What A Black Man Wants By Frederick Douglass Analysis

The American Civil War helped to save the nation by rejoining Union Confederate and as result of the Emancipation Proclamation, most African American slaves were declared freed men. However, during the American Reconstruction, the lack of political unity was still very apparent as the South saw Reconstruction as being defeated humiliatingly and thus sought vengeance through the slaves it had lose. Although many slaves did receive their freedom, Reconstruction caused an increase in the white supremacy groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and laws such black codes/ Jim Crow laws/ sharecropping, which limited the rights freed slaves had. This unfortunately caused many of the freed slaves to be only marginally better off than before the Civil War

Over the next three decades, the rights once promised to blacks had been disregarded under white rule, the fight for black rights had been forgotten as they were segregated and condemned to live in poverty with little to no hope. This left freedmen where they started, leaving behind the legacy of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth

In modern society, almost all people understand that slavery was a terrible and immoral practice. However, slavery in America, and especially in the South, was ingrained in culture, economics, and politics. People often glossed over the problems with slavery and refused to acknowledge problems with the peculiar institution. Frederick Douglass, a former slave who fought for his own freedom, wrote his books to educate people on the dehumanizing parts of slavery and to show that African Americans were not just property or animals. Douglass pointed out the physical, psychological, and material abuses that slaves went through. Through the use of devices like analogies, similes and metaphors, and

In the Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass: an American Slave, written by himself, the author argues that slaves are treated no better than, sometimes worse, than livestock. Douglass supports his claim by demonstrating how the slaves were forced to eat out of a trough like pigs and second, shows how hard they were working, like animals. The author’s purpose is to show the lifestyle of an American slave in order to appeal to people’s emotions to show people, from a slave’s perspective, what slavery is really like. Based on the harsh descriptions of his life, Douglass is writing to abolitionist and other people that would sympathize and abolish slavery.

The Civil War was fought over the “race problem,” to determine the place of African-Americans in America. The Union won the war and freed the slaves. However, when President Lincoln declared the Emancipation Proclamation, a hopeful promise for freedom from oppression and slavery for African-Americans, he refrained from announcing the decades of hardship that would follow to obtaining the new won “freedom”. Over the course of nearly a century, African-Americans would be deprived and face adversity to their rights. They faced something perhaps worse than slavery; plagued with the threat of being lynched or beat for walking at the wrong place at the wrong time. Despite the addition of the 14th and

As a result of the North’s victory in the civil war and the reconstruction period that followed, African-Americans were seemingly on the verge of being able to enjoy the freedom of no longer being slaves. During the reconstruction era, important pieces of legislature were written in order to protect the rights of the newly freed men. Those pieces of legislature were essentially trying to somehow transform former slave into free productive members of society. However, a number of disgruntled southerners took it as their duty to prevent African-American from being free of their former masters. They saw the northerners demand as an infringement of the South traditional values. Although the

Based on the supplementary readings, I believe that the Civil War and Reconstruction failed to produce equality and freedom to the former slaves in America. Although these events are a major development in the process of liberating African Americans from slavery and dehumanization, many obstacles still exist in which the black community suffered from discrimination and lack of basic rights as a black man in the late 1800s. For example, black soldiers were recruited into the Civil War due to shortage of manpower and “receive the sum of ten dollars per month…[while]..the regiment would...be allowed the three”(Gooding, "We Feel as Though Our Country Spurned Us"). This shows prejudice to the African Americans despite their efforts. Even though

Ever since the first African Americans came to Jamestown in 1619, getting along has never been easy. Even though there was 200 years of slavery until the prevail of the civil war and the abolition of slavery, most people forget that some African Americans were free during that time, but how free were they? Free African Americans in the Northern states were free, but had no rights based on the voting chart, Charles Mackay’s excerpt, and Charles Andrews excerpt. Out of the three regions in the North, black males could only vote in one of them. Mackay recognizes their “freedom”, but denies African Americans of their rights. Finally, Andrews who was the top of his class explains how there’s no place for his talent. Free African Americans may have had freedom, but not the freedom that white males had, and certainly not the rights they needed to fully function in society.

On January 1, 1863, sitting President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, a document decreeing the end of slavery throughout the United States of America. While symbolic at the time (the self-proclaimed and effectively sovereign Confederate States of America had no intention of recognizing a law issued by a political body with which it was currently at war, and whose authority it did not recognize) it was undebatably a momentous and powerful decision that would forever change the fabric of the American social and political paradigm. Insofar as it symbolically freed the African-American population from slavery, the document did little to improve the plight of the more than four million members of said population formerly held in bondage in the Southern United States in the times following the war. In fact, the end of legal slavery in these areas only led to continued and unofficial de facto bondage, sanctioned and enforced by local governments. In this way, it can be inferred that the plight of the African Americans in the South continued to in one form or another be more or less the same in the half-century following emancipation.

Racial equality has been a feat that blacks and other people of color have wanted since first being enslaved and brought over to America centuries ago, however efforts towards that equality hadn’t started until the Civil War. The freeing of the slaves may have been a war strategy used by Lincoln, but it opened the door for many gains towards equality that may not have even been there before. Freeing black slaves was the largest gain of all, one that led to educational opportunities and paying jobs for those freed. Many of the slaves freed were given assistance from the Freedman’s Bureau, or a “Federal Reconstruction Agency established to protect the legal rights of former slaves and to assist with their education, jobs, health care, and land ownership” (Shi and Tendall 515). This allowed many of the freed

After the Civil War, African American slaves were set free, and they were given more rights. The rights they were given weren’t fair compared to the one whites had. African Americans did not gain their freedom during the reconstruction period.

It’s easy to boil down Frederick Douglas’ desire to escape slavery by saying that slavery was evil and inhumane. In fact, this narrative is used as the underlying motivation of most, if not all, slaves whose lives and journeys towards freedom. However, settling on this idea has two potentially disastrous outcomes. A best, it lessens the role that slave-owners held in this harsh climate. A worst, it erases the inhumanities on both sides of the slave issue entirely. Yes, the desire for freedom is certainly a part of Douglas’, and countless other slaves’, dangerous yearning for life outside of abusive homes and brutal plantations, but it absolutely wasn’t the only one. Slavery didn’t just hold them back physically, but economically, mentally, and spiritually. Frederick

The Constitution and its subsequent amendments spell out the rights of all Americans. The 13th -15th amendments ended slavery, granted the former slaves citizenship and the right to vote. The Reconstruction Era saw an emergence of African Americans in politics and positions of power “Sixteen blacks sat in Congress from 1867-77.” (ushistory.org, 2014)The former slaves wanted to be a part of the country they had helped to build. However, the journey to equality was going to be a long one. Reconstruction offered new hope that the people of African had never seen in this country. With their freedom, there was a shift in plantation system of the south; the main source of wealth. Traditions are hard to break and this is evident as Reconstruction ended and the conditions of life as an African

The United States of America is known for its claims of democracy, equality, and freedom for all of it’s citizens. These claims are the foundation of America’s independence and essentially its entire history. But “claims” are simply all they were in history. While many achieved equal democracy and freedom, the African-American population of the US was exempt from these “inalienable rights” and heavily oppressed by society. The cruelty of slavery and oppression as a whole reached its peak in the 19th century bringing upon the abolitionist movement, which eventually aided in the historic removal of slavery and the continued fight for equal right of citizenship for African-Americans. Of the many abolitionists who fought for

Considering the 19th century and what it had occurred within it, the United States made progress towards equality with the release of President Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation”, taking one step towards becoming the country it is now. In the 19th century, African Americans were still held captive as slaves and were denied even the most basic human rights. These African Americans were mistreated, abused and freed without a warning. The “Emancipation Proclamation”, issued on January 1, 1863, not only granted them freedom but the rights to purse military and political positions. Imagine that, one day your working in the fields and the next you are told you are free and everything that you once endured was no longer applied to you. The African Americans must have been confused and relieved. However, this decision was long overdue and can be seen as a last resort. During the civil war, the divided nation (The Confederates and Union) suffered great amounts of loss.