Social Movements - The Success of Civil Rights and Women's Rights Movements - Essay Example

Indigenous Americans are nowadays a group of very few people constituting the Indian Americans.

Society today paints a picture of a highly prosperous country boasting a cohesive social structure, one that integrates everyone despite their differences. The American society as it is today is the creation of several social movements such as civil rights and women's rights groups. Such groups of people worked hard to change several mindsets that could have otherwise led to either the collapse of the country or the emergence of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises in the history of humanity (Carl 98). With hard work and sound leadership, the country listened to the plights of the civil rights groups and addressed their issues. These led to serious changes in the American constitution through time and today America owes what it is to the sacrifices of some of the pressure group members who believed in the achievement of an all-inclusive society (Jonathan 71).

Europeans took Africans into the United States to work in their plantations. However, soon after the slavery period, the world became industrialized and for once people never needed many laborers to work in the field. This, therefore, led to the formation of regional and political segregation. The whites never considered the Africans as their equals. The whites discriminated against the African community and made sure they felt unwelcome. The society was segregated, and the Africans are not allowed to mingle freely with the rest of the population. They therefore never went to school and had no employment; they thus lived in abject poverty.

The worst level of this discrimination was in politics and governance, the number of Africans in the country was nearing the number of whites. Despite this large population, the rest of the Americans denied the African American community a chance to elect their leaders. They never took part in an electoral process and were not allowed to run for any electoral position. For a long time in the history of America, the African American community alongside other marginalized communities lived in abject poverty and a humiliating environment.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, several pressure groups sprung up to fight for the rights of the marginalized and the African American community. Led by radical and selfless African American leaders such as Martin Luther King Junior, this creed of Americans believed in equality before the law. They thus called for understanding and peaceful coexistence. They called for the abolishment of the racial segregation that was threatening to tear the country down into two. These struggles would get violent at times and the government would order the attack on such groups and senseless murder. This drew the attention of the international community. There later followed several global human rights watch bodies calling for the restructuring of American society (Jonathan 55). The African Americans were therefore allowed to vote and be voted into any elective force should they feel like it. Today, the country boasts an African American president. For a long time, this remained a dream that could not even be conceptualized at the time by the pressure groups (Johnson 66).

Historical America did not only include a highly segregated population but also contained a male chauvinistic one. The men considered themselves the head of their families and therefore society in general. They, therefore, are treated as second-hand humans. They, therefore, mistreated women and denied them a number of their fundamental rights. For a long time, women in the country never took part in the electoral process. Politics was considered a male thing and only qualified med would join it. Society was highly segregated on racial as well as gender lines. Besides, there were imminent social as well as economic disparities. However, these have since changed. Today, both men and women are in congress, and many other women are in politics. This is a clear indication of the political maturity and a clear contrast with the 1800 Americas.