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African Americans In The South Dbq

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We were taught in elementary school about how the North and the South were divided over the issue of slavery. It was always said that the Northerners were nice to the African Americans. However, after reviewing several documents on how Blacks were treated in the North, we came up with the conclusion that they were not actually that free after all. First, according to the background essay, only “221,000 [free blacks] lived in the North,” or .71% of all blacks, according to the background essay. This is a surprisingly small number, considering the North were trying to free the black slaves. The background essay also states, “However, even without the institution of slavery, the life of a black person in the North was not easy.” This suggested …show more content…

Document A shows that of the 11,000 blacks of New York in 1855, only 100 of them could vote. In addition, document B, written by Charles Mackay, a white man, in 1859, said that the blacks cannot “attend us in our [whites’] courts--[nor] to represent us in legislature.” Also, according to document D, “They [blacks] have separate church”. Additionally, many blacks could only contribute to political opinions and discussions in their church. From this evidence, we conclude that the blacks had minimum political rights. They not only couldn't go to the same courts as whites, they also couldn't represent whites in legislature, which clearly segregated the blacks from the whites. Additionally, some blacks even had to go to a separate black church just to contribute to politics such as discussions and voting, whereas whites could just contribute to politics …show more content…

According to document B, “He [the blacks] shall be free to live, and to thrive, if he can, and to pay taxes and perform duties.” However, as suggested in document C: “No one will employ me [a black man graduating from college]; white boys won’t work for me.” Therefore, even though they are allowed to find work and work freely, they still could not do those tasks easily, which shows that they were restricted. Document C also states that blacks had their own schools that were separate from white schools. As we know, blacks were segregated at that time. Therefore, their schools were often worse than the white

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