Talking About Freedom: Experience and Knowledge Gained

DIS 1000: Talking About Freedom has been an extremely entertaining course, and we would like to talk to you all about it today.

Having a class at 8:30 in the morning after having high school classes starting an hour earlier wouldn't seem difficult; but it was. However, the class was always full of engagement and excitement, making participation fun and fulfilling. 

We as a class explored so many topics, and there was never a dull moment. We would now like to share what we appreciated about each event in class. 

Timelines 

The timelines we did in class were very insightful. While most of the information on there I had heard about in high school, we went far more in depth in this course. It was interesting to learn about the cause/effect relationships with events and seeing the different progressions in different time periods. 

My favorite timeline was probably the Civil Rights Era timeline because I feel it is most relevant to us. I also really liked how they were not straight lectures to sit through; I liked how Professor Smith asked us to participate and asked us our thoughts on the topics to keep it interesting. 

Each One Teach One (EOTO)

The Each One Teach Ones were great ways to learn about a situation from classmates. I think hearing them from peers who are in the same mindset and thought process as you make it easier to understand. Along with hearing from others, I too enjoyed making the EOTO. My topic was "40 Acres and a Mule", and I was able to do research, teach myself, and then bring it to life for my fellow classmates. I think it is a great way to encourage student participation!

Mock Trials

The mock trials were my favorite part of this class by far. While I do not plan to pursue a career in any form of law, I think the legal system is fascinating. Getting the opportunity to step into a role and make clear presented arguments was a highlight for me. I loved hearing my "colleagues" side and the "opposing counsels" takes as well.

 It was great to hear the hard work put in and see it progress as we moved through the course. The first one we had was our first college presentation; as we continued, we all grew more confident and sounder in our voices. I really enjoyed the mock trials, and I believe they were a phenomenal way to engage and practice public speaking and research.

Blog Posts

I think the blog posts were a vital part of this class. They were helpful in expanding our writing abilities and techniques. Clear instruction was always presented to us by our professor. I felt, after completing so many, that I would be ready to continue my writing journey throughout my years in college with the new skills I had developed. 

Movie Days

I always enjoyed movie days; it was a nice change of pace in class to watch some of the curriculum we were being taught. Most of the movies, while still having valuable lessons or being applicable to what we were talking about in class, were fun and intriguing! My favorite movie we watched was In the Heat of the Night. The movie had me on the edge of my seat- it was entertaining but also had lots of important themes and messages sprinkled throughout.

Overall Experience

Overall, this course has been wonderful. I believe we had a great professor who was keen on answering questions and helping us to success. My classmates have been lovely, and it has been a great first class to start my college career. I thank you all for being here today and will see you in a few weeks!

In the Heat of the Night Reflection

In the Heat of the Night just so happened to be one of the most intriguing movies I have ever seen.

Virgil Tibbs was the lead homicide detective 
who was questioned and harassed by
the other officers. 

Virgil Tibbs, after visiting his mother, passes through the small town of Sparta, Mississippi. While there, he is dragged to the station as the potential killer of Philip Colbert; the officers come to find out he is the lead homicide detective back in his Philadelphia precinct. Because of this, he is asked to say and help consult on the case. Through a rollercoaster of events, he finds and accuses the true killer- but not before multiple scenarios unfold.

I would like to start by addressing the time period. This movie takes place in the South during the Civil rights Era. This incredibly important time wasn't all victories though. In fact, some parts of the South were still considered quite dangerous for African Americans. During this time was also the landmark case, Plessy V Ferguson.

Because of this, it is important to note how the results of that case affected everyday life.

What was supposed to be "separate but equal" ended up being the opposite. There was no "equal"; not for black men. Mr. Tibbs was treated with brutality and condescension virtually the whole movie. One of the most vulnerable groups were still being pushed around, even with all of the progress being made in this time.

Regardless, Tibbs did not let the social hate for him stop the job he was there to perform. In fact, I think it fueled his desire to finish the case. He was in the business of taking control back, and we can clearly see that in the scene with Mr. Endicott. Nowhere in history was there ever a moment where a black man could assault a white man and get away with it, punishment free. That was a first for that age, but I cannot imagine how liberating that must have been for him to stand up for himself.

The budding partnership between Chief and Tibbs was one of a kind for this time.

I also found it interesting to watch the relationship between the police chief and Tibbs; What started as beyond rocky turned into a mutually respectable relationship. But, while the Chief's views may have changed, the towns did not. Racism did not end just because Gillespie saw the good and importance behind Virgil's work. 

I think it is imperative to touch on what happens with Miss Purdy and Mamma Caleba. Coming back to "separate but equal", nothing about what they both went through was that. Mamma Caleba should not have been the "go-to" when a woman was in trouble...in need. Not only was that unsafe, but it was unfair. Why did women have to fear and shy away, and result to horrible measures during this period?

Most of all, though, I value Tibbs' dignity and self-respect. He was not going to dumb himself down or 'play nice' to appease the people in town. He knew his worth and what he was there to do. I think that was a beautiful message: Even when the world has decided what you are or who you have to be, YOU do not have to comply and fit in that said image.

Even though the movie (and time period) was far from perfect, I was left with a positive feeling at the end of the movie, knowing that Mr. Tibbs, despite the odds, persevered and stayed true to himself.

The Dissent That Became the Law: The Legal Case Against School Segregation

The protest against segregation in schools led to a huge win for the Civil Rights movement.

In 1954, the Supreme Court was asked a simple question: does separating public school children by race violate the Fourteenth Amendment? The legal groundwork for answering "yes" had actually been laid decades earlier — in a dissent nobody was supposed to win.

That dissent came from Justice John Marshall Harlan in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).

The Plessy majority upheld Louisiana's segregated railcar law, reasoning that the Fourteenth Amendment protected political equality but not social equality. The Court also held that if segregation felt like a badge of inferiority, that was a matter of perception, not something the law itself imposed.

Justice Harlan's famous dissent was imperative
 in the Brown v Board case.

Harlan rejected both points. He argued that a law's true purpose matters more than its wording, and that everyone understood segregation statutes existed to subordinate one race, not to keep the races apart equally. He also leaned on the Court's own earlier ruling in Strauder v. West Virginia, which held that the law must be identical for every citizen regardless of race.

Harlan went further still. He called the majority's "badge of inferiority" reasoning a thin disguise that would fool no one. His famous line still resonates: "Our Constitution is color-blind." He even predicted the ruling would prove as damaging as Dred Scott.

For decades, Harlan's view remained the losing one. But it didn't disappear.

Between 1938 and 1950, the Supreme Court began quietly eroding Plessy's foundation, one education case at a time. In Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, the Court held that Missouri couldn't satisfy equal protection by paying a Black student's tuition out of state — equal treatment is a personal right, owed directly, not outsourced.

Then came Sweatt v. Painter in 1950. Texas had built a hurried, separate law school rather than admit a Black applicant to its flagship university. The Court ruled that equality can't be measured in square footage or book counts alone.

Reputation, alumni networks, and standing in a profession all matter too.

The same day, the Court decided McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents. George McLaurin had been admitted to a graduate program but forced to sit apart from his white classmates. The Court held that this internal separation, imposed by the state, was itself the constitutional injury — regardless of whether his facilities were technically equal.

Around the same time, Shelley v. Kraemer established that courts enforcing racially restrictive housing agreements counted as unconstitutional state action, even though the agreements themselves were private. The lesson carried over: government enforcement of segregation, in any form, draws Fourteenth Amendment scrutiny.

Each of these cases chipped away at Plessy without formally overturning it.

Families rejoiced everywhere for the victory.

That set the stage for Brown. Public education, unlike a railcar or a single classroom, is compulsory, state-run, and foundational to nearly every opportunity a citizen will later have. If intangible harm was enough to violate equal protection for law students in Sweatt, and state-imposed separation was itself unconstitutional in McLaurin, the same logic applies with even greater force to children.

Segregating young students doesn't just risk unequal facilities. It shapes how children understand their own citizenship at the exact age that understanding is forming.

That's the legal thread connecting a lone 1896 dissent to the argument that would ultimately dismantle school segregation. Harlan didn't win his case. But six decades of precedent — case by case, ruling by ruling — eventually caught up to him.

The Court didn't invent a new principle in Brown. It finally agreed with the one Justice who saw it first.

AI Disclosure: For this AI-assisted assignment, I used Claude AI to do historical research on my topic. After prompting the tools to do research based only on academic and high-quality sources, I asked Claude to shape the material in the form of a script for an oral presentation of 4 minutes. I then asked Claude to shape the material into a blog post of between 500-600 words. I edited the AI output for readability. I also policed the linked sources for quality control. To the blog post, I added visual elements and links to sources. I also made sure the paragraphs were short and in a professional style.

Plessy V Ferguson Reflection

The rundown and discussion of the case, Plessy V. Ferguson.

In class, a few of my peers discussed the case of Plessy V. Ferguson. I would like to go over the facts of the case, the argument presented by the plaintiff, and why I found it interesting and important. 

In the year 1896, the state of Louisiana had a statue that ordered whites and blacks had to ride in separate cars on private railroads. While they are technically equal cars, it was evident that the cars for white people were nicer than the cars for black people. 

Homer Plessy had an immense impact on C.R. 

Homer Plessy, a man who was only 1/8 African American, participated in an experiment where he road in a white people only car. This experiment was to challenge the law under the 14th amendment's equal protection clause. The question to court ended up being: Did Lousiana's car act of 1890 violate this clause?

Giuliana and Bianca posed in their arguments for Plessy. They both had excellent points. 

The legal argument discussed the fact that while it was a 14th amendment case, this violated the 13th amendment as well. To quote Giuliana, she said: "The 13th amendment didn’t just end slavery, it meant getting rid of the system itself; and treating African Americans this way is a remnant of that system" I thoroughly enjoyed when she made the point that 'the law is colorblind'. It simply seemed unconstitutional for the people to be treated separately based on skin color, after every effort made to change that. 

The Biblical argument was fascinating as well; there were plenty of books in the Bible that state how we are made in the like image of the Lord. If that is so, it is not a Christian value to neglect others because of what they were born with. Bianca also made a beautiful connection, stating that black hands were present in white homes fairly often. They raised white children, cooked and cleaned for white families, etc... Why then should they be separated when their lives are so intertwined?

The law itself is obviously important, but the emotional, moral play at hand was also very compelling. I liked learning about this case and hearing what the sides had to say in order to make their claims.

Gone With the Wind | The Messages and Conclusions within

Hattie McDaniel who plays "Mammy", was the first African American to win an Academy Award.

Watching Gone with the Wind in class was extremely entertaining- I learned many lessons and drew many conclusions throughout the first part of the movie, and I would like to share them here.

Starting with the characters, I liked how each one was a little different. While they are almost nothing like the people we know today, they each carry an important message with them. 

For example, Mammy, one of the O'Hara's slaves, was nothing short of a firecracker. She was witty and held others accountable, which was interesting to see during that time period; that she may be so bold without consequence. It helped me realize that black and white people were more connected than I had thought. Looking deeper into it, we see how common it was during that time for black people to raise white children while their mothers were working or being social.

Another character that I found fascinating was Clark Gable's, Rhett Butler. Butler was an interesting man for this time period as someone who was a part of the war, even when he did not act like it. He was very different from the rest of the men in this era, who were excited by war. Rhett performed his duties but was more focused on the profit he got and the social experiences around him. I think this can be connected to our day and age, how politicians benefit from war and misfortune. It is devastating to see, but it is very common. 

Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara

Along with those two, I think Scarlett's character was well played. Someone who was supposed to be prim and proper was forced to change because of the environment that surrounded her. I liked that she was full of different emotions; I felt it encased the female perspective well. She was bright, sassy, empathetic, caring, angry, and every other feeling one could express. We simply were made to feel. And she had all the reason to be these things- this time period was stressful and took a toll on the people who lived in it.

Even though slavery is played down, we do see what slaves may have truly been treated like in the scene where Scarlett helped Melanie give birth. The young slave, Prissy, was naturally afraid and panicked by these events. Scarlett slapped and screamed at Prissy. It was understandable that Scarlett was upset; Prissy did lie after all. But the way she displayed and took out her frustration and anger on the poor, young girl, was terrible. This is just a small testament that reveals how slaves were really treated.

I would also like to touch on the reality of this movie. I think it beautifully captured what human connection looks like. Seeing the romance build and fall between Scarlett and Ashley, and then Rhett, was captivating and kept me on the edge of my seat. However, I think these events overshadow the horrifying truths of slavery. Furthermore, I don't think it was an accurate representation of what life was like then. 

The movie does feel very exaggerated, but who am I to say this wouldn't have ever happened? We see things every day we couldn't begin to imagine would come true!

Overall, I adored watching Gone with the Wind. Every part of the movie was enticing and kept me wanting more. And putting my enjoyment aside, I think there were plenty compelling stories and truths planted throughout it.

40 Acres and a Mule: The Reconstruction Promise That Never Was

William Tecumseh Sherman, Union Army General

In January 1865, with the Civil War nearing its end, twenty Black ministers gathered in Savannah, Georgia, for a meeting with Union General William Tecumseh Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. The two men asked a simple question: what did freed people need most to build new lives? The answer was land.

Four days later, Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15, a directive that would reshape the promise — and the failure — of Reconstruction.

What the Order Actually Did

The order confiscated a strip of coastline stretching from Charleston, South Carolina, to Florida's St. John's River, including Georgia's Sea Islands and land thirty miles inland. Roughly 400,000 acres were set aside and divided into 40-acre plots for newly freed Black families. White residency in the district was prohibited, and Black settlers were granted exclusive control over their new communities, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

40 Acres and a Mule

Here's a detail many people miss: the order never mentioned mules. That part came later, when the Army began lending surplus pack animals to settlers so they could work their new land. That's how the phrase "40 acres and a mule" entered the American vocabulary, as the Georgia Historical Society notes.

A Fast, Real Response

Freed families didn't wait to see if the promise would hold. Baptist minister Ulysses Houston led about a thousand people to Skidaway Island, where they established a self-governing settlement. By the war's end, roughly 20,000 people occupied the land, and another 20,000 arrived in the months that followed, according to reporting from NPR's Code Switch. General Rufus Saxton was placed in charge of the settlements and tasked with securing legal titles for the new landholders.

For a brief period, it looked like the federal government might genuinely redistribute Southern land on a massive scale.

Why It Collapsed

The plan's fatal flaw was baked into its legal structure. Land titles given to freedmen were only "possessory," meaning temporary, which left settlers vulnerable to any shift in federal policy.

That shift came quickly. After Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, Andrew Johnson became president, and he had far less interest in radical land reform. Johnson sided with white planters who wanted their property back, ruling that the wartime land seizures could not survive the war's end. As HistoryNet reports, by 1867 nearly all freed families had been evicted from the land they had been settled on just two years earlier.

The Long Aftermath

With land gone and few alternatives, most freed families became sharecroppers, working land owned by others in exchange for wages or a share of the crop. It was technically free labor, but it often functioned as a cycle of debt that kept Black families tied to the same land, and often the same families, that had once enslaved them.

PBS Series: Many Rivers to Cross

That economic reality didn't stay contained to the 1860s. Scholars and historians have linked the failure of Reconstruction-era land reform to the racial wealth gap that persists in the United States today. As the PBS series Many Rivers to Cross describes it, Special Field Order No. 15 was "the first systematic attempt to provide a form of reparations to newly freed slaves."

Why It Still Comes Up

"40 Acres and a Mule" isn't just a historical footnote. It's a reference point in ongoing debates about reparations, land ownership, and what the federal government owes the descendants of enslaved people. The order was real. The land was distributed. And then, within two years, it was taken back.

That reversal is arguably the more important story: not the promise itself, but how quickly it was broken, and what that breach meant for generations that followed.

AI Disclosure: For this AI-assisted assignment, I used Claude AI to do historical research on my topic. After prompting the tools to do research based only on academic and high-quality sources, I asked Claude to shape the material in the form of a script for an oral presentation of 4 minutes. I then asked Claude to shape the material into a blog post of between 500-600 words. I edited the AI output for readability. I also policed the linked sources for quality control. To the blog post, I added visual elements. I also made sure the paragraphs were short and in a professional style.

Reconstruction: What I Learned from Henry Louis Gates's Documentary

Watching Reconstruction: America After the Civil War by Henry Louis Gates Jr. completely reshaped how I think about this period. Most of us learn about the Civil War ending and assume the story wraps up neatly. It doesn't.

Documentary on the Reconstruction Era

On April 9th, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House. Slavery was over. But for the four million people who had just been freed, freedom raised more questions than it answered.

What did freedom actually mean?

Would formerly enslaved people have the right to vote, to own land, to be reunited with their families? Nobody really knew.

I was surprised to learn that even Lee and Grant couldn't agree on what came next. What shocked me more was that Lee sat at that table and never really took accountability for what he'd done- for what the Confederate South had done.

Lincoln, before his death, argued that Black veterans and educated Black men should have the right to vote. He was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on Good Friday, right as he was pushing to improve Black lives. That still upsets me.

Andrew Johnson took over, and Frederick Douglass didn't trust him for a second. Johnson wouldn't even shake a Black man's hand. Then came the broken promises. The Freedmen's Bureau had land set aside for freed people, "forty acres and a mule," only for Johnson to hand it right back to the same southerners who'd owned it before. Black codes and vagrancy laws followed, quietly rebuilding slavery under a new name. The KKK rose alongside them, targeting Black families simply for sending their kids to school or owning land.

The Memphis Massacre

Then came the violence. In Memphis, white mobs hunted down Black residents, burning schools and churches and leaving 46 African Americans dead. New Orleans saw similar bloodshed. It was Lucy Tibbs's and the other survivors' testimonies about what happened that helped push Republicans toward writing Black freedoms directly into the Constitution.

In a real sense, the old American republic died in December of 1865. A new one had to be built in its place, piece by piece, over the next five years. The 14th Amendment redefined citizenship itself.

It was heartbreaking to read that Black veterans and common folk alike had to arm themselves just to vote safely, deciding as groups when it was even safe enough to cast a ballot.

Map of how the states were divided

Still, by 1868, nearly every southern state backed Grant, and dozens of Black men won office.

Reconstruction wasn't a clean chapter. It was American democracy rebuilding itself, one hard-fought vote at a time.

AI Disclosure: This assignment was created using Claude AI. All of information was generated by me; I watched the documentary and took notes on what I observed, including first-person passages of what stuck out most to me. Claude AI was responsible for generating a 300-to-350-word blog post from the research I gave it. It was instructed not to do any of its own research. I, myself, inserted the sources and visual elements seen above. 

EOTO Reaction Post

In hearing my peers' Each One Teach Ones, I would like to focus on Joseph's presentation that talked about the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. I would like to start off by saying that his visual elements and power-point slides were very helpful to follow along with. In company with that, he was easy to listen to. 

Senator Douglas

The Kansas-Nebraska Act was introduced by Senator Stephen Douglas; he was interested in the building of the transcontinental railroad throughout Chicago that also went through an upcoming territory called Nebraska; but the building could not commence until he had the votes for it. Specifically, until he had proslavery votes for it.

To combat this, he came up with the idea that the Nebraska territory would be separated, or "split" into two territories. In doing this, the invisible line from the Compromise of 1850 would be uprooted, repealing what was already in place, giving these territories the ability to decide on their own, whether or not they would be free or slave states. 

Map of Kansas-Nebraska Act

This idea focuses on the premise of popular sovereignty, which means that the government's authority comes from the consent of the governed. What he believed to be a good plan (that was passed by President Pierce) led to fighting and extreme acts of violence known as "Bleeding Kansas". This is because people, regardless of if they wanted or needed to move, did, so that they had a say in the vote. 

The violence became so bad, that elections were marked by fraud and led to gorilla fighting. On the floor of Senate during a debate, one proslavery congressman beat an antislavery senator with his cane! 

All of this left Douglas confused and frustrated; his plan was not meant to cause harm, but to allow the people to exercise their rights and capabilities. Unfortunately for him, nothing went according to plan. 

Kansas Nebraska Act 1854 Abraham Lincoln At Peoria, IL: The Turning

As a result of the backlash, a party known as the Northern Whigs dissolved, and there was even a party split. The Democratic party turned into north and south factions, with the north faction becoming what we now know as the Republican party.

To this day, this event is known to be a "mini civil war" before the real one occurred; it is even recognized as a huge factor leading up to the war itself. I enjoyed hearing Joseph speak about the topic!

Town Hall Meeting | Sojourner Truth

Friends, I thank you for letting old Sojourner say a few words this evening.

My name was not always Sojourner Truth. I was born Isabella, in Ulster County, New York, near the end of the last century, and I was born a slave. Before I was old enough to know my own name good, I was sold away from my mother and father — sold for a flock of sheep and some money, like I was no more than the sheep myself. I was sold three more times after that. I have felt the lash. I have carried burdens no man in this room would care to carry. And so when anybody tells me that slavery is a kindness, or that the Negro is content in his bondage, I stand up, because I know better, and I was there.

Sojourner Truth

I got my freedom in New York in 1826, but I did not wait on any man to hand it to me. My master had promised to free me and broke his word, so I made up my own mind on the matter. As I told him after: I did not run away, I walked away by daylight. There is a difference, friends. A woman who runs is ashamed. I was not ashamed. I was owed.

But freedom for myself was not enough of a victory while my own son was still in chains. They had sold my boy Peter down to Alabama, against the very laws of New York. So I went to the courts — a poor colored woman, unable to read a letter of print — and I brought a white man to answer for it. And I won. I believe I was the first woman of my color ever to take a white man to court in this country and get back what the law said was mine. I tell you that story not to boast on myself, but to show you: the law can be made to bend toward justice, if someone is willing to stand in front of it and demand that it do so.

In 1843 the Spirit called me to a different work. I put down the name Isabella and I took up the name Sojourner Truth, because I was to travel up and down the land and speak the truth to the people. And what truth was there more pressing than this — that four million souls in the Southern states were bought and sold like cattle, torn from their mothers, whipped for the sin of being born with dark skin? I have stood on platforms beside Mr. Frederick Douglass and Mr. William Lloyd Garrison and said so, plainly, in my own tongue, in the only language I ever needed — the truth.

I have heard fine arguments made in favor of colonization, of gradual measures, of patience. I have no patience for patience when it is bought with another person's back. I asked Frederick Douglass once, when he stood up discouraged and said slavery would only end in blood — I called out to him, "Is God dead?" I did not ask it to shame him. I asked it because despair is a poor argument against injustice, and because I have seen, in my own long life, that the arc does bend, slow as it is.

Sojourner with Abraham Lincoln 

During the war I did not sit idle. I gathered food and clothing for the Freedmen come up out of bondage into Washington. I rode the streetcars there when they did not want colored women riding, and I rode them anyway. I was received in the President's own house. I have given my life to this one plain proposition: that a person is a person, whatever the color of the skin God gave them, and no legislature, no court, and no habit of custom can make it otherwise.

So I ask this house tonight what I have asked every house I have stood in for forty years: not for pity, and not for charity — only for justice, and for the plain truth to be spoken until it is heard. Obliged to you for hearing me.

AI Disclosure: For this AI-assisted assignment, I used Claude AI to do historical research on my topic. After prompting the tools to do research based only on academic and high-quality sources, I asked Claude to shape the material in the form of a script for an oral presentation of 4 minutes. I edited the AI output for readability. I also policed the linked sources for quality control. To the blog post, I added visual elements and links to sources. I also made sure the paragraphs were short and in a professional style.

The Economics of Cruelty: Reassessing the State's Case in State v. Mann

A short explanation of the case, State V Mann.

In 1829, the North Carolina Supreme Court handed down one of the most infamous rulings in American legal history. In State v. Mann, Justice Thomas Ruffin overturned the conviction of John Mann, a man who had shot and wounded Lydia, an enslaved woman he had leased for one year, after she attempted to flee a whipping. Ruffin's opinion held that a hirer's authority over a leased slave was functionally identical to an owner's, reasoning that slavery's economic value depended on the master's absolute, unchecked control.

That reasoning deserves closer scrutiny than it typically receives. Ruffin justified his ruling in explicitly economic terms, arguing that unlimited authority was necessary for the institution to function profitably. A closer look at the economics of slave-hiring, however, suggests his conclusion does not follow from his own premise.

Economist Yoram Barzel's foundational 1977 analysis in the Journal of Law and Economics treats an enslaved person as a form of durable capital, whose value the owner has strong incentive to protect over time. That incentive exists because the owner absorbs any loss from the asset's mistreatment. A hirer, by contrast, holds no comparable stake.

Defendant John Mann

This distinction is not merely theoretical. Recent economic scholarship on slave-hiring describes the practice as a three-party relationship among the enslaved worker, the owner, and the hirer, in which the hirer's short time horizon predictably encourages excessive severity. Historian Jonathan Martin's Divided Mastery: Slave Hiring in the American South documents how courts of the period had long recognized this divergence, generally extending less legal protection to hirers than to owners for exactly this reason.

The hiring market itself appears to have understood the risk. Standardized hiring contracts, negotiated terms, and the emergence of professional hiring brokers all suggest that owners actively sought to guard against a hirer's weaker incentive to preserve an enslaved person's health and productivity. Historian John Zaborney's Slaves for Hire similarly explores how contractual terms functioned as a check against exactly this kind of misconduct.

Ruffin's opinion effectively erased that check. By granting Mann the same immunity typically reserved for owners, the ruling removed one of the few mechanisms — criminal liability — that could substitute for the missing economic incentive a hirer lacked. 

Civil liability existed in theory, but it was a weak deterrent in practice, since a judgment against a hirer was often uncertain, slow, and difficult to collect. Viewed through this lens, the trial court's original instruction to the Chowan County jury was not simply humane; it was economically coherent. The jury had been told that if Mann's punishment of Lydia was cruel and disproportionate, his status as a hirer, not an owner, made him liable. That distinction mirrored real incentive structures already recognized within the hiring market itself.

Ruffin's opinion has long been studied for its stark, unflinching honesty about the brutality slavery required. But its economic reasoning, examined on its own terms, is less airtight than it first appears. A hirer and an owner were not economically interchangeable actors, and treating them as such did not merely fail Lydia — it undermined the very incentive logic the opinion claimed to be protecting.

Historians and legal scholars continue to revisit State v. Mann not only for what it reveals about nineteenth-century slave law, but for how selectively its economic logic was applied. Read closely, the case is less a lesson in inevitable market necessity than in how easily economic argument can be stretched to justify a predetermined outcome.


Photo Credits: State v. Mann (A-94) | NC DNCR and State v. John Mann | NCpedia


AI Disclosure: For this AI-assisted assignment, I used Claude AI to do historical research on my topic. After prompting the tools to do research based only on academic and high-quality sources, I asked Claude to shape the material in the form of a script for an oral presentation of 4 minutes. I then asked Claude to shape the material into a blog post of between 500-600 words. I edited the AI output for readability. I also policed the linked sources for quality control. To the blog post, I added visual elements and links to sources. I also made sure the paragraphs were short and in a professional style.

8 Values of Free Expression| Promoting Tolerance

The first amendment has played a significant role throughout all of history and continues such in the present day. In fact, we use it every day; whether it is to attend church in peace, or to write an honest review online. However, it goes so much deeper than that. 

There are 8 specific values of free expression given to us by the first amendment, and the one I find the most important is promoting tolerance. It essentially is the idea that we the people, instead of banning hate and extremist speech, or speech we disagree with, allow it to build a better and more tolerant society because valuable lessons can be learned from it.

It should not be mistaken; promoting tolerance is not simply justifying the acts and behaviors of hate speech. Instead, it is allowing people to build resistance towards the negative aspects brought up. If we as a society shut down every instance that may possibly offend someone, we would never learn to be harmonious; we would never be able to accept and move on from our differences.

Nonie Darwish's Book

The Center for American Progress, or CAP, released a story from a college student on an anti-Islam speaker coming to campus to speak on her book; Nonie Darwish is known for her beliefs against the Islamic religion, especially her thoughts on 'annihilating' the religion completely. The article goes on to explain why it is important colleges focus not on eliminating hate speech but minimizing the chances it takes place. While I don't entirely disagree with this take, I view the more important part to be the student protests.

You see, it is Nonie's first amendment right to speak on her beliefs, but it is also the student's first amendment right to speak back. They should have every opportunity to speak out when they see their beliefs being challenged. It is all within their civil duties to do so. They did not impede on her ability to speak, nor did they stop her. They simply exercised their liberties. 

It is worth noting that promoting tolerance is not the same as compliance. We can and should challenge what we view as injustice. 

Kanye Shirt Controversy 

Another example of promoting tolerance would be in 2022, when Kanye West, according to Billboard, had black models wearing t-shirts that stated, "White Lives Matter". He unfortunately did not stop there; he emphasized antisemitic values in interviews and online. While other celebrities and brands did not infringe on his rights, they took matters back and spoke out against him. Brands revoked their deals and collaborations; celebrities posted and spoke about how they disagreed entirely with what he said. Kanye is still a big name, and we see his music everywhere. Even so, he did not escape criticism.

In these situations, we see how free speech was never taken away; we do see, however, how others use free speech in retaliation when they see problems with instances in our society. It is extremely important, especially in this day and age, that we follow the law and allow the first amendment liberties. It is dually important, though, that we promote tolerance and encourage each other to create a better and more synchronous community when we come across hate/extremist speech. 

Slavery in The Bible Challenge| Francesca and Preston

The Bible does not condone the act of slavery. In just the second book of the Bible, we see one of the first instances where slavery is discussed: “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death,” (Exodus 21:16). 

There is no mercy involved with slavery, and God, who is plenty merciful, is against the act entirely. Another example appears later in the fifth book of the Bible, Deuteronomy, and says, "If a man is found stealing one of his brothers of the people of Israel, and if he treats him as a slave or sells him, then that thief shall die. So, you shall purge the evil from your midst,” (Deuteronomy 24:7).

What Does the Old Testament Say About Slavery? | TheCollector 

The Bible tells us to “love thy neighbor”, and to treat others how we want to be treated. In truly interpreting those messages, we find that slavery is unacceptable and punishable.

Christianity is the most well-known religion throughout the world, and it has garnered many followers who follows it's preaching. Although not all preachings are taught and followed as slavery is one of the preachings to ignore/discard. The problem is that slavery should be continued as multiple times in the bible there are scriptures which show the god has allowed slavery.  

In the Old Testament Noah curses Canaan in which he says “Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slave will he be to his brothers. Praise be to the Lord, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem. May God enlarge Japheth’s territory and may he lives in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be the slave of Japheth (Genesis 9:18-27)” This clarifies how slavery is legal as one of God’s prophets curses someone to be a slave which proves how slavery is moral and fine.  

Another example of the bible being pro slavery is in Leviticus when this is stated “Your male and female slaves are to come from nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property," (Leviticus 25:44-46)This proves that slavery should still be continue in America because the scripture references a slave trade and how we can buy slaves and they will become our property. Ultimately, the bible is pro slavery, and we should listen to the old scriptures and continue God’s work. 

How Christian Slaveholders Used the Bible to Justify Slavery

Leviticus 25:44-46 NIV - “‘Your male and female slaves are - Bible Gateway

What Does the Bible Say About Anti-slavery?

50 Important bible verses against slavery (With Commentary) – Crossway Bible

Video Reflection on the Supreme Court

Today in the class Talking About Freedom, we as a class watched a short yet informative video on the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Supreme Court is made of 8 justices and one chief justice. These 9 justices review close to 7,000 petitions each year; these petitions come from all around the fifty states, ranging from those in homes to those in prison cells. On average, less than 100 of those cases are accepted by the Supreme Court. This discretion is known as certiorari: the power of the courts to decide whether or not to hear a case. 

They usually choose cases based on the premise and its significance. It is their duty to decide if the court before them applied the law correctly; they must then make decisions based on constitutionality and precedent, or the formal consideration based on previous rulings to ensure  (The Court's Exterior, Washington D.C.)      predictability and ensure consistency in the law.                         

It was fascinating to learn that there have only been around 100 justices in all of the Supreme Court's history. Their life tenures provide them with the ability to outlast the president that appointed them to their position. They end of leaving a lasting impact that goes beyond the presidents they started with.

It was also interesting to hear that previous Chief Justice Rehnquist had developed a system with his colleagues to ensure their voices were heard equally. He went on to say how they established the rule that "everyone speaks once before someone speaks twice," (Part 1).        (Supreme Court Justices 2026)

The most important thing I learned in this video was that all cases, regardless of premise, are given the same amount of time and attention. I think that is extremely respectable knowing that consideration and thought are put inti every issue. We the people rely on the Supreme Court to remedy issues that may be ignored in the lower district/appellate courts. 

Finally, I'd say my perspective of the Supreme Court has shifted slightly. Knowing they can disagree with the same fundamental understandings is intriguing to me. I appreciate that while they all come from different parties, it is their key responsibility to come to a ruling based off precedent and constitutionality with the help of the work done by the legislative and executive branches. 

Even though they are considered the branch with the least power, I still firmly believe their influence makes a huge impact on society.