Can a country based on freedom deny liberty to more than half its people?

When the Constitution was being written, the idea that women should be formally granted equality with men was not discussed. By contrast, the status of African Americans was a very hot topic. Southern leaders wanted slavery to continue unchanged and pushed to have slaves counted as part of each state's population. This would give those states a greater say in how the national government was run. Having just risked everything in the fight for freedom, many Americans debated whether this was the kind of country they had fought for ...

The Three-Fifths Solution

As this debate raged, an uncomfortable compromise was eventually made. Southern states were allowed to count each slave as three-fifths of a person when calculating population. The goal of the founding fathers was to create a strong national government. If Southern states felt they were being short-changed, they might have rebelled. Some Southerners — including George Washington and James Madison, who wrote much of the Constitution — believed that slavery would slowly disappear. Indeed, part of the deal was that the international slave trade would end in 20 years. And in 1808 it did.

However, the buying and selling of African Americans within the U.S. was still allowed. With the cotton industry growing in the South, planters saw only one way to meet the demand for labor: slaves. Over the next few decades, the Southern economy was built on the backs of African Americans. As the nation expanded westward in the 1800s, the question of whether new states would become "slave states" stirred up tremendous controversy. Some people believed that slavery violated the basic ideas upon which America was built and did not want to see the practice extended. Southerners viewed the potential abolition of slavery as a threat to their economy, culture, and way of life.

Women's Rights

During the first half of the 1800s, little progress was made in the area of women's rights. The country was growing, and some factory work was available to women, but these jobs were dangerous and the conditions were poor. In most cases, women were paid less than the men in the same factory. Some jobs had been open to women during the 1700s in medicine and education, but nearly all disappeared. Where women did enjoy some power and influence was in the anti-slavery movement. They proved to be exceptional organizers and, in some cases, popular speakers.

In the 1840s, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott used their experience as abolitionists to campaign for women's rights. In 1848, they held a two-day convention in Seneca Falls, New York. The most significant development of that meeting was the creation of the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, which was modeled on the Declaration of Independence. It spelled out the rights that would make women equal to men.

The most controversial part of this document was women's suffrage (the right to vote) in local, state, and national elections. Many worried that this idea was so radical that it would keep people from reading the entire Declaration of Rights and Sentiments. Frederick Douglass, a former slave and leader of the movement to abolish slavery, spoke at the Seneca Falls convention. He convinced the group to keep suffrage in the Declaration.

During the early 1800s, abolitionists began attracting a large following. However, the leaders of the movement often disagreed on strategy. Douglass believed that the Constitution was an anti-slavery document and wanted to use it to fight the practice of human bondage. William Lloyd Garrison felt the Constitution supported slavery and wanted to burn it. John Brown was unconcerned with documents. His solution was to start a bloody uprising among slaves. If you had lived at this time, would you have challenged the legality of slavery, or would you have supported violent rebellion?

Is it the government's job to fight for the freedom of one group?

By the mid-1800s, it had become clear that the United States would have to deal with this question. Slaves could not fight for themselves, and abolitionist leaders such as John Brown were willing to kill and be killed to see their bondage end. The result was uncontrolled chaos and violence throughout. In 1861, after Abraham Lincoln was elected president, the Civil War began as 13 slave states broke away from the Union and formed a separate government. As casualties mounted, many debated whether ending slavery was worth the high price in human lives ...

The Civil War and Reconstruction

From the start of the Civil War, slaves who lived close to the fighting tried to make their way to Union lines. Many stayed in Union camps to support the Northern troops. In 1862, President Lincoln cleared the way for African Americans to form their own regiments. They were sorely needed, as the number of Northern volunteers fell sharply that year.

In 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It declared slaves in 10 Southern states to be free. As the Civil War wound down, there was some question as to the legal meaning of the Emancipation Proclamation. So in the weeks before the fighting ended in 1865, Lincoln pushed through the Thirteenth Amendment. It declared an official end to the practice of slavery. For the first time in the South, African Americans could legally marry and own property.

After the war ended, Southern states were welcomed back into the Union. Almost immediately, state governments in the South began passing legislation that limited the rights of the millions of now-free African Americans. Federal troops were sent back to the South, this time to protect the rights of former slaves. This period was known as Reconstruction. Most Southerners resented the presence of blue-coated soldiers and were unwilling to accept African Americans as equals.

Now allowed to vote and run for office, African Americans elected more than 1,500 men of color to public positions. In 1870, Hiram Revels of Mississippi was the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate. That same year, Joseph Rainey of South Carolina became the first African American to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Southern states responded with laws that took the vote away from hundreds of thousands of African Americans. They also crafted Jim Crow laws, which segregated black and white society. Meanwhile, African Americans were targeted for violence by vigilante groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan.

The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments

In 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution. It guaranteed equal rights under the law to all persons. Its goal was to protect the rights of former slaves. However, part of the amendment also stated that only male citizens would be counted in determining how many representatives each state would get in Congress. The Fifteenth Amendment, passed two years later, guaranteed voting rights regardless of a person's race, education, or whether they had been a slave. Those rights, however, were not extended to women.

In response to these laws, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony formed the American Woman Suffrage Association. They focused on getting individual states to allow women to vote. It was not until 1893 that the first state — Colorado — fell in line. Utah and Idaho soon followed. These Western states were desperate to attract more women. Politicians saw that giving them the vote was a powerful incentive.

In 1896, the leaders of more than 100 clubs for African-American women created the National Association of Colored Women. Among the founders of this organization were educated women of color, as well as heroic figures such as Harriet Tubman, a guide on the famous Underground Railroad. Their ranks soon swelled to more than a quarter-million members. In the early 1900s, this group helped make important changes in both the civil rights and women's rights movements. As African Americans and women, did NACW members have an advantage or disadvantage in the fight for freedom?

Are some Americans more equal than others?

In 1896, the United States Supreme Court heard a case known as Plessy v. Ferguson. It involved a man named Homer Plessy, who was arrested in New Orleans, Louisiana, for refusing to leave the "whites-only" car of a passenger train. Plessy was one-eighth African American, but by local law he was considered black. The justices decided that a state could keep races separate but equal. In other words, as long as there was a "coloreds-only" car, the Constitution had not been violated. This decision gave legal backing to the South's Jim Crow laws, creating a new debate ...

Women and the Vote

By the early 1900s, the fight for freedom had become a fight for equality on all fronts. Women's groups were starting to pressure Congress to pass a Constitutional amendment to give them the vote. The main opposition to this effort was funded by saloons and liquor manufacturers. They were afraid that when women got the vote, they would make alcohol illegal. (And they were correct!)

In 1917, America entered World War I. President Woodrow Wilson told the nation it was a "war for democracy." This gave the women's movement a wonderful opportunity. The National Women's Party took the fight right to the White House — literally. They began picketing right in front of the president's residence. No one had ever done this before. Their message was clear: How can you send soldiers to fight for democracy and deny it to 20 million women at home? Many of the protesters were jailed, including the group's leader, Alice Paul. President Wilson instructed Congress to start working on the Nineteenth Amendment, which said the right to vote could not be denied based on sex.

The NAACP

Equality came more slowly for African Americans. In the early 1900s, leaders from black communities began meeting to discuss strategies for improving their situation. Segregation was the rule in the South. But in most parts of America, non-whites were often treated as second-class citizens, too. In 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was formed. Its early leadership included both black and white men and women, all interested in social reform. Its goals included winning political, educational, social, and economic equality, and eliminating racial hatred and discrimination.

The NAACP enjoyed tremendous success almost from the start. It built up a membership of nearly 100,000 in just a few years. It persuaded the Supreme Court to rule that cities could not create "black" neighborhoods. It convinced President Wilson to promote African-American officers during World War I. The NAACP also pressured the police to make arrests and prosecute those responsible for race riots and lynchings.

The NAACP's investigative work influenced a 1923 Supreme Court decision that protected the rights of African-American defendants in trials. Another victory came in 1938, when the Supreme Court found that the University of Missouri violated the "separate but equal" ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson. The school denied an African-American student admission to its law school based on his race — even though there was no "equal" law school for people of color in Missouri. This ruling set the stage for the NACCP's greatest triumph, a Supreme Court decision that overturned this double standard once and for all.

For most of its first 30 years, the NAACP's main battle was to defeat the "separate but equal" decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. As more skilled legal minds joined the NAACP, it developed a strategy that was different from the ones used by women's groups to secure the vote. Instead of protesting and trying to embarrass the government, the NAACP fought in the courts, launching a series of lawsuits designed to give African Americans the same rights as white people. Each time the NAACP won, it was like taking a brick from the foundation of segregation. Could the women's movement have benefited from taking a similar legal approach to the NAACP's?

Can freedom exist without equality?

In 1954, the efforts of the NAACP led to a Supreme Court case known as Brown v. Board of Education. It began as a class action suit by three African-American parents in Topeka, Kansas. On advice from NAACP leaders, they tried to enroll their children in a white school. After they were turned away, they sued the Board of Education, claiming that racial separation was unconstitutional. By the time the case reached the Supreme Court, it included four other similar cases. All claimed that the equal treatment guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment had been violated. The debate took a new turn ...

Brown v. Board of Education

The Supreme Court justices agreed unanimously that society had changed in the 58 years since Plessy v. Ferguson. Separate but equal was clearly unconstitutional. The NAACP's earlier victories — including desegregation of trade unions and the military — made it almost impossible for the court to vote otherwise. One of the architects of the NAACP's brilliant legal strategy was Thurgood Marshall. He later became the first African American appointed to the Supreme Court.

After the Brown decision, the strategy of the NAACP changed. With federal law now unquestionably behind the cause, the fight for freedom took to the streets. Initially, the movement stressed mass demonstrations and peaceful protest — and these tactics were successful. However, in the late 1960s, anger and frustration boiled over in some cities, leading to deadly riots. The leaders of the civil rights movement were split on which strategy would serve them best.

Among the heroes of this era were Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King, Jr. Robinson integrated the country's richest (and "whitest") sport, Major League Baseball. Under a relentless barrage of insults and threats, he demonstrated quiet dignity and amazing skill to become baseball's Most Valuable Player. Dr. King, a Baptist minister, rose to prominence leading a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. The boycott began with the arrest of Rosa Parks, after she refused to give her bus seat to a white passenger. It showed the effectiveness of mass demonstration as a weapon in the fight for freedom.

The Civil Rights Act

After risking life and limb to face down the forces of segregation, the civil rights movement won the sympathy and support of most Americans. The choice to oppose the ugliness of racism with non-violence proved to be a wise one. Just a decade after Brown v. Board of Education, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It outlawed discrimination against racial, ethnic, national, and religious minorities. A major part of this legislation was the desegregation of all schools. One year later, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It restored the vote to millions of African Americans who had been eliminated from voter rolls by unfair laws.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was also a significant moment for the women's movement. The language made it clear that the same laws preventing people from discriminating against African Americans now protected women, too. Not only did this lead to progress in education and employment opportunities, it also started a frank discussion about the "reproductive rights" of women — the ability to decide when they would have children, and also when they would not. Women who had become pregnant against their wishes had only one choice: abortion. This option was dangerous (and illegal during most of the 1800s and 1900s).

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 offered no protection to another group of Americans whose freedoms were extremely limited. Throughout history, there have always been people who were drawn to members of their own sex — men to men, and women to women. During the 20th century, as the population became more mobile and cities grew, it was easier for a person to find others who shared their feelings or beliefs or lifestyle. In almost all societies, same-sex relationships were frowned upon, both by the law and by organized religion. This was true in America, too. Should the rights of gay Americans be protected under the same laws that protect the rights of women and African Americans?

Should laws protect the rights and freedoms of all Americans equally?

Starting in the 1960s, the freedoms of all Americans were being examined and discussed in new ways. State and national laws believed to be restricting the rights of any citizen in any way were held up to great scrutiny. The fight for freedom was taking place in the streets, in the courts, in the media, and sometimes right in living rooms across America. In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was no longer illegal in the United States. This was viewed as a victory in the battle for women's rights, but it brought about an entirely new debate ...

Roe v. Wade

The separation of church and state was one of the founding principles of the U.S. But America is one of the most religious Western nations. Religious values played a very important role in legislation until the 1960s, when the Supreme Court began making the separation crystal clear. In 1973, the court's decision in Roe v. Wade lifted the legal ban on abortion, but left it up to individual states to regulate the practice. Almost immediately, Americans were divided into two camps.

"Pro-life" supporters wanted to make abortion as difficult as possible. "Pro-Choice" supporters wanted to make the decision as informed and unpressured as possible. The debate over abortion gave the church a new voice in politics. Although a religion could not influence legislation, its followers could affect the election of the people making the laws. That has made the abortion debate a social and political flashpoint for more than four decades.