Lecture #1 2007

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness…”

Thomas Jefferson, 1776

Who are the people in “We the People?”

3/5 Compromise Bill of Rights (1791)

--Amendment 1. Religious and Political Freedom

--Amendment 2. Right to Bear Arms

--Amendments 5-7. Rights of Accused Persons, A Speedy and Public Trial, and A Trial By Jury

-In 1503 the Spanish began bringing Africans to the US as slaves

-From the 1600’s-1863 slavery flourished in the South as plantations needed workers to pick the cotton, sugar cane and tobacco

--“I am not…in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races…I am not…in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I believe that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which…will prevent them from living together as equals…why they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I am in favor of having the superior position given to the white race.” Basler, Roy. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume II, “Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois” (September 18, 1858) new Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953), pp. 1456-146.

•Amendment 13 (1865) Abolition of Slavery

•Amendment 14 (1868) Civil Rights“All persons born or naturalized in the United States…are citizens of the

United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States…nor deny any person within its jurisdiction equal protection of the laws.”

•Amendment 15 (1870)“The Right of Citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or

abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

•Question: What do these amendments assume? Are these three amendments enough to protect the rights of African-Americans?

1866- Ku Klux Klan is founded in Tennessee

1.What is their purpose? 2. What were their

actions?

3. Why is it popular in the South in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century?

Codes of Conduct

Segregation legislature controlled by white supremacists

15th Amendment Failures

In 1881 Tennessee became the 1st state to pass legislation on “separate but equal.”

Several cases in 1883 known as the “new Dred Scott decisions”. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was now effectively deemed unconstitutional. Reinforcing the Jim Crow system.

Plessey vs. Ferguson --The Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment guaranteed blacks legal equality, not social equality with whites. Ultimately it affirmed that states could establish separate public facilities for whites as along as equal accommodations were not denied to blacks. This “separate but equal” doctrine allowed segregation to prevail in the south for the next 60 years.

NAACPWWIChicago RiotsDepressionWWIIFair

Employment Act 1948

1. What is the responsibility of the people and government of the U.S. to secure freedom and democracy at home and abroad?

2. Is forced integration the answer to social injustice?

3. Why did the U.S. need a civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s if America is founded on freedom and equality?

4. What are the most effective methods for creating social change?

5. In 2007, have the people and government of the U.S. realized the dreams of the fifties and sixties? Are we there yet?