Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action

The history of the expansion of equality for African Americans in America has been one of great accomplishments followed by many tiny gains and many set backs also. The outlawing of slavery did not instantly build all blacks equal with whites in America. It took many subsequent legal actions furthermore hundreds of social efforts, massive and tiny, to slowly build the progress we have a tendency to have seen today.
However even in this point in time, in a new century, there's an ongoing battle against racism. It looks we have a tendency to would like leadership to guide society to true equality as a lot of currently as ever in our history.


The abolition of slavery solely began the long laborious struggle for African American culture to become a real half of what it means to be an American. That is because although the legal definition of slavery had been thrown down, the attitudes and cultural systems in place to stay the races separate and to deny black people rights equal with whites had to be addressed one by one.

Slowly over the decades, we have a tendency to have seen massive changes however several came at a nice price. From the legal granting of the right to vote to African Americans to the civil rights movement to highschool desegregation, each revolution came with resistance, great problem and significant sacrifice from leaders and ordinary voters alike to create every step toward true equality a reality.

Of all the efforts to “level the taking part in field”, none has been a lot of controversial than the Affirmative Action program. In its starting, it absolutely was supposed to be a supplement to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Over time it had become clear that despite removal of laws that enforced segregation or discrimination, there appeared to be a natural segregation in the work place that was keeping African Americans from getting a fair likelihood at jobs because of the prejudices of an employer, whether or not that prejudice was not officially recognized in the company charter.

There were 2 vital govt orders that made affirmative action a reality. The primary was Government Order 10925 signed by President Kennedy on March half dozen, 1965 that was the primary law to create mention of the phrase. This was followed by abundant additional sweeping Civil Rights Act which was signed into law by President Johnson. Together these laws attempted to correct by legal suggests that the disparity of opportunity that existed within the workplace for individuals of color by instituting a system of quotas that employers had to meet to satisfy federal affirmative action minority employment levels.

However as is often the case when the government makes an attempt to impose right attitudes via legislation, these laws typically created as many problems for minorities as they cured. Nevertheless as the appliance of the quota systems began to become widespread, it did open many doors for African Americans that would not have opened thanks to racial prejudice and silent segregation that was keeping the African American community from reaching its economic potential.

In truth, nobody extremely liked this type of imposed fairness system. For whites, they felt the sting of a synthetic system of judgment that was typically known as “reverse discrimination”. While there was some justice that the white community got a taste for what it felt like to loose out on opportunity thanks to the color of your skin, it failed to help the country in our goal of growing along to become one “color blind” community.

Affirmative action was a mixed blessing for the African American community. While it did its job in the short term to opening doors that were closed due to racism, it is not the perfect answer. That is because it did not fulfill Dr. King’s vision of a world where a person is judged not by the colour of his skin however by the content of his character. We can hope that we have a tendency to will grow to that time as a culture and appearance back on affirmative action as an unfortunate however necessary provision to assist us grow and mature as a actually integrated culture.