Essay
President Eisenhower achieved far more than President Truman for African Americans (A/A* grade essay)
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History essay at AS level graded 20/25
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By: sameeraelnaim • 3 year ago
By: zarathompson03 • 4 year ago
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“President Eisenhower achieved far more than President Truman for African-Americanrights”. Assess the validity of this view.
This statement is valid to a great extent as Eisenhower in fact did achieve much more than
Truman as he managed to achieve much more “de facto” and “de jure” change, rather than
just improving the morale of African Americans, like Truman did.
Eisenhower made changes in the political scene which greatly promoted Civil Rights and
helped them achieve certain things. He appointed Earl Warren, a liberal judge and due to
him, cases, such as Plessy vs Ferguson, were overturned and other, pro-civil rights such as
Brown vs Board were passed, leading to desegregation of schools. This was significant not
only because now under law there had to be desegregated schools, but also it gave African
Americans belief in the justice system, hence motivating them to fight for more change.
Undeniably it was under Eisenhower, when the civil rights movement flourished, due to this
motivation to push for change which they saw could be achieved, thus the validity is
increased. Furthermore, Eisenhower came from a party that wasn’t dominated by racist
whites from the South, unlike Truman, meaning that he was less constrained and therefore
could pass more laws that would aid African Americans. This is seen in the fact that he
managed to push forward desegregationist laws, even desegregating the army, whereas
Truman, even though he tried, only achieved desegregation of Dulles airport restaurant,
which was really insignificant, adding even more validity. Eisenhower managed to increase
the percentage of African American vote from 17% to 20%, which although seems
insignificant but was at least something to help African Americans- with more political
power, they could influence the votes thus Presidents would have to be more pro-civil
rights, and this in fact played a big role in elections later on. In addition, Truman’s acts were
watered down greatly, so even with the ones he did manage to pass, Truman managed too
little, whereas Eisenhower easily pushed through what he wanted- the first ever Civil Rights
Acts in 1957 and 1960. This in such a racist society was very substantial, thus emphasising
even more, how much more Eisenhower managed for the African American society.
On the other hand, Truman in fact did make progress that, in fact, it can be argued was
more significant than what Eisenhower had achieved. He appointed Ralph Bunche as the US
ambassador in the UN and William Hastie as the first ever African American judge. This
meant that the chances of pro-civil rights laws being passed had increased. Moreover,
African Americans were never previously appointed to such prestigious roles, so this was a
huge step towards more equality and would’ve morally been extremely uplifting for the
African American population- they now saw that they could aim for ambitious careers and
actually be able to achieve what they wanted. It can be argued that this was much more
significant than Eisenhower’s appointment of Earl Warren as it showed Truman’s attitude
towards this issue, consequently further boosting morale. Hence, validity is decreased from
the view to some extent. Furthermore, Truman made more serious efforts in spite of the
constraints that he faced through an extremely racist society and a predominantly
Republican Congress, who hated Truman’s attitude, and thus did all they could to not let
him achieve anything. Thus, the minor changes that he did achieve were more significant
than those of Eisenhower, due to the sheer effort put in to achieve them. It was in fact this
effort that let the African American society see that they could be aided by the government,
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