During the late 19th and early 20th century,

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During the late 19th and early 20th century, civil and political rights of certain groups such as the African Americans and the Hispanics in America were restricted (McClain & Tauber, 2018). The period was faced with major challenges that propelled a revolution aimed at fighting for the fundamental rights and freedom of the deprived ethnic communities in a bid to promote racial equality and freedom to all. The civil and political rights are a class of rights that protects an individual’s freedom from being infringed either by the government or other entities such as private individuals and social organizations. The rights ensure that a person is entitled to the participation in the civil and the political life in the country which they are purported to live without any issues of discrimination and or repression.

The civil rights include such rights such as ensuring peoples’ safety and life, protection from discrimination on all aspects such as race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, political affiliation, and ethnicity (Moeckli, 2017). Besides, the civil rights as well, cover individual rights such as freedom of expression, privacy, and thought as well as freedom of movement. On the other side, the political rights include natural justice in law which stipulates a person’s right to be treated fairly during trial, the right to seek redress, right to participation, assemble, petition, self-defense as well as the right to vote. The civil and political form the original and the main part of the international human rights that is a body mandated to oversee the protection of human rights in the world. During the late 19th and early 20th century, America was faced by major challenges to which curtailed the rights of some ethnic and racial groups in the nation, something which led to the denial of the constitutional privileges.

During the late 19th and early 20th century, African American civil and political rights were restricted in various ways in an attempt to strip off their bargaining powers as they were considered as people of a lesser race and they could never be equal to the whites; an act which intensified slavery in America. One of the ways that the civil and political rights of the Black and other minority communities were limited include slavery. Slavery was the main way in which the Black people could be denied to exercise their rights despite being granted by the constitution, which deemed every person residing in the American soil as equal. During the time, the whites perceived themselves as of being of a superior race, and that blacks were far much less than and to be closer not even equal, the black people needed to be civilized. Since the beginning of slavery, the white masters never believed that the black people could regain their freedom as they deemed them as being mentally deprived and they could only excel under tight supervision, which made it difficult for the African Americans to exercise their rights.

Segregation and racial oppression was the other way that the rights of the black communities were denied exercise of their civil and political rights (Ogbar, 2019). The American constitution clearly states that everyone has the freedom of movement and expression, but during the late 19th and early 20th century, things were different. Blacks were in dire need to gain back their rights of equality, and as a result, they were provided with equal rights with the whites but under parallel programs, notably segregation based on race. Racial oppression oversaw the black people conducting their own affairs in separate places such as churches and schools. The African Americans were forced to build their own schools and churches to avoid mixing with the white people, and in social places such as the hotels, blacks had a separate table where they could converge and eat their meals. There were no mixing of races and thus, segregation, and racial oppression contributed enormously to the restriction of the civil and political rights of the black community in America.

Regarding the freedom of speech, the black community were denied public speeches, and this was done through arrest of the civil rights activists and talking them to prison in an attempt of instilling fear to the other like-minded individuals. The denial of the freedom of expression curtailed the activists’ efforts of preaching togetherness and unity against the oppressor as the white people feared that if the black people were united, they could easily fight for their rights without fear and thus the only way that could be limited was to divide and rule.

Murder and incarceration are another way to which the exercise of the civil and political rights were restricted among the blacks. In order to silence an uprising, the leaders of the group could either be arrested or killed so that they could not radicalize a good number that was capable of outsmarting the whites. Most of the political activists such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Junior, who were great influencers and mobilizers were silenced with a bullet as they posed a great threat to the people in power due to their radicalizing ability, inciting the black community against the whites. Political rights, such as the right to vote, were restricted by denying slaves the right to vote so that they could not have or make an impact on the government of the day. One such way the blacks were denied the right to vote is the stipulation that the people who were eligible to vote had to be literate, a characteristic that was not embraced by a large group of the African descent. Through this, they were not able to make any influence in government, especially people from the south.

The motives behind the attempt to curtail the blacks’ civil and political rights were due to the fear of losing the free labor that the slaves used to provide (Domar, 2017). As a result, most of the states in America adopted the black codes between 1865 and 1866, which were aimed allowing the African Americans freedoms to owning properties, make contracts as well as testify in courts only for people who belonged to their race. The primary purpose of the black codes was to limit or restrict the blacks’ labor and activity ensuring that they were still held by their masters by signing a labor contract every year and to which was faced by grief consequences if they were not followed. Such consequences of failing to adhere to the black codes included arrests, forced labor, and beating. Apprenticeship laws forced a large number of minors- that included orphans and those people whose parents were deemed unable to support themselves by a judge, into unpaid labor in the white plantations.

After the many years of oppression among the black people, eventually, there was light at the end of the tunnel. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 brought about equity among the races. The Civil Rights of 1964 provided for the stipulations that barred discrimination as well as the segregation of the black communities in places of SoCal gatherings such as public facilities, education, housing, and places of work (Andrews & Gaby, 2015). The Act led to the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that was aimed at ensuring fair hiring practices among the hiring firms as well as the establishment of a federal community relations service to help the local communities with solving issues regarding civil rights. In addition, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 authorized the United States Office of Education to distribute financial assistance to the communities that were struggling to desegregate public schools.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 also led to the attainment of equality of the races, especially among the black and white races in that it allowed equal voting rights (Sonenshein, 2018). The Act outlawed poll taxes and literacy texts to which previously barred blacks from the south from voting. It also authorized the United States attorney general to send federal officials to the south where blacks were not allowed to vote, to register black voters if the local registrars failed to comply with the law. Besides, the Act also authorized the federal government to supervise elections in districts that had disfranchised African Americans. Due to these provisions, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 transformed political power patterns in the south as by the middle of 1966, more than half a million southern blacks had been registered as voters, and by 1968, more than four hundred black representatives were sent to office.

Despite the great success to restore equity among the races, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights of 1965 were faced with major challenges, especially from the south. The whites from the south were involved in slave exploitation and therefore, could not allow their cheap labor to slip away. The segregationists on the other side attempted to prevent the implementation of the federal civil rights legislation at the local level in the fear that granting the blacks equal opportunities and voting rights would mean a rise in political and policy changes. The two acts, therefore, was a major stepping stone to the achievement of equality among American races especially the immigrants leading to the abolition of the selfish laws by the whites such as the Jim Crow laws.

References

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).

Domar, E. D. (2017). The causes of slavery or serfdom: a hypothesis. In Critical Readings on Global Slavery (4 vols.)(pp. 43-57). Brill.

McClain, P. D., & Tauber, S. C. (2018). American government in black and white: Diversity and democracy. Oxford University Press.

Moeckli, D. (2017). Equality and non-discrimination. In Equality and Non-Discrimination under International Law (pp. 53-70). Routledge.

Ogbar, J. O. (2019). Black power: Radical politics and African American identity. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Sonenshein, R. J. (2018). Politics in black and white: Race and power in Los Angeles. Princeton University Press.