ss essay

Austin Johnson

Restrictions

Authors note: This is a five paragraph essay about how the free African Americans did not have the same rights as Europeans did and how now everyone has equal rights.

If you were a slave and you were forced to work 18hrs or more a day, all you want is freedom.  When you finally get freed you find out that people still treat you like you are less than all the others.  If you were free from slavery but you had less rights than others are you really free?

How free were free blacks in the north if they had fewer rights than normal citizens? The free black in the north did not have the right of: jury duty, attend white churches, to get schooling (or very poor schooling) and most important the right to vote.  To some jury duty is a pain to attend but it is part of giving a fair trial and for blacks before the civil war it was a way to make sure that one of the was getting accused and sent to jail or even death for crimes he did not commit just because the jury is predigest against blacks. Even if they were allowed to do jury duty only the educated could attend.

Which was a problem because blacks were not allowed to attend white schools and most white schools had more ways to educate you so blacks had to make schools and churches to teach others stated in documents. Even if you got a good education from a black school and got a job as a business man most whites won’t buy anything from your business. Making it very hard to find a good occupation that has good business and is stable, which is very different then how we are to day

Today we are allot different everyone has equal rights and are treated better than they were. Now everyone is allowed to attend a jury unless they have a criminal record. We have schools that are open to everyone and hire teachers that are all races. We have churches that everyone is welcome like for example my church has a Sunday school, one of my group leaders is black. With all the laws it is impossible to do anything that was done back before the civil war.

You are not free if you are not treated equally you are on step closer to free but you are not free. Compared to today they were not free they just were not slaves.