Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired Research Paper

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired - Research Paper Example Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired The need for equality among all citizens in the United States have been addressed by the 13th, the 14th, and the 15th Amendment, but a century after the three were issued, there were still strong discriminations lingering in the country. In some counties, it can be seen that regardless of the Declaration of Independence stating that â€Å"all Men are created equal†, the laws still favor one group of people over others (Wright, 2005). Legislatures that passed on Black Codes cut off the rights and privileges of the African Americans, and the persistence of the Jim Crow laws, which placed greater favor to whites over blacks caused the rift to become great enough that the equality of all men under the law was never realized for a very long time (Loevy, 1997). The years preceding the 1960’s showed that many African-Americans still did not enjoy equal rights that they were supposed to have, and segregation in facilities are documented in detail (Skog, 2007). Signage were hung or posted in order to make sure that the populations of whites and the minorities were properly separated. These segregations also showed the differences between the services offered to the two groups of peoples, with the whites having as much as 10 times better services compared to those given to African-Americans (Wright, 2005). If it were not for the rise of civil rights activists such as Fannie Lou Hamer, there might not have been drastic changes in the laws regarding discriminations, particularly in the treatment of African-Americans. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 In 1957, a proposed draft of the Civil Rights Act was formed to study the extent of racial discrimination that is still proliferating in the country. The Civil Rights Commission hoped that by doing so, they could generate enough data to further add arguments for the civil rights supporters as well as in the succeeding legislative fights (Loevy, 1997). The draft also adds the argu ment of the freedom fighters that the need for changes within the prevailing society must be initiated and the intervention must come from the United States government itself. Such a move would not only ensure the proper implementation of the law, but also to fully end the violations being done against blacks in the southern parts of the state (Loevy, 1997). The northern parts of the U.S. had not much problems with the implementation of the bill, and in fact was able to remove overt discrimination because of it (Grofman, 2000). However, the bill had a hard time to take into effect in the south, and the rise in numerous violence towards African-Americans recorded prior to its implementation showed how the bill did not give any immediate help to the oppressed (Skog, 2007). There were also many senators that were known to oppose the implementations of civil rights as well as destroying all bill of civil rights that are handed to them (Loevy, 1997). For others, they argue that the conte nt of the new bill is very much similar to the content of the 1875 Civil Rights Act (Grofman, 2000). However, for those that support the new bill, they argued that the only time that the older bill was able to work was during the Civil War, but after that many state legislatures in the south made counters in the prevalence of the old