Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure economic and social rights,

political rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...

equality Equality generally refers to the fact of being equal, of having the same value. In specific contexts, equality may refer to: Society * Egalitarianism, a trend of thought that favors equality for all people ** Political egalitarianism, in which ...

, often for a specifically

disenfranchised Disfranchisement, also disenfranchisement (which has become more common since 1982) or voter disqualification, is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing someo ...

group, or more generally, in discussion of many matters. Among others,

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

discussed political emancipation in his 1844 essay "

On the Jewish Question "On the Jewish Question" is a response by Karl Marx to then-current debates over the Jewish question. Marx's father had converted to Lutheran Christianity, and his wife and children were baptized in 1825 and 1824, respectively. Marx wrote the pie ...

", although often in addition to (or in contrast with) the term ''human emancipation''. Marx's views of political emancipation in this work were summarized by one writer as entailing "equal status of individual citizens in relation to the state,

equality before the law Equality before the law, also known as equality under the law, equality in the eyes of the law, legal equality, or legal egalitarianism, is the principle that all people must be equally protected by the law. The principle requires a systematic ru ...

, regardless of religion, property, or other 'private' characteristics of individual people." "Political emancipation" as a

phrase In grammar, a phrasecalled expression in some contextsis a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English language, English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adject ...

is less common in modern usage, especially outside academic, foreign or activist contexts. However, similar concepts may be referred to by other terms. For instance, in the United States the Civil Rights movement culminated in the

Civil Rights Act of 1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and United States labor law, labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on Race (human categorization), race, Person of color, color, religion, sex, and nationa ...

, the

Voting Rights Act of 1965 The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights move ...

, and the

Fair Housing Act of 1968 The Civil Rights Act of 1968 () is a landmark law in the United States signed into law by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during the King assassination riots. Titles II through VII comprise the Indian Civil Rights Act, which applie ...

, which can collectively be seen as further realization of events such as the

Emancipation Proclamation The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. The Proclamation had the eff ...

and the abolition of slavery a century earlier. In the current and former

British West Indies The British West Indies (BWI) were the territories in the West Indies under British Empire, British rule, including Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Antigua and Barb ...

islands the holiday

Emancipation Day Emancipation Day is observed in many former European colonies in the West Indies and parts of the United States on various dates to commemorate the emancipation of African slave trade#Abolition, slaves of African descent. In much of the British ...

is celebrated to mark the end of the

Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of Slavery in Africa, enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Pass ...

Etymology

The term ''emancipation'' derives from the Latin ēmancĭpo/ ēmancĭpatio (the act of liberating a child from parental authority) which in turn stems from '' ē manu capere'' (capture from someone else's hand).

References

External links

* {{Authority control

Etymology

See also

References

Further reading

External links