Native Americans and African Americans Left Out Rights

The question I'm rsponding to is number 2. Which states Both Native Americans and African Americans were left out of the rights granted by the United States Constitution and both groups have had to fight for recognition and rights under the United States government since then.

The years immediately following the Civil War were a time of hope for African Americans on all levels: politically, economically, and socially. The ratification of the 13th Amendment freed them, for the first time ever, from the hands of their Southern masters. Blacks gained control of their own destiny and had chance to rise above their squalid condition. The congress, dominated by anti-slavery Republicans, was determined to ram through sweeping civil rights legislation equalizing blacks and whites. Republicans passed through the Civil Rights Bill of 1866 over Democratic President Andrew Johnson's veto. This legislation granted citizenship to blacks, an immeasurably important prerequisite for gaining other important rights, such as suffrage. Under the Bill, discrimination because of race was made illegal. The 14th Amendment, added to the Constitution two years later, ensured that the rights gained by blacks under the Bill would be protected from repeal by later Democratic Congresses.

The fall of the American Indian occurred just when the African American was gaining essential freedoms for the first time. Indians were not even considered American citizens at the time of Reconstruction; the 14th Amendment that gave blacks their citizenship specifically excluded Native Americans. Without this most basic acknowledgement, it was impossible for Indians to gain any of the freedoms or rights granted to blacks. As if the complete destruction of Indian culture, social structure, and economy was not enough, Congress, with the General Allotmen Act, began taking even the reservations away from them.

African American and Native American life from post-bellum America to the mid-20th Century have followed different patterns. Though both were subjected to unimaginable cruelty at the hands of "civilized" Americans, the conditions of blacks began improving immediately after the Civil War, with African Americans being granted citizenship, protection from discrimination, and male suffrage. However, these gains turned out to be more fictional than fact, white supremacists wishing for a return to Dixieland, Southern Democrats thirsting for power, and a prejudice Supreme Court made many of these victories hollow by legally disenfranchising most blacks and segregating the group to a second-class status. Despite these challenges and reversals, the African American did reap substantial gains at the hands of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, which began to turn back the tide of segregation and hate.

In conclusion though both African American and Native Americans shared the bottom of the American social ladder and suffered from prejudice and discrimination, their lives were somewhat different. Both suffered at the hands of whites, but Native Americans suffered more with the almost total destruction of their society. On the other hand, it took much longer to begin improving the African American condition than it did for the Native American one. One thing is certain, however, America must always remember the hardships it forced these groups to endure for no other reasons than the greed, hatred, ignorance, and racism that allow discrimination to flourish.