What Was Freedom For African Americans?

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

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 Their right to vote was revoked in many southern states during the early 1890s.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.

First of all, the 13th Amendment was the single most important measure of the 19th century because of the immense changes it made to the United States both societally and economically. The emancipation of the slaves helped hasten the end of the American Civil War for the benefit of the Union. Soon after losing the Civil war, the Confederate states in the south were forced to reunite with the Union and surrender their right to the enslavement of African Americans. The enactment of the 13th amendment was the first step to give African American’s equal rights. Without a doubt, African American rights were not the only thing the abolishment of slavery accomplished. The southern reliance on slavery for economic prosperity

The developments on American’s society greatly fluctuated as women and African Americans fought for equal rights. Black men and women have fought for rights in America since the beginning of slavery throughout the country. Once the Civil War ended parts of the government stepped in to help. The Freedmen’s Bureau was one of the first federal organizations which held out a hand. “It was the first federal experiment in providing assistance directly to the people rather than to states.” (Shi and Tindall, pg. 515) The Freedmen’s Bureau set schools for African Americans throughout former confederate states. Soon after the birth of the Freedmen’s Bureau, black men gained the right to vote through the Fifteenth Amendment. Even through the federal assistance African Americans still were not close to equality. The African Methodist Episcopal was the first institution which former slaves could control, the black ministers were seen as social and political leaders as well as preachers (pg. 523) The first real sign of freedom

In 1850, about 1/9 of African Americans in the United States were free. In the south, while most blacks were slaves, 250,000 were free. However, they lived very restricted lives. Free southern blacks could “work for wages, own property, and legally marry” but they “could not vote and were not welcome to mix equally with the Southern white population” (essay). On the other hand, free blacks in the North are commonly believed to have more freedom than the Southern blacks. Although this may be true, free blacks in the North still didn’t have the same political, economic, and social freedoms as Northern whites. The question remains, how free were the free blacks in the North.

Today we examine one of the most influential days in our recent history and how it has translated into the modern day. On December 6th, 1865, enough states ratified the 13th amendment, therefore ending slavery and unpaid labor in the United States forever! This ratification constitutionally ends slavery. However, since then, not everything is going the way we assumed it would. African-Americans are still fighting for their rights, and many ex-slaves are demanding land from former owners, but the white South are often hesitant to apply, while some don’t even bother looking into the idea. Somethings have changed but most is still the same. Black people are still working on white owned farms, they are not treated like property anymore though.

Freedom for all races, religions, and ethnic groups has been a recurrent issue throughout American history. With different races living together come different morals, values, and beliefs which do not always fit together smoothly, and many problems arise when this sacred freedom is defined differently from one specific group of people to another. Although equilibrium of freedom was the goal in the 1800s, it was merely impossible to reach due to economic inequality from the different beliefs and understanding of freedom between the working poor and industrialists, the varieties of races and ethnicities, and lastly, the negative role of media throughout this time.

Much of America’s history was overcast by the darkness that was slavery. The battle against it took many years to be completed, and even free blacks were restricted by laws and social constructs. Though slavery had been largely forgotten in the Northern states by the early 1800s, many years before the Emancipation Proclamation’s passing in 1863, racism still stood strong. Free blacks in the North, who made up only 4.9 percent of the nationwide African American population (How Free…Blacks, 2013), could not participate in politics, have extended interaction with whites, or find jobs above servitude. For these reasons, it can be concluded that free blacks in the North, while freer than slaves, were still not entirely free.

In the early nineteenth century, the African American went from slavery to the struggle for freedom. They had to do several activities in order to survive. Even though food affected the lifestyle during slavery, with religion, soul food like greens, and hamburger meat was prepared and grown to help families survive. There were several kinds of slaves during the nineteenth century. The African Americans were the most popular among all the slaves and had the hardest time for survival. They reported in mid-2003 that today: "Millions of men, women and children around the world are forced to

It was the early 1800’s - slavery was over and nearly long forgotten. African Americans were free from the crippling era of slavery, living as liberated men. The now liberated blacks were unevenly distributed across New England, the Mid-Atlantic states, and the Midwest. The North abolished slavery much quicker than the south, there simply being no more need for it as they matured into capitalism, adapting industry and paid workers to replace the slaves’ working hands. But, even though the blacks’ were relieved of their forced labors, it didn’t mean that they were accepted. Life for blacks was still very difficult in the North. They were still being discriminated and whites continued prejudicing them. Politically, economically, and socially, blacks were segregated. Although considered free, they were not necessarily so.

During the 1860s there was a lot of different stands on the state of freedom for the African-American people in the south, also a false identity of freedom for the quote on quote freed slaves. During this time there were multiple documents stating the condition of the south by observation, also to further educate the Northerners of the condition of the US and following up on the progress that was being made after the civil war.

Roughly 100 years after Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863, the oppression and segregation against African Americans continued and they had yet to receive the freedom and rights they were vowed by the 14th and 15th Amendments. It wasn’t until the Abolitionist Movement gained momentum in the early 1900s and the Jim Crow laws were established, that African Americans began to unite to say “No more!” with the help of leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Andrew Goodman, Rosa Parks and others who risked their lives to achieve their dream of freedom and equality. It wasn’t until after the assassination of one of the most influential figures in American history, Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968 did the movement come

Freedom for ex-slaves meant “the right to vote, ushering in a period of interracial throughout the south. Black schools,churches, and other institutions would flourish laying the foundation for the modern African-American community.” Ex-slaves also wanted to escape the injustices they faced while being in slavery, to them this meant living like a white american. Henry Adams a slave who was emancipated in Louisiana stated that if he did not live like a white man then he wasn’t free. They even tried to live more like any other American would starting with mass meetings, religious services where they can be from of being supervised like they would in slavery, and the slaves even started to buy things they could never before during slavery like

Some of the ways that Blacks were free in society are, some could have an early education, some were able to work and they were allowed to pay taxes. Going back to the early education, it might seem like a great idea for them to have an early education but, it was really torture. They would go through all their schooling but, when they went to get a job they were limited to the extreme. Since they were black and most whites owned a business they could not work at what they were most skilled at, they would end up with a job for a lower class. There were more restrictions than freedoms for Black Americans. Restrictions such as, nobody wanting to hire them, they weren’t allowed to take care of whites when they were sick, and many schools were separate from each other. Education is important to anyone but, to blacks it was very hard to get into a school at all because, of their race. The rules even went as far as not being allowed to dine with any white families. (Doc C, B

The end of the Civil War was an enormous and decisive moment in the United States. It was not only the reestablishment of the Union against the Confederate states of the south and over the entirety of the States, there was the powerful passing of the Emancipation Proclamation,—which was set forward by President Abraham Lincoln and took effect on January 1st, 1863. In this document it was stated that all the slaves in the rebelling states were to be set free by the date that was mentioned previously. Furthermore it was essential in the recruitment of the black population into the Union armies which then significantly helped the change the tides of the Civil War. Although there was still slavery taking place in some states, states that belonged to the Union, by the end of the Civil War, the passing of this document undeniably changed the dynamics and the view of slavery in both the private and public spheres. This change wasn’t all good, however; or at the very least, it brought to the forefront new questions and tensions relating to race and what does it mean to be a person,