Racial discrimination was a norm in the early centuries in America; with African Americans subjected to torture, segregation and slavery. But then President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation Act in 1863 that abolished slavery and freed all blacks from being held accountable to white supremacists.
The Fourteenth Amendment
The amendment that provides the most substantial grounding for modern civil rights legislation is the fourteenth amendment to the US Constitution in 1868, which clearly ‘grants citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States- including former slaves- and guaranteed all citizens ‘equal protection of the laws.’ One of three amendments passed during the Reconstruction era to abolish slavery and establish civil and legal rights for black Americans, it would become the basis for many landmark Supreme Court decisions over the years.
The fourteenth amendment gave equal civil rights and civil liberties to all citizens of the country, especially African Americans who were held slaves before the emancipation.
Civil Rights
Civil rights are categorized as the absolute fundamental rights of life to a citizen. Civil rights are a broad and huge arrangement of rights that are intended to protect people from unfair torture and treatment; they are the privileges of people to get equivalent treatment (and to be liberated from out of line treatment or segregation) in various settings – including education, business, accommodation, public facilities, and even in the eyes of the law.
The civil rights movement was a part of the cause of demanding basic fundamental rights for African Americans. This racial segregation had tortured and killed innocent black people, their only crime being the colour of their skin. The demand was for blacks to be treated equally as whites and to give them the freedom of life, choice, vote and equality regardless of their race, sex, gender and ethnicity.
Civil Rights Act- 1957
Even though many African Americans had legally gained the right to vote, the Southern hemisphere made it severely difficult for them to vote. They couldn’t stand the fact that the blacks they once enslaved were now on their common ground, thus they made blacks take literacy tests that were often too difficult to pass and made sure the process was humiliating for them.
In september 1957, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act and made it into a law to make sure no blacks were being denied their right to vote. This also streamlined the whole system making it easier to pinpoint voter fraud and corruption.
Civil Rights Act- 1964
The most prominent Civil Rights Act was signed, and made into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964 which prohibited the discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sex and religion. This Act was a landmark in the history of the US, which allowed racial equality and condemned segregation in public spaces, transportation, schools and even the government.
Civil Liberties
Where civil rights reflect upon the fundamental human rights that shall be given to all individuals, civil liberties talk about the privilege, opportunity and freedom of practice that shall also be made necessary and accessible to all.
The United States Constitution, particularly its Bill of Rights, ensures civil liberties. The Fourteenth Amendment further ensured civil liberties by presenting the Privileges or Immunities Clause, Due Process Clause, and Equal Protection Clause. Basic liberties inside the United States are regularly called social equality, which are those rights, benefits and susceptibilities held by all individuals, in qualification to political rights, which are the rights that are inherent to the individuals who are qualified for partake in decisions, as applicants or voters.
The segregation was widespread, with blacks not given the basic right to vote. The U.S. Congress in 1968 instituted a law that basically applies a large portion of the assurances of the Bill of Rights to ancestral individuals, to be upheld chiefly by ancestral courts.
Civil Liberties Act- 1988
The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was marked into impact by President Ronald Reagan on August 10, 1988. The demonstration was passed by Congress to give a public conciliatory sentiment for those of Japanese lineage who lost their property and freedom because of biased activities by the United States Government during the internment period of Japanese Americans in the United States.
Political Rights
America claims to be a democractic state, and the basic slogan of democracy is ‘by the people, for the people’, which means citizens of the country have the political right to elect the government.
Giving equal political rights to citizens means giving them the right to vote (which blacks didn’t have for the longest time), giving them the right to freedom of choice, including natural justice (procedural fairness) in law, such as the rights of the accused, including the right to a fair trial; due process; the right to seek redress or a legal remedy; and rights of participation in civil society and politics such as freedom of association, the right to assemble. All of these are an individual’s right as a citizen of the country, and these shall be granted to them regardless of their race or sex.
Which Amendment specifies the Right to Bear Arms?
The Second Amendment to the Constitution!
It clearly states ‘A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.’
This statement is however very controversial and debatable; the amendment allows people to have firearms and weapons for their own defense. While states in the Founding time managed weapons- blacks were regularly restricted from having guns and local army weapons were often enrolled on government moves- firearm laws today are more broad and dubious.
Another significant lawful improvement was the appropriation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Second Amendment initially applied distinctly to the national government, leaving the states to direct weapons as they saw fit. In spite of the fact that there is significant proof that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to secure the privilege of people to keep and remain battle ready from encroachment by the states.
Up to this point, the legal executive treated the Second Amendment nearly as a dead letter. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), notwithstanding, the Supreme Court refuted a government law that disallowed virtually all regular citizens from having handguns in the country’s capital. A 5-4 dominant party decided that the language and history of the Second Amendment indicated that it ensures a private right of people to have arms for their own protection, not a privilege of the states to keep up a volunteer army.
Which Case formally established the Right to Privacy?
The right to privacy is that governments and other authorities must never invade an individual’s personal space and restrain from violating their privacy.
The disputable case Roe v. Wade in 1972 immovably settled the privilege to privacy as basic, and necessitated that any administrative encroachment of that option be defended by a convincing state interest. In Roe, the court decided that the state’s convincing enthusiasm for preventing abortion and ensuring the life of the mother exceeds a mother’s very own bodily autonomy after suitability. Prior to viability, the mother’s entitlement as far as possible state impedance because of the absence of a convincing state interest.
Conclusion
Modern civil rights legislation was practiced and brought into the limelight after the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, which stated all citizens equal in the eyes of the law, and should be given civil rights, civil liberties and political rights regardless of their race.
This was an important step to legalize the equality of blacks and bring them on mutual ground with whites who otherwise thought them superior because of their skin color.
