Introduction
Civil right movement long existed throughout the American history in various forms and via passages that were once authoritative, unsafe and highly competitive. Civil rights principles battled with the south’s universal memorials and confederate history. Exemplary scholars, past literature and participants generated plenty of factual records, which narrate the challenges black Americans faced before attaining voting rights, desegregation from the federal government and the public (Button, 2014). This paper pushes forwards its agenda by stating three arguments. The first argument supports giving voting rights to African Americans for the sake of creating unity and one community Voting fuels unity among black Americans and channels their efforts toward one course, which is voting for the leaders of their choice while gaining political power at the same time. The second argument states that black desegregating the society will create an equal environment for everyone. The third argument rallies around equality, human rights, and humanity in general.
Voting argument
Socioeconomic concepts have always formed the foundation for political contribution researches. Nevertheless, these ideals may be inadequate and specifically unsuitable for explaining underlying reasons for denying black Americans the right to vote. Even though increment in age and schooling gives relevant skills that facilitates and paves way for easier political participation, if a certain community experiences segregation and racial discrimination, their participation will be in vain and weal compared to other communities.
According to Button, (2014), people cast their votes when the positives of contributing outweigh the negatives. Consequently, a mutual basis revolves around socioeconomic status of the people and if it yields a higher stake for them in the community, hence political participation will have a meaning only if the benefits reflect back to the lives of the citizens. Simply put, lack of voting points to lack of other basic rights such as shelter, food, and clothing.
In the past, a dreadful, gory civil war set American slaves free. The 14th amendment of the constitution gave black Americans the citizenship rights in 1868. Nevertheless, this failed to translate into voting rights. Polling station turned away African American voters. To counter this predicament, congress enacted the 15th amendment in the year 1870. The amendment stated that all people have the right to vote as long as they were Americans (Dierenfield, 2013). Yet, some states still found ways of evading the constitution clauses and prohibited black Americans from casting their votes. Poll taxes and threatens discouraged Black Americans from going to the polls. African Americans took note of the one-sided treatment and people all over discussed the issues in congress, the media, and the streets. Voting equality is vital and denying them the right to was similar to refuting them access to socioeconomic rights. Furthermore, voting gives people a voice through their chosen representative hence a community gets quality education, health care, security and a chance to grow as human beings in their own nation.
As mentioned earlier, coercion, violence, and racial profiling in some states discouraged Americans from voting (Dierenfield, 2013). Black Americans have the right to shape their future through their vote. The power to vote would give people the ability to regulating the manner in which elected leaders utilize their taxes and take of advantage to develop their communities. In the end civil right movement were able to bring to attention the ills black American were facing
Desegregation
The laws and regulations mostly ignored one vital sociological progress in the last one hundred years, that is, an acute decrease in residential segregation. In the 1970s, an estimated 80% of Black Americans switched localities in order for the even distribution of blacks across urban areas (Andrews, & Gaby, 2015). Desegregation of American society had a ripple effect especially among Black American communities, civil rights institutions, and housing discrimination, voting and university segregation among other areas of the community. Previously, black American communities relied on segregation for many things.
Anyone can tell the impact of the Douglass speech reverberated through time. The dialogue was like a lens focusing on the future. It can fit in today’s contemporary society without losing its context. The judicial system is one of the settings where the speech can apply. One walk into a courtroom or reading through a police report will confirm the plight of black Americans. Actually, the number of arrests one officer made in a report and one could not conceal my surprise (Biggs, & Andrews, 2015). More than ten black Americans sleep in jail daily. Black Americans are more likely to end up in jail than other races. Justice institutions have policies and processes that harbor racism against blacks. Most of the times, the public finds it hard to detect policies that show bias. In a situation where two men commit the same crime, a black man is more likely to land a heavy sentence than a white man is. What people often tend to forget is that legal systems can perpetuate slavery and discrimination through the law. In other words, slavery and segregation intertwined with present institutions and their policies as seen via the legal system. Hence, the reason Fred’s speech resonates well with my argument. All in all, no one can rubbish the efforts of t civil rights movement as they made tremendous steps in ensuring equality and inclusion of black Americans.
In summary, from an ethical perspective or fairly speaking out against discrimination, discrimination is wrong and morally corrupt. It goes against the standards of equality. The equality norm states that everyone has a right to justice and fair treatment once they step into the confines of a courtroom and in the society (Lawson, 2014) .In addition; everyone is innocent until proven guilty. In fact, race is not a factor when it comes to assessing a court case. Simply put, it is only possible to vindicate racism or treating individuals contrary to the law if there are facts setting ground for such mistreatment. Equality is just an empty term if not put into specific context. In the court system, equality means that people can access communal agencies; receive services and equal treatment as stipulated by the constitution. The bottom line is institutional racism is wrong and not justified any means. Therefore, it can be unfair to argue that the civil right movements were not active they did their best to shed light on the plight of the black American communities of that particular time. Civil rights movement showed the rest of the American societies the need for voting, taking part in the society initiatives pointed out other issues the community was not aware of. Therefore, so far as bringing change to the black American communities is a necessity, the civil rights movements did everything in their power and in the constitution to bring about change in the community and their impact will live long after they are death and gone.
Reference
Andrews, K. T., & Gaby, S. (2015, June). Local protest and federal policy: The impact of the civil rights movement on the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In Sociological Forum (Vol. 30, pp. 509-527).
Biggs, M., & Andrews, K. T. (2015). Protest campaigns and movement success: Desegregating the US south in the early 1960s. American Sociological Review, 80(2), 416-443.
Button, J. W. (2014). Blacks and social change: Impact of the civil rights movement in southern communities (Vol. 1029). Princeton University Press.
Dierenfield, B. J. (2013). The Civil Rights Movement: Revised Edition. Routledge.
Lawson, S. F. (2014). Running for freedom: Civil rights and black politics in America since 1941. John Wiley & Sons.
