Equality in America has changed a great deal from 1865 to 1945.

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Equality in America has changed a great deal from 1865 to 1945. Many groups of people including racial and gender groups has changed dramatically during this time period. However, African-Americans and women equalities changed the most. There have been so many different events that happened during this time in history that made such equality changes possible. Some are recognized as major historical events and others are over looked by most people but every event and accomplishment for these minority groups has made the next one possible and are all extremely important. The road for equality of African-Americans and women was long and difficult and defiantly did not stop at 1945 but is continued even today. However, this paper will focus on the events that lead to equality change in America from 1865 to 1945.

Equality for African Americans has changed dramatically from 1865 to 1945. In 1865 Congress approved the Thirteenth amendment of the Constitution, which outlawed slavery in the United States. Soon after Congress established the Freeman’s Bureau which provided health care, education, and technical assistance to emancipated slaves. In 1866 Congress overrode President Johnson’s veto and passed the Civil Rights Act, conferring citizenship upon black Americans and guaranteeing equal rights with whites. On June 13, 1866 Congress approved the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing due process and equal protection under the law to all citizens. The amendment would also grant citizenship to African Americans. In 1867 Congress granted the African American citizens of the District of Columbia the right to vote. During that same year the reconstruction acts were passed by congress, which called for the enfranchisement of former slaves in the south. The fifteenth amendment was approved in 1869 which gave African Americans the right to vote. In 1871 congress approved the Civil Rights Act, assuring equal rights to African Americans in public accommodations and jury duty. However, the; legislation was invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1883. In 1875 Blanche Kelso Bruce was the first African American senator to serve a full term. During 1888 the first two African American owned banks—Savings Bank of the Grand Fountain United Order of the Reformers and Capital Savings Bank of Washington DC-- were opened. In 1890 the militant National Afro-American League was founded in Chicago, under the leadership of Timothy Thomas Fortune. During 1894 the Pullman Company strike caused a national transportation crisis. On May 11, African Americans were hired by the company as strike-breakers. In 1895 Booker T. Washington delivered his famous “Atlanta Compromise” address where he said the “Negro problem would be solved by policy of gradualism and accommodation”. On May 18, 1896 the Supreme Court decided during Plessey v. Ferguson that “separate but equal” facilities satisfy Fourteenth Amendment guarantees, thus giving legal sanction to Jim Crow segregation laws. In 1897 the American Negro Academy was established to encourage African-American participation in art, literature and philosophy. In 1898 sixteen regiments of black volunteers were recruited for the Spanish-American war; four saw combat. Five African-Americans won congressional Medals or Honor. Also in 1898 the first two black-owned insurance companies—the North Carolina Mutual and Provident Insurance Company and the National Benefit Life Insurance Company of Washington DC-- were established. In 1899 the Afro-American Council designated June 4 as a national day of fasting to protest lynching and massacres. These events gave African Americans courage and hope to continue to fight for equality in this “land of the free”.

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        The long road to African-American equality persists into the twentieth-century. In 1903 W.E.B. Du Bois’s celebrated book, The Souls of Black Folk, was published. It rejected the gradualism of Booker T. Washington, calling for agitation on behalf of African-American rights. In 1905 African-American intellectuals and activists, led by Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter, began the Niagara movement. During 1906 in Brownsville, Texas on August 13, black troops rioted against segregation. On November 6, President Roosevelt discharged three companies of black soldiers involved in the riot. On February 12, 1909—the centennial of the birth of Lincoln—a national appeal led to ...

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