The Freedom from Fear - Franklin Roosevelt - Essay Example

Franklin Roosevelt highlighted that the American nation was willing to use its energy, organizing power, and resources to defend the freedom of other nations. He was keen to highlight that America’s efforts would ensure that the world experiences the four critical types of human freedoms. Roosevelt highlighted that the first essential human freedom was the freedom of speech and expression while the second was the “freedom of every person to worship God in his way everywhere in the world”. He further highlighted the third freedom as the freedom from want based on economic understandings that foster a measure of economic security in every nation. According to Roosevelt, the world also needed to enjoy freedom from fear without any potential threat of physical aggression. Therefore, freedom from fear was defined as the fourth freedom. 

Philip Randolph was a civic leader who delivered a speech titled, “why should we March?”. His speech urged Negros to participate in the march of African American on Washington. Randolph highlights that African Americans had been denied an opportunity to work in the US defense industries. Moreover, other industries did not give African Americans job opportunities. Therefore, many African Americans were subjected to discrimination under the Jim Crow rules. A close analysis of the racial discrimination that Randolph was fighting against reveals a high level of irony when compared to Roosevelt’s, which highlighted the four freedoms.

Notably, the American nation promoted the four freedoms but only to the whites. Ironically, African Americans lived in fear and poverty. Additionally, African Americans were denied the freedom of speech and expression. Notably, the African American population did not have the chance to enjoy the four freedoms that Roosevelt had talked about. According to Randolph, “the community is democratic only when the humbles and weakest person can enjoy the higher civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful poses”.

In the debate over Korematsu v. United States case, it is evident that Japanese Americans had been ordered to be excluded from the West Coast of the United States by executive order 9066, released in 1942. The federal government opined that the removal of Japanese Americans from the west coast was a necessary move since Americans were facing Japan in the war. The federal government released the executive order to remove the entire group simply because some of the Japanese Americans had exhibited their loyalty to Japan. However, the hearing of the case in the Supreme Court declared that it was unfair to exclude an entire group simply because of some individuals. The exclusion qualified as racial prejudice. The debate exhibits irony when compared to the four freedoms described by Franklin Roosevelt.

According to Roosevelt, America was highly democratic and sought to ensure that all individuals enjoyed the four freedoms. However, the exclusion order served to deny Japanese Americans their freedom. Many of them would be compelled to live in fear and would not enjoy their freedom of speech and expression in connection with the war. Therefore, Justice Murphy highlighted that “such exclusion goes over “the brink of constitutional power” and falls into the ugly abyss of racism”. Read More