Emancipation Proclamation Research Paper

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The Emancipation Proclamation was established on September 22, 1862, which allowed all who were slaves, from that point on free. But what is freedom? According to African Americans, freedom was “escaping the numerous injustice of slavery-punishment by the lash, the separation of families, . . . the sexual exploitation of black women… and sharing the rights and opportunities of American citizens”. From hangings, beatings, and rapes, former slaves weren’t in fact free from hurt and pain. Explained in Ida B. Wells-Barnett “On Lynching’s,” there was a new system of intimidation that emerged after the emancipation, wherein lynching being enforced by white supremacy. After the emancipation, black churches and schools were free from white supervision. …show more content…

They did it to keep a n African American in his place and the government system did not try do anything help the freed slaves from the terror. Wells-Barnett enlightens how the white man had no right or entitlement to kill an “emancipated Negro” but lynching blacks became the way crime was handled. Any crime that a black was accused of doing was rarely gone to trial and hardly ever did the Negro have the chance to plead his or her case. Whites would take the punishment into their own hands and lynched blacks; which is hanging a person by a rope from their neck usually done by a mob. Whites thought that jailing a black man or women wasn’t enough. He needed to be thought a lesson and it was a warning for the other black people. For example, if a Negro were accused of raping a white girl, he would always be found guilty even if the victim said it wasn’t him. Wells-Barnett tells the story of John Peterson who was suspected of rape. He ran away to Columbia and placed himself under Governor Tillman’s protection but the mob did eventually get to Peterson. The victim, who was a white girl, was raped “positively declared” that Peterson wasn’t the man; the verdict of the mob did not care. The mob declared, “the crime had been committed and somebody had to hang for it…”. In other words, no matter who did the crime, a black person had to pay for it whether he was guilty or

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