Overcoming Racial Injustice: The Evolving Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.

Name Professor Course code Date Essay 1: Race The evolvement of civil rights in the United States has eminently been advocated for in the Constitution. The Equal Protection clause in the 14th Amendment guarantees U.S. citizens the right to equal protection by the law. The 14th Amendment provides a shift in American constitutionalism after the eminent racial segregation witnessed in the united states' history. The African Americans were slaves in the land they were born and natured in. Slavery was the epitome of inequality before the civil war. They were denied voting rights, serving in juries, and holding public offices hence going against the 14th Amendment. The case of Brown v. Board of education in 1954 depicts the advice racial prejudice in schools after his daughter was deprived of school in a nearby school because she was black. The court ruled out that racial segregation in school was unconstitutional and violated the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment. Literacy tests in the 1860s were administered to minority groups to deny them suffrage rights. The officials exercised the test with discretion resulting in discrimination and signaling out of the African Americans. However, in the 1950s, the Act was still common in some states despite the Act being condemned. Martin Luther King regarded the Act as vicious and undemocratic since it was not applied to the illiterate whites. The 14th amendment terms literacy tests as unconstitutional. Voting according to equal protection forbids discrimination based on color, race, or previous condition of servitude. The grandfather clause originated during the era of the civil war to surpass the voting of African Americans. It meant that individuals who enjoyed voting rights before 1867 or were deemed to be lineal descendants of voters back then would be exempted from educational, property, or tax requirements for voting. Civil rights' evolution disregarded the grandfather