On Civil Rights Activists W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells-Barnett Essay Example
On Civil Rights Activists W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells-Barnett
On December 18, 1865, in Washington, D.C., then U.S. Secretary of State William Seward made the formal proclamation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to be law, thus formally abolishing slavery in the United States. However, for newly-freed African-Americans in the U.S., the excruciating uphill battle for equal rights throughout the country had just started. While Reconstruction had the initial promise of integrating formerly oppressed persons into the citizenry with speed and efficiency, the arduous task of racial and cultural integration with civil rights took 100 years to plateau to the level black people experience currently, especially in the South. In the late 19th century it took radical and persistence efforts by brave and ingenious leaders to bring about change for African-American people, and although the Federal government had kept the nation together through winning the Civil War and passing laws to end slavery, the Federal government also failed to fully enfranchise blacks and tended to ignore cultural and racial turmoil that lingered amongst the population throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Reconstruction time after the Civil War (1866~1877) had the potential to bring change to racial divides and stability via federal projects and fair elections, but the overall effort failed, and by the 1880s much of the South had relapsed into oppressive laws on blacks that took many decades to reverse. William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois (1868-1963) and Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) were both influential leaders that each pioneered their own way to continue the pursuit of freedom for black people and better harmonize race relations in a then still-culturally-hostile America. Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois was born to Mary Burghardt and Alfred Du Bois of Great Barrington, Massachusetts on February 23, 1868. His father’s ethnicity was quite diverse and
On December 18, 1865, in Washington, D.C., then U.S. Secretary of State William Seward made the formal proclamation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to be law, thus formally abolishing slavery in the United States. However, for newly-freed African-Americans in the U.S., the excruciating uphill battle for equal rights throughout the country had just started. While Reconstruction had the initial promise of integrating formerly oppressed persons into the citizenry with speed and efficiency, the arduous task of racial and cultural integration with civil rights took 100 years to plateau to the level black people experience currently, especially in the South. In the late 19th century it took radical and persistence efforts by brave and ingenious leaders to bring about change for African-American people, and although the Federal government had kept the nation together through winning the Civil War and passing laws to end slavery, the Federal government also failed to fully enfranchise blacks and tended to ignore cultural and racial turmoil that lingered amongst the population throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Reconstruction time after the Civil War (1866~1877) had the potential to bring change to racial divides and stability via federal projects and fair elections, but the overall effort failed, and by the 1880s much of the South had relapsed into oppressive laws on blacks that took many decades to reverse. William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois (1868-1963) and Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) were both influential leaders that each pioneered their own way to continue the pursuit of freedom for black people and better harmonize race relations in a then still-culturally-hostile America. Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois was born to Mary Burghardt and Alfred Du Bois of Great Barrington, Massachusetts on February 23, 1868. His father’s ethnicity was quite diverse and