Blacks In The South Dbq Research Paper

Imagine this: You escaped from slavery in the South and booked it to the Northern, “free” areas. When you get there, you realize it is not what you thought it was. There was still racial segregation, the government controlled you, and you still couldn’t talk or mingle with whites, let alone work in a job with them. These were the problems that many black men and women faced in the late 1700s to mid 1800s in the North. Even though there was “freedom” to the blacks in many states in the Northern region, they had little more than basic human rights. The political, economic, and social freedoms given to the blacks were inferior to those of the whites.

Political rights to the blacks in the North were very limited. Even though they were the most

In 1860, only Massachusetts allowed blacks to vote and be on the jury (Doc A). In all of the other states, even others in the North, the blacks were not allowed to vote and be on a jury, unlike the whites, who had full freedom to do both. This meant that even though the whites said that the blacks were free, the whites were just saying dead words and not really keeping their promise. Also, the end of slavery in the North took 71 years until it was fully gone. States like Rhode Island and Connecticut waited to end slavery, and held off getting rid of the slaves until they had to. This further shows how the blacks weren’t even considered human until well after America was free. The inferiority to the whites made the blacks almost like property, and limited their political rights that all people have. When the North said that they did have political freedom, they were stretching the truth because of

Even though the blacks never had to live a life with slavery, the rights given to the blacks made it very similar. They were allowed to live in prosperity, pay taxes, have a house, etc., but were not allowed some of the basic rights they had to live. Charles Mackay explains that the blacks were allowed to live, pay taxes, and perform regular humanly duties, but were basically in full control from the government (Doc B). The government had control over what their taxes were, how much land they could own, etc. This isolated the blacks and gave them prevalent restrictions that the whites did not have. With control over the government, the blacks weren’t really free because they did not have what the other people living there had and were not given the benefits from being free. This created a problem that made the whites and blacks in controversy. Even though the blacks were given many human rights, a lot of them were missed and, therefore, were not given to the black people. Also, most of the black schools were segregated and were not given the same economic rights as the whites. A college graduate said that the blacks were not able to work with whites, even if they were at the top of their class (Doc C). This black student described how the blacks, even if they were fully capable of having a job, were not able to because of their color. This decision made the blacks