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Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procureeconomic and social rights,political rights orequality, often for a specificallydisenfranchised group, or more generally, in discussion of many matters.
Among others,Karl Marx discussed political emancipation in his 1844 essay "On the Jewish Question", although often in addition to (or in contrast with) the termhuman 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, regardless of religion, property, or other 'private' characteristics of individual people."[1]
"Political emancipation" as aphrase 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 theCivil Rights movement culminated in theCivil Rights Act of 1964, theVoting Rights Act of 1965, and theFair Housing Act of 1968, which can collectively be seen as further realization of events such as theEmancipation Proclamation and the abolition of slavery a century earlier. In the current and formerBritish West Indies islands the holidayEmancipation Day is celebrated to mark the end of theAtlantic slave trade.[2]
The termemancipation derives from the Latinēmancĭpo/ēmancĭpatio (the act of liberating a child from parental authority) which in turn stems fromēmanucapere (capture from someone else's hand).
