rice fields of South Carolina, and toiled in small farms and shops in the North. Foner and Mahoney report in A House Divided, America in the Age of Lincoln that, “In 1776, slaves composed forty percent of the population of the colonies from Maryland south to Georgia, but well below ten percent in the colonies to the North.” The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 provided a demand for cotton thus increasing the demand for slaves. By the 1800’s slavery was an institution throughout the South, an institution in which slaves had few rights, and could be sold or leased by their owners. They lacked any voice in the government and lived a life of hardship. Considering these circumstances, the slave population never abandoned the desire for freedom or the determination to resist control by the slave owners. The slave 's reaction to this desire and determination resulted in outright rebellion and individual acts of defiance. However, historians place the strongest reaction in the enlistment of African-Americans in the war itself.

As we can see now a days we have really advanced as a society to give everyone equal rights and have created many laws that prohibit racial segregation or anything that would discriminate against Black Americans. Black Americans have been denied simple and necessary rights that would create a better future for anyone. With these rights have come great advantages for all people growing up in this day and age. It is the first step to creating an equal society where no one is judged because of the way they look but on character and

As early as the 1930s when America joined the World War, and maybe even before then, we as a nation have believed that we are the best in the world at virtually everything. American “greatness” can be seen in several different facets of the American culture. Such as, in our education system, which is 36th out of 65 countries and was below the OECD average ( Ryan, Julia; The Atlantic). Or, in our “melting pot” mindset, with news such as Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration (Lopez, German; Vex) and basically America’s entire history with African Americans. Even more, in our healthcare, which is one of the most expensive with the least effective insurance policies in the world . In sum, we have become one of the most hypocrisy ridden countries in the world, and ladies and gentlemen, I have found the solution. We should follow the example and ideas of our new great leader, and deport every single one of America’s “worst” citizens back to their original countries.

It is written in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” (USHistory.org) Certainly,  if this was written for all men, this should have included African-Americans as well. At the turn of the twentieth century racism and inequality were the norm. During this time, two prominent African-American men spoke to African-Americans on which approach they should take to be treated in the same manner of White Americans. Booker T. Washington was an influential African-American leader, reformer, and educator. He believed that African-Americans should concentrate

Equal rights for all American citizens is a very important aspect of a successful country. Although, African Americans have fought hard and long for their rights to become equal with white citizens. They been fighting for many years to just get the simple right to vote for our nation's president. The two passages describing civil rights both have the same motive, however, the passages have different concepts to achieve their motives. Passage number two makes the most convincing argument for improving economic conditions for African Americans. Both passages hold important concepts for improving economic conditions and rights for African Americans.

As the United States put an end to slavery, and oppression of African Americans, the country needed aggressive policies to really end discrimination, and segregation. In several part of the country, African Americans were still considered as second class citizen. In the south, the social climate did not change. Many companies did not hire black at all. White southerners did not want integration in school or equal opportunity for black people. The federal government wanted to change the situation and to offer equal opportunity to all. During the 1950’s and 1960’s major changes in civil rights took place within the country. President Kennedy during his presidency came with major policies to alleviate people from poverty and to end

The term civil rights is very broad when it comes a definition. It has many different aspects as in to what it can mean, from integration all the way to voting rights of African Americans. My main point is to focus on the Selma Marches from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama, but also to dig deeper in to it to find the significance of a certain day, the day was called “Bloody Sunday.” I want to find out the historical situation behind the marchers who were beat and killed on that day. Racism defined in many different variations and means different things to certain people is the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to the race, which is the same as racial stereotyping. Since the 50s and

America is a society that founded basic human rights through injustice which was widely known as the American paradox. Even though it is stated in the Declaration of Independence that, "All men are created equal," decades ago and often times today, it only applied to what was believed to be the superior race, and that only meant certain groups of people. This American paradox connected directly to racism which included prejudice, discrimination, and institutional inequality defined by sociologists Michael Omi and Howard Winant. America is an unequal society destroyed by individual racial discrimination that led to institutional racial discrimination which led to systemic racial discrimination. It all starts with individual racism — one

The United States Constitution says that all men are created equal. Thus all Americans, no matter what they look like, where they come from, or what they believe, deserves to have basic equal opportunities. Not to forget, United States was once a country that practices slavery of African American men, women and children until December 1865, when the thirteenth Amendment formally outlawed the slavery throughout the United States.