Running head: AFRICAN AMERICANS 1

AFRICAN AMERICANS

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation
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Throughout American history, several communities have encouragement and support as

equal human beings. Whereas each collective's endeavors were notable and important, African

Americans' battle was probably the biggest, fiercest, and perhaps quite destructive (Douglass,

1865). Briefly, their one-time inferior text of the Constitution was written with constitutional

stature in mind. Briefly, their search for liberty and the legal foundation was laid by fairness and

ethical platform for individuals who subsequently claimed fairness acknowledgment. "All people

are made equal," Thomas Jefferson indicated in the attainment of the Independence, and "are

equipped by their Maker with particular unalienable Rights, among those are Life, Liberty, and

the search of Happiness” (Zinn et al., 2004). Jefferson, like other rich individuals of his era,

possessed dozens of other people as private possessions. He was cognizant of the disparity and

considered slavery to be a "horrid scourge" on the United States.

Nevertheless, Jefferson and the other founding members eventually the writers of the

Constitution—opted not to discuss these matters in any definite way in order to establish a

political alliance that would stand up to scrutiny. At the era, political momentum for

emancipation was a minority position, whereas many northern states did end slavery after the

Revolution for a multitude of reasons (Zinn et al., 2004). The South entered a process known as

Reconstruction (1865–1877) after the Civil War ended, in which state and local governments

were reformed before the insurgent states were given permission to reunite the Union. The

Republican Party conducted campaigns for a definitive abolishment of slavery as section of the

transition.

In essence, by 1877, the United States had remained committed to its utopian pledge of

equality, thanks to a number of reforms in the government, economy, and gender and racial

connections. The Fourteenth Amendment brought about more significant modifications. This
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amendment not only added the right to equality to the Constitution, but it also lengthened the

Fifth Amendment's right to due process to jurisdictions, needed states to comply the protections

and rights of all residents, and characterized permanent residency at the federal and regional

levels for the very first moment. Individuals could no longer be denied citizenship purely

because of their color (Zinn et al., 2004).Even though the courts and a lack of public engagement

proved some of these measures mostly ineffective, others were critical in the growth of human

liberties. It was impossible to dismiss individuals the right to vote due to their "race, color, or

prior condition of slavery," as per the Fifteenth Amendment. This interpretation permitted states

to continue to determine voter criteria as long as they were nominally racial group. Although

states could not really deprive African American men the right to vote based on race, they might

refuse it to women based on sex or anyone who could not establish they were educated.

Petroleum industry, steel manufacturing, and electrical energy generating were among the

many new industries that formed. Railroads increased exponentially, bringing even the most

remote corners of the country into the world financial order. The demographic of America was

transformed as a result of technological advancement. Many people moved from rural to urban

areas, leading to the rise of the towns and, as a corollary, a huge increase in the US commerce

(O'Sullivan,1999). This tremendous economic expansion was fueled by a burst of technological

innovation in the late 1800s. Following the Civil War, an unprecedented surge in immigration

and industry was vital to the country's development and change.

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References

Douglass, F. (1865, April). What the black man wants. In Speech delivered at the Annual

Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Boston, MA. Retrieved

November (Vol. 10, p. 2006).

O'Sullivan, J. L. (1999). John L. OÕSullivan on Manifest Destiny, 1839.

Zinn, H., & Arnove, A. (2004). Voices of a People's History of the United States. Seven Stories

Press.