Since the beginning of the United States of America becoming one union has been the driving force in the lives of many people. Major Ownes, who was a New York politician as well as a member of the Democratic Party once said, “What is our biggest enemy? Segregation.” However, what he failed to put into his quote was the racial equality was an even bigger enemy. Far beyond the days of the Civil War and even the American Revolution, African American people have been looked down upon because of the color of our skin. Whereas in today’s society having African American blood run through your veins is seen as somewhat of a pleasure, even an honor, so to speak this was not always the case. There were some African Americans who grew up in a time where there was something known as the “One Drop Rule”. If you had so much of a drop of African American blood in your body you were considered to be black. You could be the whitest person in the United States of America but you were treated as if you were the lowest of the low because of the “One Drop Rule”. In today’s society we have black history month being celebrated in schools and by African Americans all over the United States, but that was not always there either. Once upon a century, black people and white people could not be in the same classroom or even the same bathroom for that matter. African American’s could hardly walk on a sidewalk without being shoved aside while a white woman was walking on the same side of the street as them. It took the death of many people and even more standing up and trying to fight for racial equality. This paper will speak on some significant events throughout the course of history that has helped shaped racial equality all over the United States of America.
The United States was not always inhabited by white people; it started back in 1607 when English settlers made their first settlement in Jamestown, Virginia. When the first