Freed African American Citizenship Research Paper

Many people will tell you that African Americans were free during the reconstruction after the civil war, which on paper may be the case. Life during this time was getting better, however, it still wasn’t good. African Americans faced multiple different forms of oppression that would make it seem that they were in prison. A few of these were the black codes, and the government's reaction to the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. However the amendments were not meant to have the states to poke holes in them, they were made to give freed African Americans the same right as everyone else.

According to the Declaration of Independence, signed in 1776, "[...] all men are created equal, [and] they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." One would then expect that every man, would be entitled to their freedom, and it was true, for all white men. African-Americans, however, faced a very different reality. They were still forced into slavery, they were deprived of those rights that all men were meant to have. While the north states opposed slavery, it was permitted in the south, and as the slavery issue raged on, one man would stand to fight for his freedom. His case, would go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court's decision would

The United States is a immigrant country, which faces varieties of problems. The African American problem is one of the most serious one. Racial segregation is a deep-rooted social problem, which reflects in every field in the United States. For example, education, labor market and criminal justice system. In the aspect of education, most of black children were not permitted to enter the school, because the white children studied there. In the aspect of labor market, the black people 's average wages were lower than the whites. They did the manual work. In the aspect of criminal justice system, the blacks were easily in jail. Badly, their sentences were also more serious than the whites. In general, the blacks live in the bottom of the American society. Martin Luther King delivered the famous speech I Have a Dream, ' ' I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. ' ' (1) However, it was difficult for African American to get the freedom. The 1776 Declaration of Independence announced that everyone are equal and freedom.But black slavery still occurred in the southern states of America. Then the Civil War broke out, African American kept struggling for land and political rights.

During reconstruction, the meaning of freedom suited many different types of interpretation; the perception of freedom between former slaves and their slaves masters were very contradictory. To begin with, African-Americans had suffered severe abuse over those years of slavery, so to them, the meaning of freedom was basically a hope that in the future, they won’t experience all kind of punishment and exploration that they have been experienced so far. Besides that, formers slaves were demanding equal civil and political rights. In the same way, they valued their freedom by establishing their own schools and churches, reuniting families that were separated under

In the history of the United States, African Americans have always been discriminated against. When Africans first came to America, they were taken against their will and forced to work as laborers. They became slaves to the rich, greedy, lazy Americans. They were given no pay and often badly whipped and beaten. African Americans fought for their freedom, and up until the Civil War it was never given to them. When the Civil War began, they wanted to take part in fighting to free all slaves. Their opportunity to be soldiers and fight along side white men equally did not come easily, but eventually African Americans proved themselves able to withstand the heat of battle and fight as true American heroes.

Following the Civil War, America was in shambles. There were many groups with strong, conflicting ideas of how things should be. However, most groups had one idea in common: reducing the rights of African Americans as much as possible. Freed slaves had very little freedom under the law, were treated like a lesser species by those around them, and faced dangerous environments everywhere they went. Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation may have legally freed slaves, but African Americans were barely more than paid slaves.

To be free means you have freedom and certain rights without anyone interfering with you. You can also do things at your own will. However, during Reconstruction African Americans were not free because whites abused the fact that they had rights and would overpower them. One example is the Ku Klux Klan.

The role of African American has changed over the centuries. They were treated differently because of their skin color. They were treated like property for others uses however change happened. It was not a easy matter to change but one of the main reason it did change was because Martin Luther King and his speech “I have a Dream”.

Throughout history freedom has had many different meanings and definitions; based on race, gender, and ethnicity. According to the dictionary freedom means the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint (“freedom” def. 1). Freedom may seem like something given to everyone however it was something workers had to fight for. Not everyone believed that workers’ rights needed to be changed, which led to a long battle between workers, employers and the government. To the working class people freedom meant making higher wages, having regulated hours, workable conditions and the right to free speech.

Reconstruction after the civil war gave African-Americans an extremely limited amount of freedom compared to the equality and freedom that slavery had denied them. Though they were free in theory, in practice, they were not as free at all. At times, they were so restricted that they were basically treated like slaves, even though that isn’t what they were called after reconstruction. Their freedoms in practice were not the humane freedoms they dreamed of; their sphere of freedoms had increased very minimally compared to what they had as slaves. Some of what they had to face now was arguably even more brutal than what they had to face as slaves. After the Civil War, freedom for African-Americans were only “lip deep” (Doc

During the year of 1865, after the North’s victory in the Civil War, the Republican Party began to pass national legislation in order to secure free blacks’ rights.

While the reconstruction of the nation was a difficult time after the civil war, the newly freed slaves had many questions that needed to be answered (Brundage, W., n.d.). A few of those questions involved who were the American citizens, what rights did they possess, how would the nation be reunited, and what defined citizenship? During this time the whites did not dream that African-Americans would have a say concerning citizenship or any other matter; however, there was no doubt after the civil war that they were ready for their citizenship and to be a part of the debates that would determine their futures. As Americans, we should remember that the civil war was known as the battle that ended slavery.

African Americans not only had to fight for equivalence, but also for their freedom. African Americans began to petition liberty by making things like pamphlets in newspapers. The most used words in these pamphlets were liberty and slavery. They sent two petitions to the Massachusetts General Court begging for their rights, but they did not want to offend the white lawmakers. To not offend anyone, they said that they were aware of the harm they might cause harm to their masters, but the right belongs to them. They talked about how they also deserved to have rights because they were men. Although, they don’t state it directly they were using language from the Declaration of Independence because the Declaration states all men are created equal, and that everyone should have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The

I strongly disagree with the idea that African Americans were given their freedom without doing anything to contribute to the effort. First, according to The Statesman (whose audience is those studying history), Henry Clay made many compromises in an attempt to avoid the Civil War. This goes to show how there were whites trying to prolong slavery, especially those from the south, such as Clay. The Compromise of 1850 and Fugitive Slave Act, with the sole purpose of informing, contains further evidence against southerners (Clay) trying to protect slavery. The Fugitive Slave Act even allowed southerners chasing escaped slaves north even more jurisdiction. This is similar to whites in the mid-twentieth century trying to prolong segregation throughout

America had been oppressed by England since the beginning of its creation and sought freedom from their rule. Americans fought and died for the sake of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those very principles helped to construct the Declaration of Independence, which declared liberty and equality to every man. As God as the enforcer of these natural rights, independence would be granted to America and the citizens that lived there. Nevertheless, the liberty and equality that is man’s birth right never fully extended to all men. African Americans citizens were not granted those rights that whites were given so easily. The same African Americans that fought alongside with the rebels for independence, would not be granted their own freedom