Download Essay - African Americans - Equality

Part II
THEMATIC ESSAY QUESTION
(Jan 02)
Theme: Equal Rights
Since 1900, various groups in the United States have struggled to achieve full equality.
Task:
Identify one group of people in American society that has been denied
equal rights.
• Discuss a major problem this group has encountered since 1900 in its
struggle for full equality
• Discuss two specific actions that have been taken by an individual, an
organization, or the government in an effort to help this group overcome
the problem
• Evaluate the extent to which this group has achieved equality today
Be sure to support your essay with specific names of persons, laws,
amendments, and Supreme Court cases whenever possible
You may use any group from your study of United States history. Some suggestions you might
wish to consider include African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, Native American
Indians, persons with disabilities, and women.
You are not limited to these suggestions
(This is the second version of this outline)
Body 1 - One group that has be denied equal rights is: African-Americans
Body 1 – A major problem that African Americans have encountered since 1900 in its struggle
for full equality is:
Racism. A significant roadblock along the path to equality was the development of
Black Codes, old slaves laws, and Southern segregation laws, also known as Jim Crow laws,
during Reconstruction. Although these laws have their origin in the 1800’s and the Supreme
Court case that gave constitutional support to these “separate but equal” acts occurred in 1896,
Plessy vs. Ferguson, the effects of these laws severely affected the lives of African Americans
during the 1900’s. African Americans in the South had to go to separate restrooms, restaurants,
schools, movie theaters and hospitals than white people. They were so extreme that an African
American’s blood would not be accepted by white people, white schools would not use books
from “colored” schools and minorities even had to be buried in different cemeteries. These laws
undermined the rights guaranteed to African Americans with the passage of the 14th
Amendment because they were not treated as equals. Other voting restrictions limited the
suffrage rights of African Americans guaranteed by the 15th Amendment because of things like
poll taxes, literacy tests, and the grandfather clause. The poll tax was a fee charged when a
person wanted to vote. A literacy test was when every voter was given a passage to read before
he/she voted and if they couldn’t read it, they couldn’t vote. The major dilemma was that
African Americans were given a reading that was much more difficult than the reading given to
whites, greatly reducing the number of African Americans that were able to vote.
Body 2 – There were two specific actions that have been taken by an individual, an organization,
or the government in an effort to help this African Americans overcome the racism:
Civil Rights leaders pushed for reform in a variety of different ways. Leaders like Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, along with the group started by W.E.B. DuBois, the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) forced the
government to change through the creation of new legislation and by reviewing old laws.
First, the NAACP was an integral member of the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education
(1954). Headed by the lawyer Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP team was able to prove to Earl
Warren’s Supreme Court that the segregation laws that required separate schools for whites and
non-whites was unconstitutional. Assisted by the African American psychologist Kenneth
Clark, the NAACP was able to convince the Supreme Court that non-white schools create a
sense of inferiority and therefore they violated the 14th Amendment’s “equal protection” clause.
Secondly, by utilizing passive resistance and civil disobedience, civil rights leaders like Martin
Luther King actively violated laws that segregated lunch counters, called for boycotts of city
buses in Birmingham, Alabama and led protests of 200,000 people in Washington, D.C. Their
efforts resulted in the passage of the 24th Amendment which ended the use of poll taxes, the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 which ended the use of literacy tests in national elections, and the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 which ended the use of literacy tests in all elections.
Body 3 – The Civil Rights leaders and the NAACP have helped African Americans attain greater
equality today:
Although African Americans have not achieved true equality as Martin Luther King has
hoped in his 1963 speech, “I Have a Dream,” African Americans have become more equal in
American society. In schools, racism has become less of a problem than it was even 10 years
previously. With the introduction of more forms of minorities into rural, traditional “white”
communities like Pine Bush, New York, children have come to see, understand, and appreciate
the differences between people of different colors. Also, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also
banned discrimination based upon race, sex, religion, or national origin. This created greater
fairness and diversity in the workplace and caused many businesses to use affirmative action
programs to create more equity. However, even though there has been progress, African
Americans are much more likely to live in poverty, to attend underfunded schools, to not attend
college, and to need the assistance of welfare than whites.