Former American Politician and Civil Rights Activist John Lewis once stated “Never let any person or any force-dampen, dim, or diminish your light”. On November 4th, 2008, Democratic nominee Barack Hussein Obama won the Presidential election to be the 44th President of the United States of America, defeating Republican nominee John McCain with 365 electoral votes. Obama’s inauguration commenced an unprecedented event that completely changed the American political landscape like never seen before, electing the first African American President into the White House. Despite the Emancipation Proclamation declared by President Lincoln in 1863, African Americans have experienced colossal amounts of racism, violence, and segregation for the last 160 years. Significant African American leaders such as Booker T. Washington, W.E.B Dubois, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X have laid the necessary groundwork and …show more content…
Booker T. Washington, born on April 5th, 1856 in Virginia, was an American educator and civil rights activist during the First Reconstruction era. Washington served as a highly intelligent aid to several US presidents, adhering to more conservative approaches to gain black progress. Washington founded Tuskegee Normal University in Alabama, offering the opportunity for African Americans to receive a collegiate degree primarily in the fields of teaching, carpentry, and construction. Washington gained immense fame from his Atlanta Compromise Speech in 1895, expressing the use of education and entrepreneurship to gain black progress instead of directly fighting the Jim Crow Laws of segregation. Washington gained popularity with the white population; however, the African American community is not truly fond of Washington’s conservative actions nowadays. They were seeking a more opposite, radical version of Washington that didn’t simply want to submit to white political