13th Amendment Research Paper

The 13th Amendment, created out of the ashes of the American Civil War, declared that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." It was an end to the harsh cruelty that was brought upon African Americans for generations; however, a loophole exists within a simple phrase: “except as a punishment for crime…”. Even though all Americans are considered free under the 13th Amendment on paper, in reality this cannot be further from the truth as people were still considered a slave to the state if they committed a crime. Over time though, this “hands-off” doctrine approach gradually started to shift throughout the 1960s and 70s because the Civil Rights Movement stretched far beyond just African Americans. For prisoners, it was a justifiable call to action for basic human rights.

The 13th amendment abolished slavery and freed millions of African Americans. This was supposed to improve their lives and give them a new beginning. However, more than 30 years after the abolishment, their situation has not improved. Their right to vote was revoked in many southern states during the early 1890s. Less than 40% of black children were enrolled in schools in Georgia by 1880. Between 1880 and 1918, over 2400 African Americans were hanged. Africans had the lowest paying jobs and very few owned land. Jim Crow laws were established in many southern states to legalize segregation. Their situation was disastrous and wasn’t improving. Four respected spokespersons presented their ideas to fix this racial inequality crisis. The four courageous people who offered their alternatives were Ida B Wells, Booker T. Washington, Henry Turner and W.E.B Du Bois.

An educated society has always been thought of as an essential need for the people of the Americas. The Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 were enacted in the colonies pre declaration of independence from England. These were the first ordinances or acts passed that stated responsibilities of the nation for an education system. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution allowed Congress the power collect taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States. It is under this "general welfare" clause that the federal government has assumed the power to start educational activity in its own right and to participate together with states, and people in educational activities.

In the new proactive book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander dives into the not so complicated racial issues that plague this country that we tend to ignore. In all of history, African Americans have had to constantly fight for their freedoms and the right to be considered a human being in this society. It’s very troubling looking back and seeing where we have failed people in this country. At the turn of the century, when people began to think that we had left our old ways behind, this book reminds us that we are wrong. Racism is still alive today in every way, just in different forms.

Prior to the Civil War in 1865, most of the African Americans remained slaves and were denied life, liberty and property. The 14th Amendment paved the way for former slaves and oppressed groups of people to come, granting them citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws. One of the main oppressed groups currently are same sex couples. For a long period of time, they were denied marriage and did not receive any rights as far as benefits because they loved a person of the same gender. In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that all state bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional and made same sex marriage legal in the United States of America.

The genre of “Saving the Right to Organize” would be an article. This would be a secondary source because it is an article, and it refines the primary source. The topic of this source would be that it focuses on the 13th Amendment replacing the Wagner Act on labor movements in the U.S. Percentage of U.S. workers who were unionized in 1953. A good thesis from this source would be Mark Dudzic’s words, “Articulating [worker] right[s] solely as an

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is commonly regarded as a major victory against racism that further advanced democracy in America. Adopted on July 9, 1868, it attempted to transform the oppressive culture of the Confederacy by granting citizenship rights to all people born or naturalized in the United States and affording equal protection under the law to all U.S. citizens. Nonetheless, in spite of aiming to put an end to discrimination against African-Americans and other minority groups, this important amendment did not entirely succeed in eradicating racism during the Reconstruction era.

    Since the beginning of American history, the black race has been the inferior race during times of slavery and times of freedom for black people. They have had to fight to be seen as legitimate first-class citizens, whether that be through slave uprisings in the pre-civil war era, the civil rights movement in the mid-1900’s, or the Black Lives Matter campaign that was started in 2013. Though not everyone has lived an easy life, and not everyone will, the people who have had it the hardest were the enslaved African-Americans in the early stages of our country.

“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it cannot forget what the soldiers did here” are the words esteemed President Lincoln spoke years ago on the field of the deadliest battle in our country’s history. Today, students across the country pull out copies of his monumental words and travel long distances to view the Gettysburg memorial, in order to fully remember the soldiers who fought on that day. But it was more than the soldier’s courage that makes them recalled by generations of people. It was the vision they strived for. Now, the 13th Amendment stands in place of these fallen soldiers, a concrete representation of the ideals many fought for. The 13th Amendment honored the courageous soldiers, who gave “their

Argument found in 13th: 13th states a problem about our 13th amendment claiming that everyone is free to their freedom but in all reality African Americans are still being targeted and put in prisons and treated like slaves for no reason.

Slavery is alive in the United States of America; it’s just morphed to fit itself into modern times. Every time I see the text of the 13th Amendment, I wonder if that little caveat was intentional or just really naïve.

In the 1860s, the north and the south fought against each other over the long-standing controversy over slavery. At the end of the Civil War, the 13th amendment abolish slavery and slaves were free from their masters. The ex-slaves were free, but it would take some time for them to gain equal rights. Former slaves faced obstacles for equal rights like voting and segregation for nearly a century. Although the 14th and 15th amendments helped blacks with equal rights, there was no one to blaze a trail for blacks until Martin Luther King Jr. came along. Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights activist and became a figurehead during the Civil Rights Movement for his peaceful protests. Martin Luther King Jr. peacefully stood against racial

Thanks to the groundbreaking Thirteenth Amendment, no person may be forced to work except in retribution for a crime he or she committed. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is often viewed only as the amendment that abolished the insufferable slavery of African-Americans, - and this does appear to be the case on the surface - however many more interpretations promise many useful arguments for the labor movement and cause controversy over its ineffectiveness in combating racism and its hand in creating the hotly-debated American for-profit prison system.

By the time the sun barely peeks over the horizon, several others and I have been working the fields for hours. We pick cotton until our fingers bleed. If my first strip isn’t done before noon, the whip will come slashing. If I complete my strip and take a break before moving on to the next section, the whip will come slashing. If my legs give out and can no longer support my weight, the whip will come slashing. When I was informed about the new amendment to the constitution tears welled up in my eyes as I took a step towards freedom, or what I thought was freedom. The thirteenth amendment brought forth the idea that slavery would be abolished. However, the congressmen left a loophole in the amendment, allowing slavery to continue, but under another name.

Throughout the world, everyone makes remarks that may offend one’s character or race to distinguish him or her as inferior. Racism is a prominent epidemic that has especially affected African Americans in the development of America. Africans were torn away from their homes and brought to America in the 17th century to work as slaves, where they experienced various forms of chastisements and torture. Then in 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president where he expressed his strong disposition against slavery, which then began the Civil War in America. Lincoln abolished slavery in 1863 in the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all the slaves. However, many of the freed slaves still lived in bad conditions and poverty. Whites saw African Americans as an inferior raced, and they discriminated against them, as they were not allowed to attend the same school or church as they did. In the 1950s, the Civil Rights movement grew as black activists made ground-breaking stands for their community including Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which banned discrimination in schools, jobs, or any public places. Despite these progressions throughout the years, about 25% of African Americans in the USA still live in poverty having a lower income and a higher unemployment rate than whites. Much of this inequality is due to the media’s portrayal of blacks in the community. The media uses negative stereotypes to depict untruthful and unpleasant