The Impact of Education and Political Equality Blacks Have Achieved - Essay Example

The Impact of Education and Political Equality Blacks Have Achieved, 1619 by " " " " " number]" " Name]" [Date] The Impact of Education and Political Equality Blacks Have Achieved, 1619-2011 Black slavery in America actually can be traced from the earliest days in America, but most people elect the year 1619 as the real beginning of the institution in what was to become the United States, with the arrival of twenty blacks on a Dutch warship. Slavery in the world was nothing new. There had been slaves in every culture from the dawn of modern man.

Slavery is not the issue of this short paper but we had to start somewhere. Racism is really the issue that slavery revolves around and the ethnocentric ideas that one race is just a little better than another race which allows a predisposition towards making one race the master and one the servant. In America, as the servant race, the black population was denied the right to an education that could be used to better their station in life. The main thought being to keep the servant race ignorant and to some degree subservient would make the life of the dominant race all that much better.

As the citizens of the world became more enlightened, it was becoming harder and harder to justify excluding the children of the black workers from a good education. The movement toward equality of the races really started in the northern states many years prior to the American Civil War. Blacks in the north were generally treated much differently than in the south. Education was available to them in greater quantity and quality than in the southern states. This fact does not mean that all of the blacks experienced good treatment in the north.

There were vast slums in the northern states that were as bad as the plantations of the old south. Things started improving for the black people after the Civil War but even up through the early 1950s the education given to the blacks was not the same as that received by their white neighbors. Court cases started opening the door to public education with Brown v Board of Education in 1954. From that point on, schools slowly began to open their doors to the children of poverty and provided them a leg up that would one day get them into the finest of colleges and into the board rooms of the largest companies, As the education levels of the black students began to rise, so did the political power that their race would start to assert.

Voter registration drives were held and after much suffering, black faces started appearing in the halls of government across the country. The military became a way for young black officers to start climbing the political ladder to success as well. Leadership was being developed throughout the entire black community and pride in their accomplishments was being expressed all over the country. The slums soon would see an exodus of young black families to the modern housing of America. As one would look at America now, much has changed over the course of the years.

To think that all racism is gone or that everyone has the same chance is not realistic, but we are entering a time in the history of our country where things are better and will continue to get better for everyone. As recently as 65 years ago, the black men returning from a two front war, would have never considered being the president of this great country. (American Slavery 1619-1865) Works Cited "American Slavery 1619-1865." 2010. Mega Essays.com. Web. 6 May 2011. .