Dear Righteous Reformer Admissions Committee

According to Matthew Mason’s academic journal “A Missed Opportunity? The Founding, Postcolonial Realities, And The Abolition Of Slavery,” African Americans have been enslaved in America since the early 17th century.” The first slaves were brought by the Dutch to the colony of Jamestown, Virginia to help harvest tobacco. The institution of slavery was practiced in America through the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Slavery helped to build the economic foundation of the United States. When the Emancipation Proclamation was passed by Abraham Lincoln in the year 1893 it changed the lives of over three million slaves who were reclassified as “slave” to “free.” Former slaves struggled to find their place within this new world of freedom which they had not yet known before. However, African Americans still faced problems such as discrimination, lack of opportunity, stereotyping, and mortality. Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois both confronted these issues. These two men advocated for the advancement of Black people within society, however in this essay I argue that Du Bois was more effective than Booker T. Washington because of his idea that African Americans should have the same possibility to achieve the same rights as any other race in the United States.

William Lloyd Garrison, an editor, and publisher deemed as the “best –known and hated leader of the abolitionist crusade” changed the outlook and outcome of the enslavement African American people. Although he started young, as the years grew, Garrison would become very active in the movement of freedom for African America Slaves. Being a man with strong religious beliefs, he would use these beliefs and newfound information regarding emancipation to begin his campaign for freedom. He condemned slavery as a sin and proclaimed, per the Constitution of the United States “that all men are created equal” but where is the equality. These firm and powerful religious beliefs aided him this anti Slavery and equality campaign. Garrison felt if God could see all men the same; then so should we. In his opinion, freedom was not a privilege. It was a right that all Americans should be given regardless of color. Garrison wanted people across the world to know the real truth concerning colonization and emancipation while ensuring that it can and will be done in a non-violent fashion.

Depriving african americans of recently gained rights in the late 19th century kept black americans in the social shackles they have been cemented to for over 100 years. Class division was a growing subject of the time with not only blacks stuck on the bottom of the pyramid, but even low wage workers at the mercy of the all powerful big business owner (Doc B). The purpose of books like this were to to reach out to blacks, women, and veterans alike to challenge big business and to run for political office to change their living standards. These people’s politicians had a horrifying realization at the capital, that business and government interests were now hopelessly intertwined. Big business created sharp economic divisions and political corruption that

William Lloyd Garrison was a brave journalist whose biggest goal was to end the enslavement of African- Americans. In 1805, the inspiring journalist, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts where he endured extreme poverty. For example, Garrison was abandoned by his father at the age of three and was raised by a single mother. In 1816, Garrison struggled in grammar school and he even said that “he did not know one single rule of grammar.” Even though, Garrison was ten years old, he was not that bright in reading and he only used, “sermons and religious tracts,” to practice because that was the only thing he could afford. When his mother started having health problems, Garrison took an apprentice job as a cabinetmaker, which did not last because he felt that the job was boring. In 1818, Lloyd was rescued from poverty when he was apprenticed to Ephraim W. Allen, who was an editor for the newspaper company Newburyport Herald. Furthermore, Garrison would work at the Newburyport Herald for seven years, but would not enjoy working there and even stated that, “My little heart sank like lead within me,” when he walked in the Herald office for the first time.

This unit covers the second half of the 19th century. The reconstruction of black race and the steps to the Negro Renaissance are described. In this module, African Americans start to live a freedom that is still oppressed by the white supremacy. Jim Crow laws prevent black people from being seen as equal as white people. Discrimination and segregation begin to show up and African Americans will continue fighting for their equality and their humanity.

During his time in jail, Garrison’s rage intensified immensely as he thought about the injustice of being in jail for “denouncing slavery in a free country” (Masur 24). From his jail cell, Garrison heard slave auctions being held and watched as slaveholders came to retrieve fugitive slaves, making eye contact with the slaves as they passed by. He began “to compare his own situation, his own “captivity” to their fate” (Masur 25). Once released from jail, Garrison returned to Boston with plans to start his own anti-slavery newspaper called the Liberator.

The United States was founded on the belief that every man has “certain inalienable Rights.” Not until ninety years later, however, when slavery was abolished did the United States actually offer these “Rights” to all of its citizens. The 19th century was turbulent time of stress and change for America. One of the most controversial dilemmas was the issue of slavery. Slavery was conceived by many to be morally wrong, and it undermined America’s most valued beliefs. Despite this inconsistency, slavery was still widely supported and permitted out of economic necessity in the South.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the movement of black freedom had already begun. It was the difference of ideology between Northern and Southern states which later on resulted in the Civil war in late nineteenth century. Northern states were in favor of abolishing the slavery and giving African Americans their fundamental rights or to be more precise, their natural rights (Bailyn, 1992). However, African Americans were kept as slaves not only in United States but also in Europe as well. The Southern states used Blacks for not only their personal purposes but also for their business use as Southern states were heavily involved in plantation and it was the hub of the merchants. The main forces that became activated against freedom of Black were the Southern states and also Europe itself. This is so because the

“In 1831, Garrison founded The Liberator, a militant abolitionist newspaper that was the country’s first publication to demand an immediate end to slavery. On the front page of the first issue, he

In this short work Professor Huggins explores the position and achievement of black slaves in American society, with its dream of 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness', from which they were excluded, except as necessary instruments. Wisely, instead of cramming a narrative of 250 years of complex social and economic history into 242 pages of text, he uses his talents as an established historian of black American culture to offer the general, rather than the academic, reader an admirable blend of the higher generalization and the higher popularization.

Slavery dominated the economy of the American Southern states during the antebellum period between 1793 and 1850. The dehumanization of these people resulted in them being viewed only as property by many slave-owners, who relied on their slaves in to support their family and plantation. This reliance produced a fear that the slaves would escape, which called for subsequent laws to arise in the South in which return procedures and punishments were clearly defined for a caught runaway slave. The ex-slaves who earned their freedom were also attacked through government policies that strived to find a reason to take the

Life for was harsh and arduous following up towards gaining freedom and after becoming a liberated for many African Americans during the 19th century. But soon after the political,social,and economic effects of slaves getting their freedoms back many bills or propositions were made to oppose the reform movement.

The dichotomy of freedom and slavery in rhetoric and rise of the United States of America has long been an enigma, a source of endless debate for scholars and citizens alike who wonder how a nation steeped in the ideals of republicanism could so easily subjugate and enslave an entire group of people. The Chesapeake region was home to America’s great statesmen, men who espoused ideals of freedom and liberty from tyranny. Yet at the same time, these men held hundreds of men, women, and children in conditions of lifelong bondage. How then did this dichotomy arise? The dangers posed by indentured servants that became freemen resulted in the development of a system of African-descended chattel slavery in the Chesapeake, a system whose creation and continuance was aided by a continuum of racial thinking and racial prejudice aimed at Africans in Virginia.

For the greater part of the nineteenth century, black people were slaves for white men. The Fourteenth Amendment was placed into effect to protect the rights of the black community after emancipation. It stated that, “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” would be supported under the doctrine. However, this article failed to uphold the rights of the newly freed slaves. The blacks, ridiculed and scorned by the public, were greatly suppressed by the white backlash. The states put into effect laws that would suppress the blacks even further, even though they were protected under the Amendment. The states made stipulations on rights the African Americans were granted, like the right to own land, vote, and even hold certain jobs. Voting was a major controversy for the newly freed slaves, they wanted the chance to be heard through politics. Nevertheless, they were still denied the simple right to vote in many of the states if they could not meet the prerequisites for reading or could not pay a voting tax. They made contracts for them to work for white men, just as if they were slaves and nothing changed. Black people were still waiting for their salvation under this new piece of legislation, but were unable to grasp it through the government. African Americans stood for their newly given rights under the Constitution and were denied by the people who put

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