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Equality

The US Federal Government Role in the Equality Essay

March 7, 2021 by Essay Writer

Historically, the role of the government has been to maintain law and order, provide public service, and protect the rights and freedoms of all citizens. This essay seeks to highlight the major hits and misses in the role played by the three branches of the U. S. federal government in the struggle for black equality.

Based on the following discussions, it will become apparent that the federal government struggled to protect the interests of African Americans by establishing laws and policies meant to improve the race relations between blacks and whites while providing equal opportunities to all citizens.

Nonetheless, the federal government in its commitment toward improving race relations and providing equal opportunity did not realize much until the 1950s and 1960s. This is because the laws and policies developed by the federal government and its agencies encountered many challenges including resistance from white supremacists and lack of political will.

The Executive

The executive’s contribution to the struggle for black equality goes back to the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877). Immediately after the end of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln’s administration introduced many remarkable changes in the laws that existed.

Notably, the enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865 helped to end slavery (Dickerson 6). Subsequently, the executive began to contemplate on the possibilities of granting the free citizens compensation for the suffering they endured in the hands of their masters.

More specifically, President Lincoln directed officials in his government to establish policies that would enable the freed slaves to obtain compensation. Accordingly, General William T. Sherman advanced one of the most promising proposals in which the liberated black slaves were to receive land as compensation.

This move was prompted by various factors such as the need to provide the free slaves with the means to start over away from their masters (Fairclough xi). However, the freed slaves never received any land because after President Lincoln’s assassination and the change of leadership, most black slaves went back to their old life of misery (Dickerson 10).

Following the assassination of President Lincoln and the rise to power of President Johnson, most of the political changes that came with the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation ceased to exist. Hence, the executive began to play a negative role in the struggle for black equality. For instance, President Johnson initiated the Presidential Reconstruction (1865-67) program, which extended pardon to most white citizens from the South who had previously lost their political rights (Dickerson 15; Fairclough xii).

Moreover, President Johnson spelt out the terms that governed the creation of new state governments. In the new system of governance, state governments reserved the freedom to manage their affairs without interference from the national government (Dickerson 16).

While President Johnson’s administration was driven by the need to promote the civil rights of the American people on one hand, it created fertile grounds for increased oppression and discrimination against black people on the other.

For instance, after the establishment of independent state governments, most Southern states passed Jim Crow laws, which repressed the former slaves by specifically segregating the black race because of its perceived inferiority to the white race (Fairclough xii). Moreover, under the Jim Crow laws, most black citizens lacked access to white-only schools or any other public space whereby the white people existed.

In addition, most state governments in the South imposed hefty taxes on any black person who expressed interest in political affairs; hence, crippling any chances of a black person taking part in the voting exercises.

This meant that only the white people elected state officials, specifically in the South. On the other hand, the state governments elected by the white people did not want to offend their electorates, and as a result, they passed laws that fuelled further oppression and racial discrimination against the black race (Dickerson 23; Fairclough xiii).

However, in the 1950s and 1960s, the executive began to play a more positive role in the struggle for black equality by ratifying most of the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s (Fairclough 44). A good example of the executive’s positive efforts in the struggle for black equality involves the establishment of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights in 1946 by President Harry Truman. Subsequently, in 1957, President Eisenhower signed the first Civil Rights Act into law.

This move saw the establishment of both the Civil Rights section under the Justice Department and the Civil Rights Commission. These developments brought hope to the Civil Rights movements and activism among the black people; hence, the fight for more equal rights intensified (Fairclough 155).

The Legislative Branch

While the executive’s efforts to promote black equality produced mixed results, the legislative branch of the federal government was very active in the struggle for equality by developing and passing laws that were more inclusive.

For instance, in response to the on-going oppression and racial discrimination against the freed slaves, particularly in the South, the United States Congress in 1865 began a series of concerted efforts aimed at trimming the powers of state governments and creating a state of governance that upheld the rights of all American citizens. Consequently, most moderate Republicans agreed that it was important to start by not recognizing the elected Congressmen and Senators from the Southern states (Dickerson 28).

Furthermore, in 1866, the Congress adopted and passed the Freedman’s Bureau and Civil Rights Bills, which aimed at extending the operational period of federal agencies concerned with the installation of freed slaves as American citizens as well as defining what constituted the American citizenship (Dickerson 30).

The two bills were specifically targeting the black people since they promised to safeguard the civil rights and citizenship of all freed slaves and any individual born in America. Nonetheless, the United States Congress did not achieve much in terms of modifying President Johnson’s style of governance considering that the president did not sign most of the bills on equality (Dickerson 34).

The Judiciary

The struggle for black equality in the years before the 1950s and 1960s was marked by less direct participation by black people. However, in the 1950s and 1960s, the real struggle for black equality and the Civil Rights movement began to take shape (Clayborne et al. 1; Patterson 21). More specifically, many interest groups affiliated to the black people began the fight for their Civil Rights.

Subsequently, many landmark cases appeared in the United States Supreme Court, which managed to reverse some of the discriminative and prohibitive laws instituted against the black race. For instance, in 1946, the Supreme Court determined that it was unconstitutional for interstate bus service providers to discriminate against black people (Eubanks 56).

In yet another court case in 1954, Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court stated that it was unconstitutional for schools to discriminate against black people (Patterson 46). The Supreme Court based its decision on the previously ratified Amendments to the United States Constitution including the Thirteenth Amendment (1868) and the Fifteenth Amendment (1870). These two Amendments had strengthened the Civil Rights of the black people by recognizing them as American citizens (Clayborne et al. 64).

Although the determination of the abovementioned court cases showed signs of black people winning against racial discrimination and oppression, the white people were unwilling to cede ground and allow blacks to study in their schools and ride in their buses (Silverstein 24).

Across different Southern states, cases of lynching, particularly targeting blacks and some of their white sympathizers, increased shortly after the court’s determination that most of the laws that existed were in direct contravention of the United States Constitution (Wexler 14).

Moreover, in other parts of the country, blacks could not ride in white-only buses or even attend white-only schools (Wexler 85). For instance, in 1956, a female African American named Lucy dropped out of the University of Alabama because her life was in danger. Later on, a federal judge approved her reinstatement, but after a few days, she was expelled again (Wexler 87).

In another incident, about nine black students attempted to force their way into the Little Rock’s Central High School, but they could not enter the school, and it took the intervention of President Eisenhower for the school administration and the local state Governor to allow the students into the school (Patterson 118).

The above-mentioned incidents show that white people were not ready to allow equality, despite increased pressure from the judiciary and other federal government institutions. In conclusion, the federal government and its agencies played a pivotal role in the struggle for black equality; however, its attempts to reverse the status quo received increased opposition from the white people and some local state governments, particularly in the South.

Works Cited

Claybourne, Carson, et al. The Eyes on the Prize: Civil Rights Reader – Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle, 1954 1990. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1991. Print.

Dickerson, Donna L. The Reconstruction Era: Primary Documents on Events from 1865-1877. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., 2003. Print.

Eubanks, Ralph W. Ever is a Long Time: A Journey into Mississippi’s Dark Past, a Memoir. New York: Basic Books, 2005. Print.

Fairclough, Adam. Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality, 1890-2000. New York: Penguin Books, 2002. Print.

Patterson, James T. Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2002. Print.

Silverstein, Clara. White Girl: A Story of School Desegregation. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2013. Print.

Wexler, Laura. Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America. New York: Scribner, 2004, Print.

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