The African-American civil rights movement has been influential in almost all discussions and decisions made that concerns the fight for equality. The civil rights movement between the 1950s – 1960s of the African Americans has caused various struggling groups to awakened and fight for their rights. Decisions made by various courts have been used as basis or as rulings for several different struggles among women, homosexuals, disabled group, ethnic groups and the like.
The fight of these groups is analogous to the struggles of the African –American groups in such a way that these groups are fighting for their rights and for equal treatment with equal access to facilities and the right to be free of racial discrimination. Women, for example, have been fighting for equality with men for the longest time. Just like the African – Americans, women had no right to vote before. Homosexuals were treated as third class citizens just like African-Americans the treatment given to the African – Americans before. Disabled persons had no equal access to public facilities in such a way that these disabled persons were not taken into consideration when public facilities were built.
Today, a lot has changed, but we cannot say that all the struggles awakened by the African-Americans have been addressed or that they have achieved 100% of what they were fighting. The only difference now of the groups who are experiencing political struggles and economic struggles and those fighting for their basic rights is the type of world we live in. We are currently living in a more modern world, where we can be vocal to our plights, and where human rights activists are there to lend support and people are more open-minded. Some communities nowadays have more powerful women leaders, they recognized the rights of homosexuals as persons and their right to privacy and disabled persons are given special considerations in some public places. The social needs are being addressed.
References:
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2007, Dec 11). Civil Rights. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/civil-rights/
