Freedom For All

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorHigh School, 11th grade February 2008

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Freedom for All After the Civil war, African Americans finally received what they had been long awaiting, their freedom. Unfortunately, their freedom was limited due to strict laws and codes like the Mississippi Black Codes. With the Mississippi Black Codes, African Americans rights were stripped to the bare minimum and their freedom was restricted. These codes made it seem like they were getting rights and privileges, however, in reality these codes made it so that they were once again working for there former masters, and in essence they were slaves. If they were to stand up for what they believed in they would face harmful even fatal consequences if they stay silent and scared they faced oppression and inequality.

Many African Americans decided that life without freedom was no life at all and fought for what they believed in by joining groups like the Black Convention. The members of the Black Convention would meet peacefully and discuss what they could do to make it so the black man had the same rights as the white man.

One member of the Black Convention was Elias Hill, a crippled African American, whom preached equality and strived for total freedom. On one occasion Elias Hill was taken from his bed, dragged into the cold of the outdoors and beaten. Members of the Ku Klux Klan, who didn't believe in freedom for African Americans, beat Hill until he was bloody and broken and told him to stop preaching, "put a card in the paper", and get out of the Black Convention. Hill was beaten because he believed in equality for all, he believed that the Mississippi Black Codes should give African Americans the same rights and he believed in the Black Convention. Although this may sound cruel, and unfair, this was...