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 Economic, social and cultural rights, (ESCR) are socio-economic human rights, such as the right to education, right to housing, right to an adequate standard of living, right to health, victims' rights and the right to science and culture. Econo ...

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 ...

or equality, often for a specifically disenfranchised group, or more generally, in discussion of many matters. Among others,

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

discussed political emancipation in his 1844 essay " On the Jewish Question", 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 r ...

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

phrase In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can con ...

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 The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

culminated in the

Civil Rights Act of 1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration req ...

, the

Voting Rights Act of 1965 The suffrage, Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of Federal government of the United States, federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President of the United ...

, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, 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 Civil War. The Proclamation changed the legal sta ...

and abolition of slavery a century earlier. In the current and former British West Indies islands the holiday

Emancipation Day Emancipation Day is observed in many former European colonies in the Caribbean and areas of the United States on various dates to commemorate the emancipation of slaves of African descent. On August 1, 1985, Trinidad and Tobago became the f ...

is celebrated to mark the end of the

Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and ...

Etymology

The term ''emancipation'' derives from ēmancĭpo/ ēmancĭpatio (the act of liberating a child from parental authority) which in turn stems from '' ē

manu Manu may refer to: Geography *Manú Province, a province of Peru, in the Madre de Dios Region ** Manú National Park, Peru **Manú River, in southeastern Peru * Manu River (Tripura), which originates in India and flows into Bangladesh *Manu Temp ...

capere'' ('capture from someone else's hand').

References

External links

* {{Western culture

Etymology

See also

References

Further reading

External links