(highlight:: Parallels to Women's Rights Movements and MLK's The White Moderate
Summary:
Thinkers throughout history have debated the concept of human rights, with some advocating for equal rights for all while others argued for a more limited definition.
The struggle for universal rights continued for many years, with white men gradually gaining the right to vote and eventually the 14th and 15th Amendments granting citizenship and voting rights to freed male slaves. However, these rights were later undermined by Jim Crow laws.
It wasn't until 1920 that women were finally granted the right to vote.
The fight for equal rights has been a slow and ongoing journey.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
There were thinkers who seemed to understand the spirit of human rights for all in ways that we would recognize today, universal meant, universal. But it seems those people were outnumbered and outgunned forgive the violent metaphor. By those who were talking about a more limited all men, those white male, young man landowners, or some of those influential people, and some would say this applies to our friend Thomas Jefferson. Some of those people believed human rights should apply to everybody, maybe in principle eventually, but didn't think it was practical to go there just yet.
Speaker 2
Eventually, I mean, it took 80 years after the Declaration of Independence for all white men, even, to get the vote in the United States. The requirement to own property in order to vote was done away with gradually, state by state, between 1820 and 1856. Then you get the 14th and 15th Amendments in 1868 and 1870. Gave citizenship rights to all male persons and also guaranteed the right to vote for freed slaves, freed male slaves. We know what happened to that guarantee during that century of Jim Crow laws.
Speaker 1
Right, and then of course it's not until 1920 that the 19th Amendment prohibits federal or state governments from denying anyone the right to vote on the basis of sex. It's staggering to me that it's still less than 100 years ago that this country saw fit to guarantee grown women the right to vote. When my grandparents were born, women couldn't vote in much of the country.)
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