Liberty, equality, and power are themes that have remained constant throughout all the different events and circumstances that America has been through. Whether it was those who escaped from England wanting liberty, the fear of presidents having too much power, or to the lack of equality in the Jim Crow south. There is a continual debate on how much liberty, equality, and power is too much or too little. Throughout this analysis, I will detail how each of these concepts affected eras in American history like the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the Jim Crow era. The Revolutionary War Era was filled with confusion, misconceptions, and challenges. America was still trying to find its footing when John Winthrop, a wealthy English Puritan
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I feel that this is one era, that all three themes of liberty, and equality, and power are easy to point out and acknowledge that each was present. The Plessy decision in 1896, was a major landmark in the fight for equality. It declared that blacks and whites could be legally segregated as long as they were given equal facilities. This is where the term, “separate but equal” originates. Although there was a time where the federal government did try to heal the scars of the Civil War; this period was called, Reconstruction. During this period, several amendments were passed that were supposed to guarantee slaves liberty and equality. The 13th amendment stated that slavery should not exist in any place in the US. The 14th amendment states that all people born in the US are citizens, including slaves. The 15th amendment stated that all citizens have the right to vote. The problem with the Reconstruction period was that in each amendment it stated that Congress would enforce these laws and they did for a few years, but then slowly the enforcement dwindled away and Jim Crow laws took …show more content…
Since slaves were technically free, slave owners had to find other ways to keep their power. This began with the idea of sharecropping, in which freed people would independently work the land and be paid a share, which was not enough funds to get them on their own feet. The sharecroppers became tied to the land and fell into a cycle of debt. Lynching was a way to enforce the racial etiquette, which was the unwritten code that dictated the way blacks were supposed to act in front of whites. Lynching was done in public as a spectacle to show African-Americans, that the white people of the South were still in charge. Disfranchisement was a way in which white people thought up bogus ideas to keep blacks from voting. The ways they did this included: poll taxes, literacy tests, and the grandfather clause. The Convict Lease was a program in which farm owners could get African- American prisoners leased to them and when one would die, another would be sent to you. WEB Du Bois, a black historian and sociologist, labeled this as the new form of slavery. Du Bois was a pioneer for African Americans. He paved the way for the civil rights, Pan-African and Black Power movement; he also was the first African-Americans to receive a master’s degree from Harvard. The NAACP magazine in which he wrote for, The Crisis, gave a national voice for the
I feel that this is one era, that all three themes of liberty, and equality, and power are easy to point out and acknowledge that each was present. The Plessy decision in 1896, was a major landmark in the fight for equality. It declared that blacks and whites could be legally segregated as long as they were given equal facilities. This is where the term, “separate but equal” originates. Although there was a time where the federal government did try to heal the scars of the Civil War; this period was called, Reconstruction. During this period, several amendments were passed that were supposed to guarantee slaves liberty and equality. The 13th amendment stated that slavery should not exist in any place in the US. The 14th amendment states that all people born in the US are citizens, including slaves. The 15th amendment stated that all citizens have the right to vote. The problem with the Reconstruction period was that in each amendment it stated that Congress would enforce these laws and they did for a few years, but then slowly the enforcement dwindled away and Jim Crow laws took …show more content…
Since slaves were technically free, slave owners had to find other ways to keep their power. This began with the idea of sharecropping, in which freed people would independently work the land and be paid a share, which was not enough funds to get them on their own feet. The sharecroppers became tied to the land and fell into a cycle of debt. Lynching was a way to enforce the racial etiquette, which was the unwritten code that dictated the way blacks were supposed to act in front of whites. Lynching was done in public as a spectacle to show African-Americans, that the white people of the South were still in charge. Disfranchisement was a way in which white people thought up bogus ideas to keep blacks from voting. The ways they did this included: poll taxes, literacy tests, and the grandfather clause. The Convict Lease was a program in which farm owners could get African- American prisoners leased to them and when one would die, another would be sent to you. WEB Du Bois, a black historian and sociologist, labeled this as the new form of slavery. Du Bois was a pioneer for African Americans. He paved the way for the civil rights, Pan-African and Black Power movement; he also was the first African-Americans to receive a master’s degree from Harvard. The NAACP magazine in which he wrote for, The Crisis, gave a national voice for the