My Experience In Talking About Freedom

Gone with the Wind Reconsidered

Gone with the Wind Reconsidered

Reconstruction Video reflection

 

From Slavery to Reconstruction: The Struggle for Freedom and the Leaders Who Shaped It

Heat of The Night Reflection

Heat of the Night Refection

 

Classroom Mock Trial: Brown v. Board of Education

Overview

Our class conducted a mock trial reenacting the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, which challenged school segregation under the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Students represented both sides of the argument, presenting compelling legal, moral, and economic perspectives on one of America's most significant civil rights cases.

Arguments Against Segregation

Dom opened with a moral appeal, citing scripture to argue that all people are equal under Christ and should not be divided by race. Nathan emphasized that "separate has never been equal," pointing to the severe funding disparities between Black and white schools. He noted that while tradition once defended
slavery and denied women's rights, America progresses by learning from the past rather than being constrained by it.

Lucas delivered a political argument about citizenship and democracy. He explained that schools teach more than academics—they teach students how to live together under shared laws and values. Segregation prevents students from understanding people different from themselves, ultimately weakening our democratic society.

Butterfield presented an economic case, highlighting the devastating financial impact of segregation. He cited funding gaps where Kansas spent only $17 annually per Black student compared to substantially more for white students. This economic inequality creates a permanent underclass, costing the American economy billions in lost productivity.

Kane built on Supreme Court precedents from Sweatt and McLaurin cases, arguing that equality in education requires intangible elements like peer interaction and institutional prestige that cannot exist under segregation. The separation itself creates inherent inequality.

Arguments Supporting Segregation

Students also presented the historical defense of segregation. Arguments included the Plessy v. Ferguson precedent establishing "separate but equal," states' rights under the Tenth Amendment, and claims that the 14th Amendment's framers didn't intend to require integration.

Graham and Leo defended tradition and community norms, while Christian raised concerns about economic costs, displacement of teachers, and the practical challenges of integration.

This exercise provided valuable insight into the complex legal and social arguments surrounding this pivotal case.

AI Disclosure: After sitting in on the mock trial, I took detailed notes. Then, used Claude- AI to structure and smooth the text and format in a readable way. I then edited the AI- generated text. I added photos I took from the trial.

EOTO Reaction blog post

The Struggle for Freedom: Reconstruction and Resistance in Post-Civil War America

The end of the Civil War in 1865 promised freedom for millions of formerly enslaved African Americans, but the reality proved far more complex. The Reconstruction era that followed revealed a nation deeply divided over the meaning of freedom and equality, setting the stage for struggles that would echo through generations.

Black Codes 

Between 1865 and 1866, Southern states enacted Black Codes—restrictive laws designed to control newly freed African Americans and maintain white supremacy. These laws severely limited the rights of Black citizens, regulating where they could work, live, and travel. The Black Codes represented one of the earliest civil rights struggles in American history, demonstrating that legal emancipation did not automatically translate into true freedom.

The Promise and Peril of Reconstruction

During Reconstruction, Northern reformers known as "carpetbaggers" worked alongside freedmen and Southern Republicans to rebuild the South. Their efforts yielded significant achievements: establishing public school systems across the region, passing civil rights legislation, and modernizing state constitutions. However, these progressive changes faced fierce resistance from white Southerners who viewed Reconstruction as an assault on their way of life.

The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan

This resistance took a violent turn with the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. Created by former Confederate soldiers, the organization began as a secret social club but quickly evolved into a terrorist network. The name "Ku Klux Klan" derived from "kuklos," meaning circle or clan. Members wore ghostly costumes designed to evoke spirits and terrorize their targets—primarily African Americans and their allies. Through fear, threats, and violence, the Klan sought to undermine Reconstruction efforts and restore white supremacy throughout the South.

Lynching: Terror as Social Control

Perhaps no practice better exemplified racial terrorism than lynching. Between the 1880s and 1930s, over 4,000 documented Black victims were murdered by mobs, primarily in Southern states. These public killings often involved community participation and were used to enforce Jim Crow laws and maintain racial hierarchy. Victims were frequently targeted for minor social violations or simply for being too successful. Perpetrators were rarely prosecuted, and shockingly, federal anti-lynching legislation wasn't passed until 2022. The practice forced mass migration and left lasting trauma on Black communities.

Additional Barriers to Equality

The assassination of President Lincoln on April 14, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth—a Confederate sympathizer—removed a potentially moderate voice from Reconstruction debates. Meanwhile, anti-miscegenation laws banning interracial marriage were adopted by thirty states, representing another form of legal racism aimed at preserving white supremacy.

The Reconstruction era ultimately reveals a painful truth: the end of slavery was only the beginning of a much longer fight for genuine equality and civil rights in America.

AI Disclosure: After listening to the EOTO groups present, I used Claude AI to smooth the text and format in a readable way. I then edited the AI- generated text. I added photos and also broke up the text with subheadings.

Homer Plessy

 The Constitutional Case Against Segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson

When Homer Adolph Plessy's case reached the Supreme Court in 1896, the arguments presented would resonate through American history, even though they ultimately failed to persuade the Court. The case against Louisiana's Separate Car Act was built on powerful constitutional principles and the lived reality of Plessy's experience.

The Arbitrary Nature of Racial Classification

At the heart of the legal argument was Plessy himself—a man whose very existence exposed the arbitrary nature of racial classification. As someone who was seven-eighths Caucasian and one-eighth African, Plessy appeared indistinguishable from white passengers. Yet Louisiana law deemed him unfit to sit in a first-class railway car based solely on a fraction of his ancestry. The case revealed the fundamental injustice of the statute: a system so arbitrary that it relied on invisible genealogical measurements rather than any rational public purpose.

The absurdity became even clearer in the details of Plessy's arrest. He was not removed from the whites-only car because of his appearance—no conductor could tell by looking at him. Instead, he was arrested only after voluntarily identifying his partial African ancestry. This demonstrated that the law's enforcement depended entirely on self-identification or invasive investigations into family history, not any observable characteristic or legitimate state interest.

The New Orleans Tradition Under Attack

Plessy's background in New Orleans provided crucial context for the legal challenge. He came from the city's Creole community, a population with a long tradition of participation in civic life, commerce, and the professions. For generations, New Orleans had maintained a more integrated society than most of the South, where people of mixed heritage owned businesses, paid taxes, and contributed to their communities without forced separation.

The case argued that Louisiana's segregation law represented not progress or legitimate police power, but rather a deliberate dismantling of rights and traditions that had existed for decades. This was part of a broader post-Reconstruction campaign to create a racial caste system that the Constitution expressly forbade. The Separate Car Act symbolized the rollback of rights that Black and Creole citizens had enjoyed during and after the Civil War.

The Core Constitutional Arguments

The constitutional arguments centered on the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. The case contended that forced segregation imposed a "badge of servitude" prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment, which had abolished slavery and its lingering effects. More powerfully, it argued that the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection meant exactly that—equal, not separate.

When a state compels citizens to sit apart based solely on race, it announces to the world that one group is inferior and unworthy of association with others. No amount of similar facilities could cure this inherent badge of inferiority. The very act of separation, regardless of the quality of the separated accommodations, sent an unmistakable message of second-class citizenship.

Dismantling "Separate But Equal"

The case dismantled the state's "separate but equal" justification with devastating logic. The arguments showed that if the Court permitted railway segregation, it would open the door to segregating courtrooms, schools, churches, and streets. The principle knew no limiting boundary. If racial separation was constitutional on trains, what would prevent states from extending it to every aspect of public life?

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The case also highlighted the practical absurdity of enforcement. Conductors were expected to make instant determinations about passengers' racial ancestry, often based on imperceptible differences or self-identification. This created an unworkable system that invited arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement, placing railroad employees in the impossible position of serving as judges of racial purity.

Perhaps most prophetically, the case warned about the precedent such a decision would establish. It invoked the specter of Dred Scott v. Sandford, the infamous 1857 decision that declared Black Americans could never be citizens. The case reminded the Court that the Civil War and three constitutional amendments had repudiated the notion that Black Americans could be treated as inferior.

Permitting segregation would allow states to accomplish through separation what they could no longer achieve through enslavement. It would reduce the promise of equal citizenship to an empty formality, preserving racial hierarchy under a thin veneer of legal respectability.

The Simple Question Before the Court

The case framed the issue as a simple question: Does the Fourteenth Amendment permit states to separate citizens by race in public accommodations? The answer was unequivocal—it does not and cannot. The argument urged the Court to recognize that the Constitution acknowledges no superior or inferior classes of citizens, only Americans equal before the law.

Ultimate Vindication

Though the Supreme Court rejected these arguments in 1896, establishing the "separate but equal" doctrine that would legitimize segregation for nearly six decades, the reasoning presented in Plessy's case would eventually prevail. In 1954, the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education adopted virtually the same constitutional logic, finally recognizing that separate can never be equal and that the Fourteenth Amendment demands genuine equality, not segregated facilities dressed up as fairness.

Homer Plessy's case, though a legal defeat in his lifetime, planted the seeds for the civil rights victories that would follow. His willingness to challenge injustice and the constitutional arguments made on his behalf became a roadmap for future generations seeking to fulfill the Constitution's promise of equal protection under the law.

AI Disclosure: After conducting research on  Homer Plessy, I used Claude AI to smooth the text and format in a readable way. I then edited the AI- generated text. I added photos and also broke up the text with subheadings.