The African American Struggle for Equality
Lumen Learning and OpenStax
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Identify key events in the history of African American civil rights
- Explain how the courts, Congress, and the executive branch supported the civil rights movement
- Describe the role of grassroots efforts in the civil rights movement
Many groups in U.S. history have sought recognition as equal citizens. Although each group’s efforts have been notable and important, arguably the greatest, longest, and most violent struggle remains that of African Americans, whose dehumanization was even written into the text of the Constitution in the clause counting them as three-fifths of a person. Their fight for freedom and equality provided the legal and moral foundation for others who sought recognition of their equality later on. From its inception, the United States had a history of exclusion that can be clearly seen in the original U.S. Constitution. The term “Other Persons” in Article 1, Section 2, which states “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among several states which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of Free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians, not taxed, three-fifth of all other Persons,” refers to the Black population in slavery within the United States at that particular time. Also, Article 1, Section 9 required a twenty year period before a ban on the importation of African enslaved persons. Article 4, Section 2 imposed a fugitive slave clause which required that enslaved persons that escaped from their owners should be returned.
SLAVERY AND THE CIVIL WAR
In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson made the radical statement that “all men are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Yet like other wealthy landowners of his time, Jefferson also owned dozens of other human beings as his personal property. He recognized this contradiction, personally considered the institution of slavery to be a “hideous blot” on the nation, and agreed to free those he held in bondage upon his death.[1] However, to forge a political union that would stand the test of time, he and the other founders—and later the framers of the Constitution—chose not to address the issue in any definitive way. Political support for abolition was very much a minority stance in the United States at the time, although after the Revolution many of the northern states followed the European example of fifty years prior in abolishing slavery.[2] The response of persons of African descent to the imposition of slavery reflected differing reactions and approaches to seeking redress. African Americans both free and enslaved did not undertake the same actions in showing their o