Town Hall Meeting

The other day in class, we had a mock town hall meeting where we picked characters based off of whether they were pro-slavery or anti-slavery. I chose Sojourner Truth. Since I already wrote a post about Sojourner, I'll give a brief summary of what I learned. Sojourner was a slave who was bought and sold four times. She eventually escaped and found an abolitionist family to buy her her freedom. She went on to be one of the most famous women's rights activist and abolitionist. Another person I found interesting to learn about was Frederick Douglas. Douglas was mixed race, with a white dad and a black mom. Douglas could also be considered a women's rights activist, for he is widely known for speaking out on women's suffrage, with a lot of emphasis on the 15th Amendment, which gave black men the right to vote but left out black women. Douglas also wrote several autobiographies on his life as a slave, and even wrote for a paper called the North Star. Douglas is definitely a figure that everyone could look up to. He started as a slave with nothing and no education but went on to be a writer and worked to be highly educated and respected. You can learn more about him here.

We also learned about what are known as the "Reconstruction Amendments". The reconstruction amendments did exactly what the name says: they reconstructed American society. The amendments included are the 13th, 14th, ad 15th amendments. The 13th abolished slavery, the 14th gave citizenship to African Americans, and the 15th gave African American men the right to vote.

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The Pro-Slavery Expressive Acts

Today in class I learned about the pro-slavery movement and the events that contributed to it. Here are a few things I learned: The Fugitive Slave Act was a set of two laws that were put into place in 1793 and 1850 that essentially allowed the capture and return of a fleeing slave. The first act was passed to give the locals authority to capture and return a slave, but the second one was passed to help the south retain their slave supply. This set of acts was passed to increase the division between the north and the south. Because the north wasn't as supportive of slavery, many slaves fled the south to the north where they could live and roam freely. But with the new act passed, it was now the north's obligation as legal citizens to contribute to slavery. This act was really the south's strategy to manipulate the north into going against its morals. The two acts were repealed on June 28th, 1864. Another pro-slavery expressive act I learned about what the M...

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Christina Talks About Freedom

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