Racial equality
Racial equality is when people of all races and ethnicities are treated in an egalitarian/equal manner. Racial equality occurs when institutions give individuals legal, moral, and political rights. In present-day Western society, equality among races continues to become normative. Prior to the early 1960s, attaining equality was difficult for African, Asian, and Indigenous people. However, in more recent years, legislation is being passed ensuring that all individuals receive equal opportunities in treatment, education, employment, and other areas of life. Racial equality can refer to equal opportunities or formal equality based on race or refer to equal representation or equality of outcomes for races, also called substantive equality.
Background
American Civil War
In 1860, a third of all people in the Southern United States were slaves. Among other things, the American Civil War was fought to end this, and in September 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which abolished the practice of slavery in the United States and granted protection and legal rights to recently freed Blacks.Struggle of black society
Post–Civil War equality
Three million slaves were freed as a result of the American Civil War. Despite their having been freed, blacks still faced much discrimination and were forced into dependence on white landowners. Segregation was common in everyday life, such as in segregation of schools, healthcare and housing, especially so in the South. In addition, Black Americans were a common target of racial violence, and they would not receive equal treatment by the justice system. This effectively made them second-class citizens.Health
Where one lived often determined their access to basic healthcare. The poor inner-city areas lacked the necessary health care that was available in other areas. Inner cities' isolation from other parts of society was a large contributor to the poor health of the residents. Also, the overcrowded living conditions added to the poor health of the residents through the spread of infectious diseases.Influences of equality
People
Martin Luther King Jr.
is known as a civil rights leader in the United States concerning racial equality. Martin Luther King Jr. became one of the greatest leaders due to his stance concerning various mistreated black men and women in the South. Moreover, he played many roles in society and won an award for the movement he conducted. Martin Luther King Jr. not only took part in the Montgomery bus boycott, became a key speaker at the March on Washington, and was one of the youngest individuals to win the Nobel Peace Prize, but he also peacefully handled his opinion. King kept his anger toward the idea of segregation of race to himself; however, he did show his passion for equality in his speeches and peaceful protest.King displayed his very first civil rights movement by voluntarily taking a stance in the Montgomery bus boycott. The bus boycott had started by Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat for a white male after a long and tiring day at work. Thus, after Park's arrest, King gathered the blacks in hopes of boycotting the bus, by cutting the use of transportation. This boycott continued for 382 days. Although King had to overcome many attacks against him such as arrest and violent harassment, the result was their first victory: black men and women were allowed to ride the buses in Montgomery equally as the whites.
Rosa Parks
was born on February 4, 1913, in Montgomery, Alabama. She attended the all-black Alabama State College, and soon worked at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People as a secretary. Rosa Parks had become an activist for an event that triggered other events to occur. On December 1, 1955 Parks had taken the bus home from work when all of a sudden she was forced to give up her seat for a white male. Rosa Parks had been frustrated with the way black individuals were treated; thus, she refused and was arrested and fined $14.Parks' refusal and arrest had caused a dilemma for white individuals, especially for the ones that owned the bus business. A boycott of the Montgomery bus system was started, with the goal of desegregating public transportation. Moreover, Martin Luther King Jr. had gotten involved to not only motivate the mistreated black population but to share his passion for equality. This boycott lasted 382 days and ended on December 21, 1956. At the end of the bus boycott, both Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. had become national heroes. Furthermore, the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional to segregate seats in Montgomery buses.
Religious institutions
The Church of God held that "interracial worship was a sign of the true Church", with both whites and blacks ministering regularly in Church of God congregations, which invited people of all races to worship there. Those who were entirely sanctified testified that they were "saved, sanctified, and prejudice removed." Though outsiders would sometimes attack Church of God services and camp meetings for their stand for racial equality, Church of God members were "undeterred even by violence" and "maintained their strong interracial position as the core of their message of the unity of all believers".Groups and organizations
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
Martin Luther King Jr. was the founder of SCLC, having summoned various numbers of black leaders in 1957. He became the President of this activist group and decided to improve communities by managing peaceful protests and boycotts regarding the social ethics of discrimination and segregation between races.National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
First created on February 12, 1909, in Springfield, Illinois. This group was against the violence that was directed toward blacks. Their objective was to eliminate racial inequality, and guarantee political, educational, social, and economic equality for citizens. Their office was located in New York. Moorfield Storey was named president, while Du Bois was the only black Director of Publications.Congress of Racial Equality
There was a civil rights group called the Congress of Racial Equality that came together to fight corruption and segregation in a nonviolent manner. CORE grew profoundly after the 1950s, beginning with James Farmer who later became the leader of the group and a civil rights activist in 1941. He went back to his "Native South" and visited a local movie theater, where he came upon the "crow's nest", an area that was reserved for blacks. He opposed the Jim Crow laws, but he realized that he and his friends supported those laws by what they did in their daily actions. He soon wrote a memo and summoned the formation of a group of individuals that were powerful in mind and body to be able to take personal nonviolent actions to end discrimination.CORE was established in 1942 in Chicago. It was a branch of a "Peace-Lover" organization, which was called the Fellowship of Reconciliation. CORE used nonviolent actions that involved sit-ins, which were done on lunch counters in Chicago. By 1947, CORE contributed with an interracial bus ride across the upper part of the South. They were testing state buses that the US Supreme Court ordered to be desegregated, which was the Morgan v. Virginia decision in 1946. This led to some success for the facilities that were testing out the orders they were given, but it didn't grab much attention, especially at the national level, which was their main goal. By 1960, there was a new wave of nonviolent direct action protests initiated through the student sit-in movement. CORE's national director James Farmer repeated the Journey of Reconciliation. Another Supreme Court ruling, Boynton v. Virginia, ordered a stop to segregation in the interstate bus terminals. That came to be the Freedom Rides. The Freedom Riders traveled deep into the south and were attacked by segregationists along with Alabama.
CORE began in the North and was mainly concentrated in public areas. About two decades ago, the North had segregated spots where blacks were not allowed. Those places, for example, were restaurants, bowling alleys, skating rinks, and barber shops. More successful efforts were the work settings where there were some experiments with interracial workers and in housing co-operatives. CORE's main focus was to increase public recognition in the north. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, CORE moved to the border states of Missouri, Maryland, and Oklahoma.