Does increased government power help or hurt civil rights efforts of underrepresented groups?.
No minority group will ever prevail over the majority without persuading them to become believers in the minorities cause. Without government assistance a minorities opinion would never be heeded unless the majority felt the minority was justified, and in that case, the minority would no longer be a minority, but it would be the majority. In the case of civil rights efforts, the majority opinion is not necessarily the suitable answer, and most members of the majority will not readily listen to the minorities" argument. This is why government power can only help the civil rights efforts of underrepresented groups.
Eleanor Roosevelt said in her Universal Declaration Of Human Rights in Article I, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." She states something that a human should learn at birth. Most people learn that you should treat people how you want to be treated, but not everybody learned this, and not everybody who did listened. She goes one to say in Article 4, "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms." At one time in America slavery was allowed, and many times the minority (the north) spoke against it. People (the south) still practiced slavery until 1865 when Amendment XIII was made to the Constitution forbidding slavery. Ex-slaves were still not treated how Eleanor Roosevelt declared is right until 1868 when the XIV Amendment was passed making ex-slaves US citizens, and giving them all rights outlined in the Constitution of the United States. Without the help of the Government, the minority group may have never become emancipated from the majority.
In May 1954 the Supreme Court declared the segregation of schools unconstitutional at the conclusion of the case Brown v.
