13th Amendment Thesis

On December 6th, 1885, the 13th amendment was ratified, changing black lives forever. This amendment abolished slavery meaning colored people would no longer be classified as property. White people could no longer buy, sell, and trade blacks as they use too. African American’s were able to leave their masters and plantations behind this time without being punished, beaten, or killed. But did this really mean white people would no longer dominate the black community? Following the 13th amendment came furious white southerners. Angry over the loss of the civil war, millions of dollars lost in slave property, and freedmen’s adjustment lead to the outbreak of riots, rapes, murders, and beatings. These outbreaks were often caused without any type of provocation. “Black people who demanded respect, wore better clothing, refused to step aside for white people, or asked to be addressed as mister or misses were attacked.” (Darlene Hine, William Hine, Harrold 252) Over hundreds to thousands of African Americans were killed from 1865 to 1872. The murders were blamed …show more content…
With Victory, white people should have no longer have feared black domination. The killings should have stopped, but they didn’t. “Brutality still continued; Negroes were whipped, scourged, exiled, shot and hung whenever and wherever” (Wells 397 ). So, then comes the next excuse, that black men had to be killed to stop the “assaults” that were happening against women. White people made black men out to be monsters, inhumane, and disgusting. But what exactly did a white man mean when accusing a black man of rape? Any type of sexual encounter between a black man and a white woman was seen as rape in the eyes of a white man, even when it was voluntary. These weren’t helpless women getting raped, but women who were willingly sleeping with black men but were too scared of the moral reputation this would leave them