The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation

The author discusses the persistent problem of racial inequality in America after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. Freedom for slaves didn’t automatically mean equality for Black Americans. To a lesser extent, Cullen also discusses female inequality in American life and tries to highlight the indispensable role of women during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

The notion of equality of condition, meaning that the material wealth and life outcomes of individuals in a society are similar, has since the late 19th century been the scorn of US right-wing politicians, who have traditionally dismissed this idea as socialism. Instead, the principle of equality of opportunity, meaning that anybody who works hard has equal access to successful outcomes, remains a mainstay of American political life. The freeing of slaves in the US didn’t bestow either form of equality on Black Americans; instead, “Jim Crow laws” were enacted throughout the southern US that legalized racial segregation under the “separate but equal” principle—the standout legacy of the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case. Eventually and very slowly, such laws were dismantled in the 20th century when plaintiffs proved that segregated facilities were in fact not equal, as in the Brown v.