African Americans Enjoyed The Pursuit Of Human Rights

Throughout the history of the world, human rights have evolved. They have been different all over the world, but Jefferson believed that all humans had three unalienable rights. The right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. According to Hunt, “Human rights require three interlocking qualities: rights must be natural (inherent in human beings); equal (the same for everyone); and universal (applicable everywhere)” (20). But has everyone truly enjoyed the privilege to those rights? In the past, African Americans did not have the opportunity to enjoy the human rights; Hunt states, “But they also excluded those without property, slaves, free blacks, in some cases religious minorities, and always and everywhere, women” (18). They did not have liberty because most of them were slaves, they could not vote and had to follow directions from their European owners. They had the right to life, but most of them were living under inhumane conditions and were punished for any mistake. African Americans sure did not know what happiness was, because they had no control over their life, and if they wanted to survive they would have to follow the orders from their owner. But today, at least in the United States the inalienable human rights are being respected to some extent. They have been a Western idea, because before the Europeans came to this land, humans did not have human rights, at least it is not accounted for.

Since human rights are supposed to be for everyone, it is not acceptable for a country to ignore the basic human rights of all humans for any situation because it demoralizes the status of the country and the value of their