History of Women’s Rights

Throughout history, women, Spanish-speaking peoples’ and American Indians have struggled for many years to obtain their rights as citizens and gain equality. They faced deeply entrenched prejudices against the involvement of these minorities in political life as they sought to claim their rights as citizens. Women, Spanish-speaking peoples’ and American Indians did not have many rights, their power as a citizen was limited, and they could not speak out against the problems they faced. In the 1900s, Women, Spanish speaking peoples’ and American Indians movements began to emerge with a single cause of achieving equality, but no one took them seriously.

The path they took had many overlaps, but the problems they faced wore different faces.

Women's rights began in 1776 when Abigail Adams tried to help women gain more equal rights by sending a letter known as "Remember the Ladies" to her husband John Adams, but he did not take this letter seriously and pushed it aside. This affected the representation of women in laws and identity because they could not choose what they want and could not vote for someone who could represent and support them. Without representation, women were vulnerable because the majority of voters were men, and they voted for people that represented men's issues, not women, and women could not vote for someone who could agree and support them. In 1920, the women's suffrage movement achieved victory by ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Although the suffrage movement helped gain women the right to vote, women sought representation and equality in the social, economic aspects of society.

Native Americans have been fighting against white settlers since the Columbus era. When white settlers started building colonies, they have been invading American Indian territory and robbing them from their homes, food, and land. In 1830, the Indian removal act was released under Andrew Jackson’s presidency. The act led to the trail of tears where 15,000 Creeks who set out for Oklahoma and 3,500 of those Creeks did not survive the trip. In 1924, Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born in the territorial limits of the country. Even though they were granted citizenship after all their suffering, they still didn't have as much power and were not treated as equals. In the 1950s, a program called “termination” which was a program to end all federal involvement with American Indian and let the states deal with them and another program called “relocation” which relocated Indians to cities. This caused American Indians live in poor housing condition and have a 40% unemployment rate. In 1969, American Indians had enough and were angry. They seized Alcatraz and demanded it to be an Indian cultural center, but the were evicted by United State marshals in 1971. In the 1970s to 1980s, American Indians from all around the country went to the courts and attempted on gaining back the land that the United States took from their ancestors from decades and centuries.

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