Reconstruction Video Reaction Post

 

A drawing of a black and white mob in high tensions.

Reconstruction: A Battle Over Freedom

The end of the Civil War brought freedom to millions of enslaved people, but it did not bring agreement about what that freedom should look like. After Colonel Lee's surrender on April 9, 1865, many formerly enslaved people packed up what little they owned and left, often with no clear destination. They simply knew that freedom offered more hope than slavery ever could.

One theme that appeared throughout the documentary was movement. Across the South, Black families left the countryside and headed toward cities such as Memphis, searching for new opportunities and greater control over their lives.

The documentary emphasized the role Black soldiers played in the Union victory. Their bravery helped strengthen support for emancipation and demonstrated a commitment to freedom that could not be ignored. I found it remarkable that their contributions helped shape the debate over what the nation would become after the war.

As Reconstruction began, two questions emerged: Who is a citizen, and what rights do they have? Those questions revealed how differently the North and South viewed the future of the country.

Many white Southerners could not accept four million freed slaves as equals. At the same time, the Republican Party was presented as the party of civil rights and African Americans during Reconstruction.

Before his assassination on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln supported voting rights for some Black men, particularly intelligent men and Black veterans. After Lincoln's death, Frederick Douglass expressed doubts about Andrew Johnson, famously stating that he was "no friend of the black."

The documentary also highlighted the importance of land ownership. For many freed people, true freedom meant owning land. However, land was not redistributed, and I was surprised by the argument that the effects of that decision can still be felt today.

A newsletter on the Memphis Massacre.

Reconstruction was also marked by violence. Memphis became crowded with freed people and white residents and was soon shaken by a riot carried out by a white mob. Three months later, another riot erupted in New Orleans.

Despite intimidation, African Americans continued to participate in politics. White gangs terrorized Black voters, yet more than half a million Black men cast ballots, helping Ulysses S. Grant win overwhelmingly. Dozens of Black men were elected to Congress and the Senate.

What stood out to me most was the contrast between progress and resistance. Reconstruction opened doors that had once seemed impossible, yet every gain faced opposition. The documentary presented Reconstruction as a struggle not only over freedom, but over who would have a voice in American democracy.

Plessy v Ferguson Mock Trial

 

A drawing of street-car segregation being enforced.

Plessy v. Ferguson: The Decision That Defined an Era

In 1896, a single train ride became one of the most significant legal battles in American history.

When Homer Plessy boarded a railroad car reserved for white passengers in Louisiana, he knew exactly what he was doing. His arrest was not an accident. It was a direct challenge to a state law that required racial segregation on trains.

Homer Plessy

The result was Plessy v. Ferguson, a Supreme Court case that would shape American society for decades.

At its core, the case asked a simple but powerful question: Does racial segregation violate the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law?

The Supreme Court answered no.

In a 7-1 decision, the Court ruled that racial separation was constitutional as long as the facilities provided to each race were supposedly equal. This reasoning became known as the doctrine of "separate but equal."

The phrase sounds straightforward.

Its consequences were enormous.

The ruling provided legal support for segregation across the United States. States and local governments used the decision to justify separate schools, transportation systems, housing arrangements, and public facilities.

For many Americans, Plessy v. Ferguson became the legal foundation of the Jim Crow Era.

One of the most interesting aspects of the case is that both sides viewed freedom differently.

Supporters of Louisiana's law argued that states had the freedom to govern local affairs without excessive federal interference. They believed the Constitution allowed states to establish policies they believed would preserve public order.

Supporters of Plessy saw freedom through another lens.

They argued that freedom meant equal treatment under the law and that government-imposed separation was incompatible with true citizenship.

The case therefore became more than a dispute about railroad cars.

It became a debate about the meaning of freedom itself.

Historical context also helps explain why the decision occurred when it did.

The Civil War had ended only a few decades earlier. Reconstruction had largely come to an end, and many Southern states were passing laws that restricted the rights of African Americans. At the same time, courts were often reluctant to challenge state authority on social issues.

Understanding that context does not require us to agree with the decision.

It simply helps explain how the Court reached its conclusion.

Not everyone on the Court agreed.

Justice John Marshall Harlan issued a famous dissent in which he argued that the Constitution is "color-blind" and should not permit legal distinctions based on race. His words would later become some of the most influential in American constitutional history.

Justice John Marshal Harlan

You can read Harlan's dissent here

Nearly sixty years later, the Supreme Court revisited the issue in Brown v. Board of Education.

This time, the Court reached a very different conclusion.

In 1954, the justices ruled that segregated public schools were inherently unequal, effectively overturning the principle established by Plessy v. Ferguson.

That decision marked a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement.

Today, Plessy v. Ferguson remains one of the most important Supreme Court cases ever decided. Not because it expanded freedom, but because it forced Americans to confront a difficult question that still resonates today:

Who gets to decide what equality truly means?

AI Disclosure: I used Microsoft Copilot as a brainstorming and editing tool while developing this blog post. The ideas, organization, and final content were reviewed, revised, and approved by me. I found all the links and images and imbedded them all independantly.

Mock Trial Reflection Notes

This is one of the only photos taken in the Supreme Court while in session.

My Reaction to the Mock Trial: State of North Carolina v. Mann

I watched the mock trial of State of North Carolina v. Mann and felt stunned almost immediately.

John Mann, a slave owner, shot a young, enslaved woman named Lydia in the back after she tried to escape a lashing. Hearing that detail said aloud made the room go silent. I felt the weight of it settle in.

The prosecution opened with emotion and conviction. They described Lydia as a person fighting for her dignity, not property. I found myself nodding, hoping the law would side with humanity.

Then the defense spoke. They argued that Mann’s actions were “out of the reach of North Carolina law.” That phrase hit me hard. It sounded like a loophole designed to protect cruelty.

Street sign bringing the old case into light.

As they leaned on property rights, I felt anger rise. They claimed Mann had full control over Lydia because she was enslaved. The calmness in their tone made it worse. It was as if violence could be justified through ownership.

The prosecution pushed back. They cited earlier cases where slave owners were punished for harming enslaved people. For a moment, I thought justice might actually win.

It didn’t.

The verdict favored Mann. I remember feeling hollow, realizing how the law once worked to defend brutality instead of stop it.

Watching the trial unfold made history feel painfully real. I wasn’t just learning about injustice—I was seeing how it was argued, rationalized, and accepted.

Each statement, each objection, showed how morality could be twisted to fit power. The courtroom became a stage where cruelty was disguised as legal order.

I left the room unsettled.

The trial forced me to think about how far we’ve come—and how far we still have to go.

State v. Mann wasn’t just a case. It was a mirror reflecting the darkest parts of our history. And sitting there, I realized that understanding injustice means facing it head‑on, even when it hurts.

AI DISCLOSURE:

I used Microsoft Copilot to help organize my notes and refine the wording of this post. All opinions, reactions, and interpretations are my own, and the final content reflects my personal perspective on the mock trial of State of North Carolina v. Mann.

 

William Lloyd Garrison: Town Hall Meeting

 William Lloyd Garrison

My fellow Americans,

I am grateful to stand among those who have devoted themselves to the cause of human freedom. Yet, as we gather to discuss the future of this movement, I believe we must remind ourselves of the central truth that brought us here: slavery is a moral evil, and it must be abolished.

Let us consider what slavery truly is. It is the practice of treating human beings as property. Under this system, a person may be bought and sold, families may be torn apart, and laborers may be compelled to work without the freedom to determine the course of their own lives. The enslaved person is denied the most fundamental right of all: the right to liberty.

And yet, our nation calls itself free.

We know that America proclaims that all men are created equal and are endowed with rights that cannot justly be taken away. But what meaning do these declarations possess if millions of our fellow human beings remain in bondage? What is liberty worth if it is reserved only for those fortunate enough to possess it?

My fellow abolitionists, we must not allow the urgency of this truth to be weakened by political convenience. Slavery is not merely a disagreement between competing interests. It is a violation of justice, humanity, and conscience. No person should possess the power to claim ownership over another human soul.

Some may urge us to support gradual emancipation. Others may argue that we must compromise in order to preserve peace or maintain national unity. But I ask you: Can peace built upon oppression be true peace? Can prosperity built upon stolen labor be called justice? Can an unjust law make an evil institution righteous?

I declare that it cannot.

Garrison's publishing of "The Liberator"

I therefore continue to demand the immediate abolition of slavery. The enslaved must be recognized as free people, not as property. Their liberty must not be delayed until those who profit from their suffering are prepared to surrender their privileges.

But how shall we advance this cause? We must speak the truth without hesitation. We must expose the cruelty of slavery, challenge the laws and customs that sustain it, and persuade our fellow citizens to confront the contradiction between American liberty and human bondage.

Let us remember that our movement must not lose sight of those whose freedom we seek. This struggle is not simply about reforming a political system. It is about restoring rights that have been unjustly denied to human beings.

My fellow abolitionists, I urge us to remain united in our moral purpose. Let us not permit fear, compromise, or tradition to distract us from the justice we demand.

Slavery must end. Liberty must belong to all. And our work must continue until that principle becomes a reality.

AI Disclosure: I used AI to assist me in drafting and revising my first-person town hall presentation on William Lloyd Garrison and his opposition to slavery. I provided the topic, historical figure, intended audience, and approximate presentation length. AI helped me organize the speech, develop the wording, and adapt the tone for a town hall meeting among abolitionists. I reviewed the generated content and take responsibility for ensuring that the final presentation accurately represents William Lloyd Garrison's historical views.

John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry

John Brown and the Road to Harpers Ferry

I did not expect John Brown to feel so vivid when I started digging into his story. Most historical figures stay trapped in the past. Brown does not. He comes across like someone who walked into the nineteenth century already burning with purpose.

He grew up in Connecticut in a strict religious home. His father despised slavery. Brown absorbed that belief early. As he moved through Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York, he struggled to support his large family. He tried tanning. He tried farming. He tried wool trading. None of it worked.

What did work was his growing conviction that slavery was a sin that demanded action. Real action. Not speeches. Not petitions. Something that would shake the country.

John Brown

By 1849, Brown moved his family into a Black community in North Elba, New York. That detail struck me. It showed how deeply he wanted to live alongside the people he hoped to defend. It also showed how far outside the mainstream he already was.

Kansas changed everything. In 1855, Brown followed his sons into the Kansas Territory. The region was exploding in violence over whether it would enter the Union free or slave. Brown arrived with weapons and a sense of mission. He quickly became a leader among antislavery fighters.

When proslavery forces attacked the town of Lawrence, Brown took it personally. He believed he had a divine duty to respond. Three days later, he led a nighttime raid at Pottawatomie Creek. Five proslavery men were dragged from their homes and killed. It was brutal. It made Brown famous. It also made him feared.

Reading about that moment, I kept thinking about how far he had crossed the line. He was no longer just an abolitionist. He was a militant.

In 1858, Brown met with supporters in Canada. He laid out a plan to create a stronghold in the mountains of Maryland and Virginia. It would be a base for enslaved people escaping bondage. He even drafted a provisional constitution. His backers, known later as the Secret Six, believed in him. They funded him. They did not fully understand how far he intended to go.

By the summer of 1859, Brown was living in a rented farmhouse near Harpers Ferry. He gathered twenty one men. Some were Black. Some were white. Two were his sons. His goal was simple. Seize the federal armory. Arm enslaved people. Start a revolution.

On the night of October 16, he struck. Brown captured the armory and took hostages. He waited for enslaved Virginians to join him. They did not. Local militia surrounded him. By morning, U.S. Marines under Colonel Robert E. Lee stormed the building. Brown was wounded. Ten of his men were killed. The raid collapsed.

Brown was tried for murder, slave insurrection, and treason. He was hanged on December 2, 1859. John Wilkes Booth stood in the crowd as a militiaman.

Brown failed to spark the uprising he imagined. Yet his impact was enormous. His calm, moral defense during the trial turned him into a martyr for the antislavery cause. Victor Hugo wrote that Brown’s execution would split the Union. Union soldiers later marched into battle singing “John Brown’s Body.”

When I think about Brown now, I see someone who forced the nation to confront the violence of slavery by making his own violence impossible to ignore. His raid did not start the Civil War. It made the war feel unavoidable. That is why John Brown still matters. He lit a fuse the country could no longer put out.

AI DISCLOSURE: AI was used in a limited way in the assignment. I did research and took note on the topic, I then personalized those notes by adding my point of view, for example, things I learned or found surprising.  I than used Claude.AI to help me clean up the text for grammar spelling and punctuation, and I also asked the tool to help me shape it into the form of a blog post.  I then edited the text added links and added images with end captions.

Bible Team Challenge

                                          Bible Team Challenge: The Bible and Slavery

The Bible Allows slavery

After reading an article titled The Bible is clear: God endorses slavery, by the publisher Michael Pahl I found that there are about seven passages in the bible that talk about how God accepts slavery.

Law of Moses

In the New Revised Standard version of the Old Testament, readers notice many quotes from the bible that show that God permits slavery. For example in Exodus 21:2-11 it reads “When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years”, showing that you are allowed to buy a person and use them for labor. 

Both the Old and the New Testament both describe how harshly slaves were treated including being beaten, but received little to no consequences for how they treated them.

The Israelites are Oppressed

In Exodus 1:1-22 It talks about how the Egyptians owned Israelite slaves to hold power over them, but later the Israelites left Egypt and had their own laws. 

While coming up with rules that are concerning slavery, in Leviticus 25:44-46 God talks about what the Israelites are allowed to do, saying, “As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you and from their families who are with you who have been born in your land; they may be your property. You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness.” 

This demonstrates that Israel was permitted by God to own foreign slaves, and that owning slaves was a sign of God’s blessing.

Religious Argumentation Against Slavery

In the Christian Bible, Exodus 21:16 states that “And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.”  This means that, in the views of the bible, whoever takes a person should be put to death, whether the victim is sold or kept by the thief.

This presents a clear outline against the slave trade, by condemning the taking of people and selling them into slavery (as property to somebody else).

Another source regarding abolition and religion going hand in hand is “The Black Hearts Of Men” by John Stauffer.  This text examines the lives of 4 radical abolitionists; two black, and two white.  Talking about the division of race and how these men overcame racial and social barriers to work toward the end of slavery and racial oppression, Stauffer writes that these men unite “…in order to usher in a kingdom of God on earth.”  This describes how these four religious men all believe in their union under Christ, adding to the idea that the bible believes in the equality among men, regardless of skin color or social status.

In the same way as the Christina Bible, the Islamic Quran also has verses about slavery and its religious stigma; Quran 24:33 and Philemon 1:16: “And those who seek a contract [for eventual emancipation] from among whom your right hands possess — then make a contract with them if you know there is within them goodness and give them from the wealth of Allah which He has given you”

This passage outlines the moral obligation to free a slave if they contract to do so, and you find them a (man) of good faith.  Though it does not directly oppose slavery it is evidence of the Islamic religion and the morals it promotes being empathetic towards slavery, releasing one's slaves, and also demotes the kidnapping of people for slavery. 

Conclusion and reflection:

After looking at the two opposite sides in which religion views slavery, we can clearly see that in the eyes of religion there is no objectively “correct answer” to slavery.  Religious texts show empathy to slaves and condemn poor treatment of slaves, but at the same time they never teach followers to not practice slavery. And in ways promote slavery.  This does make sense though; because religious texts are meant to be interpreted by the reader and are not written law, we will not be able to find a concise answer for or against slavery.

 

Supreme Court History

 Supreme Court Video Notes

The Supreme Court's Long, Complicated History;

In Criminal Justice 

Every president who has ever sat in the Oval Office has tried to leave a mark on the Supreme Court through their nominations. It's one of the few ways a president's influence can outlast their own time in office.

I was surprised to learn that; since the Court's founding, just over 100 justices have served. The average term lasts around 16 years — though plenty of justices have doubled that, shaping the law for a generation or more.

John Marshal, Chief Justice, 1803

Some justices left an outsized mark. John Marshall was the first to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional, establishing the Court's power of judicial review in a way that still defines its role today.

Not every ruling has aged well.

The Dred Scott decision is widely regarded as the Court's biggest mistake. The backlash cost the Court significant public trust and authority — a reminder that even the nation's highest court is not immune to getting it fundamentally wrong.

Part of what makes the Court's job so difficult is its founding document itself. The justices are tasked with interpreting a constitution that is over 200 years old, applying centuries-old language to modern disputes its authors could never have imagined.

That's where oral arguments come in.

They're not a formality. Attorneys arguing before the Court need arguments that are not just sound, but genuinely persuasive — powerful enough to sway the justices' thinking in real time.

And once a decision is made, it doesn't stay quiet for long.

Written opinions are released to the press, and within hours — sometimes minutes — the ruling is already on air or in print, shaping public conversation almost instantly.

The Supreme Court's history is really a story about power: who shapes it, who challenges it, and how fragile its authority can be when it gets something wrong.

AI DISCLOSURE: AI was used in a limited way in the assignment; I took ample notes while watching a twenty-minute video about the US Supreme Court. I then personalized those notes by adding my point of view, for example, things I learned or found surprising.  I than used Claude.AI to help me clean up the text for grammar spelling and punctuation, and I also asked the tool to help me shape it into the form of a blog post.  I then edited the text added links and added images with end captions.