While there’s been great progress towards equality for African Americans, equal opportunities evade many of them. Equality is the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities which is something that they still struggle with today. I’m going to analyze how they have yet to achieve equality despite the progress that’s been made.
One part that started to come about was the progress that was mentioned in an article called “The Long Road to Equality for African Americans” written by John Kirk mentioned that the promise of the “Lincoln Emancipation Proclamation” was fulfilled when Southern slaves were freed”. Following that the 13th came in 1865 that abolished slavery, and the 14th amendment was in 1868 which granted former slaves and all U.S. citizens equal protection. Booker T. Washington fought for equal voting, and education rights for all African Americans, Rosa Parks who is best known for a pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. Public school segregation ended in 1954 when the U.S. supreme court ruled it was unconstitutional.
Martin Luther King Jr. had made some progress in the Civil Rights Movement for African Americans, but his dream has yet been reached and today they still face racial injustice. Martin Luther King Jr. had written “Letter from Birmingham Jail” which talks about how African Americans face problems and the situations they endure due to racial injustice occurring in Birmingham. They face police brutality, and unjust court treatments. He organized nonviolent protests like sit-ins, and marches to open the door for negotiation, he said, “we know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed”. (561) he is saying that if African Americans didn’t demand their rights so fighting for equality, they won’t ever get it.
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There are protests fighting for rights and equality still takes place today, as well as marches the Black Lives Matter from Charlottesville heard that one of the largest white supremist rally was headed to their town, but this protest happened to be violent. The whites had weapon, and helmets and was there to cause harm, Touré wrote an article “A Year Inside The Black Lives Matter Moment” and he said that “the neo-Nazis and white supremacists members hit people with sticks, rocks, bricks, and sprayed clergy members in the face with pepper spray”. The only difference is that today there is violence in protests that take place, even if there are meant to be nonviolent protests the police and white people inflict harm to the members that are protesting for their equality.
The racial profiling of criminal suspects occurs when the police target someone for investigation based on that person’s race, national origin, or ethnicity, there have been studies that have shown a high prevalence of police profiling directed mainly towards African’s and Hispanic Americans, Brent Staples wrote “Just Walk on by: A Black Man Ponders His power To Alter Public Space” which talks about his experiences of being racially profiled. He swung an avenue behind a white women who was on Hyde Park, an impoverished section in Chicago and she casted a worried look and kept glancing behind her and picked up her pace to cross the street, he said “it was clear that I was indistinguishable from the muggers who seeped into the area from the surrounding ghetto”.(234).
Minority communities are more prone to have gangs, street violence, and drugs, and are poorer than white communities, which makes racial profiling of criminal suspects even more high to minorities. White people assume that colored people are dangerous and are criminals because of the stereotype of blacks which is them being in a gang and will mug you and will hurt you because even if they aren’t like that at all that’s what they will be seen as. This happened to my brother who just so happened to fall in the streets and joined the gang that’s in our neighborhood after the first time he got arrested the cops started to harass him and always looks for reasons to pull him over, there was a robbery at the 24hr fitness and the cops took the witness to my house to see if he or the other 2 suspects were the Hispanics that she saw at the crime.
In conclusion, African Americans have not achieved equality, they don’t receive equal opportunities in some areas like the justice system, they are still being discriminated. They are continuously fighting for equality and still have a long way to go, but with the help of other races or other minorities we can help end discrimination, and racially profiling and other inequalities as well. White people are privileged and are always going to be the race that gets away with everything that colored people can’t is unfair.
Works Cited
- John, Kirk. “The Long Road to Equality for African-Americans.” History Today Volume, Feb. 2009, https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/long-road-equality-african-americans.
- Staples, Brent. “Just Walk on by: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space.” Patterns for College Writing: A Rhetorical Reader and Guide. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell, 13th ed.,Boston, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015, pp. 234
- Martin Luther King Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail” Patterns for College Writing, 14th Ed: A Rhetorical Reader and Guide. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell, Bedford/St. Martin’s 2018, pp. 561
- Touré “A Year in the Black Lives Matter Movement” Rolling Stones, 7 Dec. 2017,
- https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/a-year-inside-the-black-lives-matter-movement-204982/%20
