Philosophy

On August 28, 1963, standing before a mammoth crowd of more than 200,000 blacks and whites on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial Martin Luther King, Jr. gave the now famous I Have a Dream speech in which he championed for more rights and opportunities among the African Americans. In this speech he reiterated what have become the most sacred-and seemingly most controversial- words in the Declaration of Independence We hold these truths to be self-evident That all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The African Americans have since continued to agitate for what they feel are unalienable rights being alienated from them they have fought for rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as stated in the Jeffersons document The Declaration of Independence, it has to be noted, was drafted by a slaveholder in a slaveholding country. It is clear that Thomas Jefferson never factored in the issue of slavery when proclaiming these words he at no means contemplated the abolition of slavery on the ground that it curtailed the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And therefore, even after the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the subsequent ratification of the US Constitution in 1789, African Americans still were not treated in law and fact as equal to all other races.

African Americans in the United States of America have had a turbulent history. It all began with the transatlantic slave trade in which their ancestors were brutally shipped from the comforts of their homes in Africa to the Americas. Here they would be made to do some back-breaking work in sugarcane, cotton, and tobacco and other plantations.  They were also not allowed to move from their masters, and not to own property they also could not vote. All these continued even after all that defined slavery had being frowned at by the Declaration of Independence.

And though President Abraham Lincoln tried to guarantee some freedoms to the African Americans through his Emancipation Proclamation speech, this was after the civil war which had as one of its causes the issue of slavery in the South, some glaring cases of discriminations against the African American community still persisted (Davidson  Lyttle, 1984 Ward, Burns, and Burns, 1990). African Americans were still not permitted to vote, had no right to own property, they were still not permitted to attend the same classes with whites, and in some Southern parts they were still not allowed to freely move from one place to another. It would take more decades before the African American issue would be addressed at least comprehensively ((Davidson  Lyttle, 1984).

The 1960s saw the emergence of the civil rights movements that agitated for greater freedoms and rights to minorities in the US. It started with the refusal of a stoic African American woman, Rosa Parks, to give the front seat of a public bus to a white accordance with the Jim Crow rules in Montgomery Alabama. Martin Luther King took up this defiance and vociferously campaigned for equal access to fundamental rights and freedoms by the African American community.

The civil rights movements compelled Congress to pass the Civil Rights Acts whose effects have been far reaching. Suffice to say that these rights have had ramifications all over the world as minorities clamor for greater access to fundamental freedoms and rights. The African Americans have a right to employment opportunities, they are not to be discriminated against in pursuit of education and educational facilities, and unlike in the slavery days they have a right to political participation such as voting just like any other American. And Martin Luther Kings legacy and this piece of legislation have since been spread to all parts of the world. Today, many take up this philosophy whenever they are championing for equal rights. The issue of unalienable rights, first established by the English philosopher John Locke, has also been put into most of the nations of the worlds constitutions ( Perry, Peden and Laue, 1999).

There has been a remarkable change in race relations in the US in particular and the world in general in the US the election of a black president speaks volumes of these transformations and the future generations are most likely to be less race-sensitive as is the case with present generations. What was started by Rosa Park as a simple act of defiance has since snow-balled into an action known as civil disobedience (Janda, Berry and Goldman, 1994). True, civil disobedience, the willful but non-violent violation of unjust laws (Janda, Berry and Goldman, 1994) was formally started by the Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi, but it was in the US and by the likes of Rosa Parks and later on Martin Luther King, Jr. that it really got popularized.

The case of the African Americans exposed the drawbacks of the Declaration of Independence. That it was superbly lettered but poorly spirited. At the time of its writing, slavery was deeply sunk in the American system. And though Jefferson called for equal treatment of all people, irrespective of their color, creed, or gender differences, African Americans continued to be discriminated against on the basis of their color. Their freedoms movements were restricted, they were not allowed to own property, and they were tortured at times and killed. Basically, they were denied the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But Martin Luther King, Jr. and other prominent African American activists would not accept this state of affairs. Through the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s, their issue was heard and slowly but steadily they gained these rights. Currently, the president of the United States of America is of African American descent. And more shall be done.