A Perfect America Includes Equal Rights for Everyone

Starting from the 1830s there were a lot of religious people that wanted America to be perfect. Lots of things had to be done for that to happen, though. There had to be a social reform and there was the abolitionist movement as well as a movement for women to have the same rights as men. The abolition of slavery finally happened around the 1830s/1840s in America. Women were able to gain rights in the 1920s. People had to go through so much for everyone to have equal rights. A perfect America should include a country where everyone has equal rights and aren’t discriminated against due to the color of their skin or their gender.

The movement against slavery first started long before the 1820s but many people didn’t start making big deal of how bad it was until after the 1820s. Even though women didn’t have many rights themselves back then, they did end up helping with the abolition movement a lot. Some, like, Harriet Beecher Stowe helped by bringing attention to how bad the slaves’ lives were, Harriet Tubman “worked in the Underground Railroad to remove blacks from slavery,” and Sojourner Truth argued and lectured everyone on how bad everything was for the slaves and everyone involved with them (Avila). Many slaves had the opportunity to be freed if they helped Great Britain during the American Revolution and fought on their side, and in the end, they did end up being freed since they fought on the British side. Robert Finley “establish the American Colonization Society” and then “proposed liberating slaves by purchasing them…and then sending them to Africa” (Avila). 1833 was an important year for the abolition movement because many northern states formed the American Anti-Slavery Society also known as AASS. The group helped a lot by mailing out papers to the northern leaders to inform them about the movement and hopefully get them to join them. After the Civil War is when Abraham Lincoln finally issued the Emancipation Proclamation which helped to free the slaves from their owners. However, “the abolitionists were not satisfied…until the Thirteenth Amendment was adopted in December 1865” (Upchurch). The Fourteenth Amendment, that was passed in 1868 helped to grant the freed slaves citizenship rights in America, and the Fifteenth Amendment that was passed in 1870, allowed the emancipated men the right to vote.

Women have never had it easy, but many things have changed over time to help with giving women a voice and rights to do the same things that men have been doing for years. Ever since “the Colonial era and the first decades of the Republic, there were always women who strove to secure equal rights from themselves” but whenever they tried to speak up for themselves and be independent, they would always get shut down (Andreas). People around them would judge them and sometimes go as far as to kicking them out of the community. In the 1820s women began to work in factories and they would live in houses that their bosses had. IN 1808, when slaves were brought to America, “slaveowners placed increased pressure on the enslaved women to produce children” and “they also subjected these women to sexual advances” to which they couldn’t protect themselves against (Andreas). In the 1830s women were protesting how horrible and dangerous their work environment was and how little they were getting paid for all the hours they worked. When women would speak up about how they were abused and how horrible the life of a female slave was, they were harassed and attacked. “For white women like Lydia Maria Child and Sarah Grimke, campaigning for abolition made them aware of their own lack of rights” they noticed how sexist and mean people were to them, just because they were women (Andreas). The first women’s rights convention was made in 1848 and they made the Declaration of Sentiments which was “based on the Declaration of Independence, the document proclaimed that men and women were ‘created equal,’ and that women should therefore” have the same rights and status as men, including being able to vote (Andreas). Change was finally starting to take place and in 1896 women in many states were eventually able to vote. In 1918, “the House of Representatives passed the Nineteenth Amendment, sometimes known as the Anthony Amendment” and in 1920 women were finally able to vote across the United States (Andreas). Although the women’s right movement was mainly focused on being able to vote, they ended up doing so much more for women all across the country, including them getting paid more for all the hours they worked, and being respected a little more, since no man cared about what they had to say before. Women also were able to learn to read and write and get a higher education, like finally being able to go to college. That’s when we finally were able to see women becoming doctors and lawyers and all those professions that were predominantly filled with only men.

In conclusion, thanks to everyone that went through everything they did back then, people of color and women have more rights than they did before. Still to this day though, African Americans are facing racism and being killed just because they have a different skin color. There are also places in America where women still aren’t getting the same pay as men, for the same job, just cause of their gender. Thanks to the women from then, me and everyone I know can go to college and get a good paying job in a field that, back then, only men could be in. Even though many things have happened to help us in the past, we will have to keep fighting in order for America to perfect.