When was America ever great?

• Extending that theme, countless white Americans fought right alongside black Americans during Jim Crow and the race riots in various parts of the country. They fought to change the government’s unofficial policies through protests, making their opinions known and ironically using their white privilege: voting power.

An end would eventually come to the Jim Crow laws and staunch institutional racism altering the rights of African-Americans. Over time these changes would lead to the Voting Rights Act granting their right to vote, integrating them into the military, signing of the Civil Rights Act by President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Fair Housing Act, which ended discrimination in renting and selling homes,

The point with mentioning abolitionism, the Civil War and anti-Jim Crow sentiment is that not only does it show that when Americans join together they achieve great things, and make big changes for the better but this togetherness has been around since before the nation officially began, has always been a part of the nation and still is. Something that people in today’s “soccer” style political climate of us vs. them can learn from.

• Along with changing rights for African-Americans and fighting to put an end to slavery, “toxic masculinity” and men’s “privilege” was utilized to fight alongside women for their rights and this was not just limited to the suffrage movement that would eventually allow them to vote in elections.

There were a number of inequalities perpetuated for women besides not being able to vote, including not having the right to own property or in some cases needing permission from their husbands, or that they couldn’t hold patents, practice law, run for high political office, equal pay for the same jobs, even – imagine this: be allowed by their husbands to keep their wages.

During this entire time, thousands of men also stood up, spoke up, and protested for women’s rights. In 1848, a group of about 100 people led by a New York mother, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and famed abolitionist Lucretia Motta made a stand for women’s rights. A third of the group were men that felt doing the right thing was more important than falling in line with the sexist Zeitgeist that ruled the day.

What started as a grassroots movement in small communities and grew to the state and national level from the 1840s until women were given the right to vote in 1920 still continues today. You’ll find men and women joining forces to fight for what is right.

As with how America showed its greatness by ending slavery, many other less “great” nations especially in Muslim countries are still stuck in the 18th century or earlier when it comes to women’s rights. The mutilation of teenage girls’ clitorises, inability to work, vote, drive, dress the way they want, travel unchaperoned, get a license and many more other restrictions place them far behind America’s progress in that department.

Quelling women’s rights or promoting slavery was bad for humanity when it was Conservative Christians doing those things and it’s bad for humanity when modern Muslim Conservatives do those things in this modern era, if not worse so.

• In the 19th century, there were few laws on the books when it came to child labor. Not only were kids made dump school and instead work 10-12 hours days, often 6 days a week but they would do downright deadly jobs. In an era where, if you were lucky to successfully give birth – usually after multiple attempts – you then had to be “lucky” to make it to your third or fourth birthday. If you lived to be 9-10 years of age, you were then lucky enough to be forced to work. The more kids working the more income was coming in.

New Bedford and Fall River were like the rest of the nation with its child labor force. Because of all the textile mills, the child labor force was substantial. The nature of the machines meant that only kids could fit in between the machinery, pull something loose, or make a minor repair and usually that was done while the machines were running. There was no such thing as OSHA or safety shut-off switches. Children were often injured, maimed or killed and for a long time, nothing was done about it.

Until 1904 when The National Child Labor Committee started publicizing their plight and fighting for their rights. They wanted a lot of laws and restrictions put on the books that the best that happened over a 12-year fight was that they made it say kids could stay in school until they were 12-13 years old. Finally, they got Congress’ and President Woodrow Wilson’s attention in 1916 and that helped pass the Keating–Owen Act regulating some businesses that employed children under 14.

Sadly, the Supreme Court struck it down 2 years later. Congress decided to work around that and levy a tax on these businesses that used underage kids…only to have that struck down by the Supreme Court in 1922. Man, kid’s certainly had it rough and they had no voice.

In 1924 Congress tried to add a Child Labor Amendment to the Constitution protecting children up to 18 years of age. No one was interested and only 5 states voted for it initially. After years of back and forth between the Congress, the Supreme Court and the President, the Amendment was finally approved by 28 states by 1937, but 8 more were needed to ratify it. So, in 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act was made to accomplish pretty much the same things wanted in the failed Amendment. There is no time limit. so perhaps it can still be voted on.

Children were of the many oppressed groups in America’s history, but one that never had a voice and one that is never talked about. It took the greatness of adults to give them a voice – just like America and Americans have done time and time again.