I am a non-American from an English speaking country. I have spent most of my life consuming the history of the USA through the eyes of Hollywood. America is regularly maligned for real and perceived injustices, I am curious what a wider historical context will do to this view.
One of the most striking formative narratives I have been exposed to is that of American slavery and black suffrage.
I can only think of a handful of other oppressed populations (Irish occupation for example) that have managed to stay within a nations confines and fight for (and mostly attain) the same level of equality as afforded to the oppressing population.
Immediately groups such as Women, LGBT, Protestants (under Catholic hegemony), European peasants, and children spring to mind but these are not specifically what I was hoping to learn more about.
There is actually a fairly common and interesting trans-historical tendency for ethnic change to proceed from the bottom up. For example, in Khmer texts from the ~10th century the Thai are described as hill people and good mercenaries. Fast forward a few centuries and they are ruling the kingdom, so to speak. There is also a persistent argument that Mycenaean Greek was a purely "elite" culture, and its demise was because of social changes from the bottom up.
The Acadian people (comprising primarily of French and Mik'maq heritage) of Eastern Canada received much trauma from both occupying British and French forces. They had been deported in 1755 from their homelands by the British Navy, initiated by the Nova Scotia government at the time. Huge amounts of Acadians would die from this disturbance (one third is claimed but I've never seen a source on that). Now Acadians have protected rights such as French language education and have official language status on a provincial and federal level (which guarantees French service in government related facilities like hospitals and public services, among other things). An Acadian by the name of Louis J. Robichaud had been premier of the province for a time, and many Acadians hold political positions (but going more into detail breaks the 20 year rule).
I don't feel qualified to talk about this more but look up subjects such as the Acadian deportation, the silent revolution of the Acadians, and the new 1982 Canadian constitution.
Other groups of French Canadians went through similar traumas, but saying we are on truly equal footing is perhaps controversial and too recent to discuss.
Source: Heroes of the Acadian Resistance.
"I can only think of a handful of other oppressed populations (Irish occupation for example) that have managed to stay within a nations confines and fight for (and mostly attain) the same level of equality as afforded to the oppressing population." Interesting example. You seem to be under two essential misconceptions here. One is that Ireland was occupied, the other that the Irish were oppressed. I would further suggest that for most of the period that Ireland was under the British crown the Irish population enjoyed, or otherwise, the same rights as the British population. If you consider that the Irish were oppressed, and that oppression is part of your context, perhaps you could suggest how the Irish were oppressed by their occupiers in a way that made them unequal to the situation of the British population in Britain at the same time, in whatever period.