Civil Rights

In 1917, Randolph Bourne teased Progressives who believed they could decline the war according to their own liberal purposes. “Despite the administration idealistic language of democracy and freedom, the war (ww1) inaugurated the most intense repression of civil liberties the nation has ever known,” (695).

The 1920s was a start of a coherent concept of civil liberties. “The arrest of antiwar dissenters under the Espionage and Sedition Acts inspired the formation in 1917 of the Civil Liberties Bureau, which in 1920 became the American Civil Liberties Union. For the rest of the century, ACLU would take part in most of the landmark cases that helped to bring about a ‘rights revolution’,” (737). It helped citizens by giving meaning to the civil liberties. Holmes’s doctrine would remain the basic test in 1st amendment cases. “The court majority observed that the 14th amendment obligated the states to refrain from unreasonable restraints on freedom of speech and the press. The comment marked a major step in the long process by which the Bill of Rights was transformed from an ineffective statement of principle into a significant protection of American’s freedom,”(738).  The flow of civil liberties decision making slowly began to change.

In 1990, disabled Americans were given the benefit of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It prohibited discrimination in hiring and promotion against people with disabilities and required that entrances to public building to be redesigned to ensure access for the disabled.  (1025)

These events relate to each other because it has to do with civil liberty and it is a major importance in today’s society. From the beginning, society didn’t have a voice in the government. As time progress, events were leading to the phenomena of American lives as they were given chances to be part of society. They were given rights.

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