Civil Rights and the First African American President
- Submitted by: ArtyMiss
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- Date Submitted: 03/11/2010 03:49 PM
- Pages: 5
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Civil Rights and the First African American President
On November the 4th 2008 history was made as Senator Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States of America and the first ever African American to become, arguably, the most powerful man in the world. Even his nomination was seen as a massive breakthrough by the civil rights movement, the closest an African American ever getting to be nominated as a presidential candidate being when Jesse Jackson Sr. was a candidate for the democratic presidential nomination in 1988. In this essay I plan to trace the history of the American civil rights movement and state why I do not believe that President Elect Obama’s inauguration on the 20th of January 2009 will be the end of the civil rights struggle in America.
The single greatest advance in the civil rights movement was the Emancipation Proclamation consisting of two executive orders issued by President Lincoln in 1862 and 1863 freed the slaves and gave them the right to vote.
“That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state, or designated part of a state, the people whereof thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States [including the military and naval authority thereof] will, during the continuance in office of the present incumbents, recognize [and maintain the freedom of] such persons, as being free.”
For about a century one of the main aims of the civil rights movement was to ensure the rights African American were given became reality. The president, referred to by many as ‘Honest Abe’, did however use some underhand tactics when issuing the proclamation. Firstly he didn’t originally state in exactly which states the slaves were to be freed and secondly the states that the slaves were to be freed in consisted entirely of confederate states that he had no control over at the time. However this quietly...
On November the 4th 2008 history was made as Senator Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States of America and the first ever African American to become, arguably, the most powerful man in the world. Even his nomination was seen as a massive breakthrough by the civil rights movement, the closest an African American ever getting to be nominated as a presidential candidate being when Jesse Jackson Sr. was a candidate for the democratic presidential nomination in 1988. In this essay I plan to trace the history of the American civil rights movement and state why I do not believe that President Elect Obama’s inauguration on the 20th of January 2009 will be the end of the civil rights struggle in America.
The single greatest advance in the civil rights movement was the Emancipation Proclamation consisting of two executive orders issued by President Lincoln in 1862 and 1863 freed the slaves and gave them the right to vote.
“That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state, or designated part of a state, the people whereof thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States [including the military and naval authority thereof] will, during the continuance in office of the present incumbents, recognize [and maintain the freedom of] such persons, as being free.”
For about a century one of the main aims of the civil rights movement was to ensure the rights African American were given became reality. The president, referred to by many as ‘Honest Abe’, did however use some underhand tactics when issuing the proclamation. Firstly he didn’t originally state in exactly which states the slaves were to be freed and secondly the states that the slaves were to be freed in consisted entirely of confederate states that he had no control over at the time. However this quietly...