The Never Ending Struggle

The following is what happens when I get a broad topic for an essay exam:

The struggle for equality has been one marred by violence, economic and social strife. African Americans, women and immigrants have undergone similar road blocks on the road to equality they definitely did not take the same road. While women’s liberation and the Civil Rights Movement are the most well known societal campaigns the plight of the immigrant tends to shift from enemy to enemy depending on what war is on.

For the Great Depression era that war was on the economy. In 1929 the immigrants on the receiving end of the oppression stick was Mexicans. “The government effectively ended legal immigration from Mexico for the duration of the Depression to protect jobs for American citizens” (Keene, 672). By promoting a government program that included a government funded trip home coupled with deportation “approximately 415,000 Mexicans left the United States during the 1930’s” (Keene, 672). With almost a half million workers deleted from the workforce, New Deal programs and World War Two created industry, the United States successfully recovered from the fiscal fiasco known as the Great Depression.

In the earlier part of the 1920’s with the adoption of women’s suffrage came a new vision of the ideal woman in the Fisher girl. With new found political power women now had the opportunity to have their voices heard in Washington. Unfortunately most women tended to vote with their husbands rather than for issue traditionally associated with women. While the flappers were alive and well within the counter culture mainstream society adopted a new vision of the modern woman as the Fisher girl. Demanding a long and lanky physique the Fisher girl refocused women from their new found freedom and made them slaves to their diet. “According to a 1928 study, only 17 percent of American women were both slender and over 5 feet 3 inches tall” (Keene, 645). This new model of the perfect woman would later influence the feminist movement.

In addition to the new found body image Margaret Sanger began the fight for female reproductive rights. Sanger believed that “too many children… ruined women’s health and relegated them to the ranks of the poor” (Keene, 646). By opening the first American birth control clinic Sanger hoped to save women from unwanted pregnancies. Due to the 1873 Comstock Act which prohibited the distribution of pornography and information on contraception and birth control Sanger was arrested. Not willing to be silenced following her arrest Sanger appeared with a gag in protest of her government sanctioned silence. Throughout Sanger’s life she worked to change societal attitudes toward birth control.

As America moved into World War Two the bombing of Pearl Harbor put a new face on the dangerous immigrant, one of Japanese descent. While there had always been tension between Anglo Saxons and Japanese in California and the West Coast it was not until the United States entered the war that the racism became government sanctioned. Like the infringement upon women, deeming them second class citizens, the repatriation of Mexicans and the enslavement of the Africans before them, the Japanese were now second class citizens forced to give up the free way of life they had come to America for in exchange for internment camps. For those citizens who could not tell the difference between Japanese and Chinese immigrants Life magazine provided the answer in their article “How to Tell Japs from the Chinese”, Japs being a derogatory term for the Japanese (Keene, 893). While this national publication offered stereotypical instructions West Coast Japanese were sent into the internment camps with seven days to liquidate their assets. It was clear the national fear was now focused on the Japanese immigrant.

While the immigrants were being corralled away women found a boost in their level of freedom. The men were away at war and someone needed to fill the positions left at home. Many job opportunities not afforded to women in peace time became accessible during World War Two. But “as the war drew to a close” government propaganda urged women to resume “traditional roles as homemakers” (Keene, 697). Although women had to fight to maintain the freedoms allotted them during times of war they were not the only minority group to find temporary advancement.

While women attained levels of employment never before available to them initially many African Americans found themselves the victims of racial prejudice. Many “wartime industries refused to hire blacks” it was not until FDR was pressured by A. Phillip Randolph and the threat of a march on Washington that an executive order was signed “that forbade discrimination in the defense industry”, opening the employment door to African Americans (Keene, 699). Many civil rights activists wanted to use World War Two “to promote a ‘double-victory campaign’ against both the fascism overseas and racial prejudice at home”, hoping to create “an egalitarian and color-blind society”, however old habits die hard and every step forward was met with an iron fist hitting back (Keene, 699).

The separate but unequal policies that had allowed southern racism to legally continue through segregation had reached its limit by the 1950’s. In a post World War era, with the economy in full swing the Civil Rights Movement came to the forefront of American culture. The case Brown v. Board of Education deemed that segregated schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment, another step toward equality (Keene, 766). Not a year later the Emmett Till murder showcased another aspect of inequality as the evidence was overlooked by the jury and the white murders were acquitted then paid for an interview in which they confessed to the murder (Keene, 767). The frustration, disgust and rage at a failed system catalyzed a new generation of activists.

Where civil war had been the previous route to change the Civil Rights Movement adopted a policy of non-violence. Stemming from the churches the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SLCC) was created with their leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This organization provided a dogma as well as organizational skills to structure the movement. With the implementation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee or SNCC, the movement for the first time had the youthful exuberance of an energized educated student body with the grace and wisdom of experienced civic leaders. Images like those from Birmingham in 1963 only helped to elicit sympathy by showing the police officers as violent bullies and black students as their helpless victims (Keene, 822-823). This publicity nightmare helped bring attention to the Civil Rights Movement.

In the mid 1960’s female activists joined the women’s movement. Betty Friedan reinvigorated the failed women’s movement of the 1920’s with her treatise the Feminine Mystique, and founding the National Organization for Women or NOW (Keene, 834). It was NOW that “convinced President Johnson to issue an executive order that required government agencies and federal contractors to create affirmative action programs to hire and promote women and minority men”, focusing on advancement through legislation (Keene, 834). However as radical feminists took over, the movement seemed to be one only of white middle class women. “Few black women joined the women’s movement, convinced that racial oppression affected them more severely than sexual discrimination”, asserting that for the time being there were “bigger fish to fry” (Keene, 834).

With the loss of Dr. King the Civil Rights Movement lost momentum. In its wake campaigns for Mexican American and Native American social equality arose. The Mexican and Native American’s became the new targets for “factionalism and police harassment” (Keene, 837).As the Civil Rights Movement had Dr. King, Mexican immigrants had Cesar Chavez, the head of the United Farm Workers union. Chavez “used strikes and marches to secure better working and living conditions” and “appealed directly to consumers convincing seventeen million Americans to stop buying nonunion-picked grapes” to improve the quality of life for many Mexican immigrant farm workers (Keene, 838).

While Mexican Americans unionized Native Americans satirized. On November 20, 1969 Indian activists issued the Alcatraz Proclamation, which pointedly presented centuries of injustice that Native American’s had endured (Keene, 839). The Native American movement did not seek out equality or change through legislature and case law like the Civil Rights and women’s movements, or through boycotts like Montgomery Bus, SNCC and Chavez but with protests like Dr. King’s march on Washington. These elaborate and highly visible protests are what led Nixon “to increase funds for social services on Indian reservations and establish the Office of Indian Water Rights” (Keene, 839). It was through civil unrest that most campaigns for social justice found success.

As the debate raged on into the 1970’s women’s liberation seemed to be the only battle unwillingly to die. Gloria Steinem argued that women’s liberation was good for all Americans, while Phyllis Schlafly proclaimed the “Positive Woman” as the ideal by embracing her “distinctly female role” (Keene, 860). With these two opposing views that of progression versus traditionalism, gender roles and reproductive rights were at the foreground of the debate. “The Supreme Court dealt the feminist movement a stunning victory when it legalized abortion in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision” (Keene, 861). Although abortion and reproductive rights have been legal for nearly forty years the debate rages on.

While the Civil Rights Movement, women’s liberation or the rights of immigrants have many differences each of their success is still undetermined. Equality in America is a fight that seems to have no end, with every step forward we see another group arise as the disenfranchised minority. One need not look farther into history than November 8, 2008 to see this is true. On that night Americans chose a black president and on that night three hateful propositions were signed into law against homosexuals. As fear and ignorance led white supremacists to lynching fear and ignorance led the citizens of California to ban gay marriage. The struggles share the same heart but the battles have not been won until all citizens are treated equally under the law.