The struggle for equality Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

The splutter for equality - Essay Example elegant rights are freedoms and rights guaranteed to a member of a community, state, or nation. exemption of speech, of the press, religion, and of fair and equal treatment are the basic cultivated rights. The constitution of the United States contains a crest of Rights that describes simple liberties and rights insured to both person in the United States. Although the Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the Constitution, polite rights were not always respected to altogether human beings, especially discolors. When the Constitution was first written, many Americans unsounded the meaning of the famous inscripture all men are created equal to mean that all white males were created equal, in like manner with other civil rights guarantees as well. As a result, blacks were enslaved and persecuted throughout the late 1700s and early 1800s.After the end of Civil War the Constitution was amended to give former slaves freedom and th e rights of citizens. This passing of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to Constitution were suppose to give the African-Americans equal protection under the law. They were also intended to give the refreshed citizens the right to vote. During the 1850s abolitionists in the North questioned the morality of southern slavery by writing and preaching about the rights blacks were denied. Abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, Fredrick Douglass, and Sojourner Truth, paved the way for the first civil rights movement that occurred after the Civil War, during Reconstruction. ... segregated societies, separating themselves from blacks in every humanly way possible. The old Jim Crow laws governed all aspects of their existence, from the schoolroom to the restroom. Southern blacks faced new distinction every day whether it be economically, socially, or politically. America was destined for another, more far-reaching civil rights movement. The civil rights movement during the late 1 800s and early 1900s provided the foundations for the current civil rights laws achieved throughout the 1960s.Black Americans made significant gains in their struggle for equal rights during Reconstruction, the 12-year period after the Civil War. In 1868, after southern president Andrew Johnson vetoed a Civil Rights bill, the radically republican influenced congress transported the principals of the Civil Rights bill to the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment conferred civil rights and citizenship for all former slaves, and was incorporated into the requirements for a southern state to regain its statehood. After the 14th Amendment was passed however, the radical cabal of congress was disappointed that it did not grant blacks the right to vote. When the fear that southern states might amend their constitutions so as to withdraw blacks from the voter turnout was recognized by moderate Republicans, Congress formally placed the ballot in the hands of blacks with the 15th Amendment, pa ssed in 1869. With the passing of breakthrough legislation, several leaders emerged to lead this new civil rights movement. Ex-slave, Booker T. Washington put his newly acquired freedom to use when he started a black industrial school at Tuskegee, Alabama. He taught his students useful trades so they could