The Good Stuff

[music playing] Here we are at the Lincoln Memorial.

A lot of people credit this guy with ending slavery, but in reality, it takes more than one person to bring about change on that kind of scale.

We can see that today with movements like Black Lives Matter.

People from all walks of life coming together for a common cause.

CRAIG BENZINE: Although we have social media these days, the grassroots nature of people fighting for change remains the same.

The abolitionist movement of the mid 1800s was no different.

And if we want understand Black Lives Better and the racial conflicts of today, we have to go back and take a look at their roots.

[music playing] Black Lives Matter began with a hashtag.

After the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin, community organizers began an online campaign fighting police violence against black people.

MATT WEBER: The hashtag Black Lives Matter spread across the internet and reached thousands of people, but the movement wasn't only an online campaign.

It has organized demonstrations and protests, employed not only diverse tactics but embracing people from all kinds of backgrounds into the movement.

CRAIG BENZINE: But this kind of grassroots activism is just the most recent example in a long line of movements fighting for equality that can be traced all the way back to the Civil War.

[music playing] ROBERT WATSON: It was under this tree on the 1st of January, 1863 that thousands of people who lived in this area learned that they had been freed by Lincoln with the Emancipation Proclamation.

And that was a turning point in the War, because the War now became one of freedom as opposed to just trying to keep the Union together.

MATT WEBER: This is Robert Watson.

Professor and expert on African American history at Hampton University.

We're standing under Emancipation Oak, considered one of the 10 great trees of the world by the National Geographic Society.

Which is a symbol for many of struggling freedom.

How old is this tree?

It's very close to 300 years.

So the first actual reading of the Emancipation Proclamation in the South took place right here.

Right under this tree?

Right under this tree.

MATT WEBER: But the fight to end slavery began long before the Civil War.

CRAIG BENZINE: After the Revolutionary War, the North began to pass laws making slavery illegal.

And by 1804, slavery was outlawed in all northern states.

But it continued in the South, and the years leading up to the War are underscored by the hard work and tireless efforts of the abolitionist movement to end slavery everywhere in the United States.

Well, the abolitionist movement in this country started in the early years of the 19th century.

The basic beliefs of the abolitionists was that slavery violated the principles of American democracy and the natural rights of man.

MATT WEBER: Yet there were many different groups of abolitionists, and they didn't always agree on how to end slavery.

CRAIG BENZINE: Some didn't like slavery but thought it had to be phased out gradually, while others took a more radical stance and thought it should be ended immediately.

And even those who thought it should be ended immediately couldn't agree on how to do that.

Let's just for a moment reflect on William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass.

MATT WEBER: William Lloyd Garrison was a journalist and social reformer who printed an anti-slavery newspaper and founded the American Anti-Slavery Society, one of the first movements that call for the immediate abolition of slavery albeit through pacifist means.

CRAIG BENZINE: Frederick Douglass was a former slave who escaped to freedom and became a fierce supporter of the abolitionist movement.

He traveled the country giving eloquent and powerful speeches against slavery.

Garrison was impressed by Douglass and wrote about him in his paper, and the two became some of the fiercest opponents of slavery in the nation.

Douglass and Garrison seemed to agree on how slavery should come to an end, but Douglass actually, I think, was more aggressive and assertive.

And Garrison tended to think that if you just sat down across the table from someone who disagreed with you over the issue of slavery that you could rationally debate it, and ultimately the person who you were trying to convince that slavery was wrong would agree with you.

Well, that wasn't the case, because slavery was an economic institution in which a great part of the nation was dependent upon slavery, North and South.

MATT WEBER: Cotton was a huge export, and the South supplied over 60% of the world's cotton, and the cultivation of this cotton was done largely by slaves.

CRAIG BENZINE: Many people in the South feared that the abolition of slavery would destroy the cotton industry, and as a consequence, the Southern economy.

So while many people may have questioned whether slavery was right, they saw it as too fundamental to their livelihood to abolish.

CRAIG BENZINE: And many opponents of slavery were met with hostility and violence.

While some abolitionists, like William Lloyd Garrison, were generally pacifists in their methods, others weren't so mild-mannered.

Like David Walker, an African American who wrote and distributed an 1829 pamphlet called "Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World."

CRAIG BENZINE: In it, David Walker argued that slavery should be ended immediately, and African Americans should fight for their rights and equality through the use of violence if necessary.

MATT WEBER: More pacifist abolitionists, like Garrison, denounced Walker's support of violence.

But as the pamphlet circulated throughout the South, some Southern states banned the publication of anti-slavery materials and made it illegal for slaves to learn to read and write.

David Walker lived the rest of his life under threat of violence, and many groups called for his death because of his incendiary views.

Despite this, David Walker's pamphlet was instrumental in changing the aims of the abolitionist movement from a gradual phasing out of slavery to its immediate abolishment.

Then in 1852, you have the publishing of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

MATT WEBER: "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was one of the first novels to reveal the brutal reality of slavery to a wide audience.

It was immensely popular, selling hundreds of thousands of copies and becoming the bestselling novel of the 19th century.

It had a profound effect on people's views of slavery and helped bolster the abolitionist cause.

And then in 1859, you have the last major event before the Civil War, and that is John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

MATT WEBER: John Brown was a radical abolitionist who believed that slavery could only be ended through armed revolt.

Brown's idea was to break into a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and give guns to the slaves, and they would be involved in their own liberation in the Shenandoah Valley.

Well, we know that did not happen.

MATT WEBER: John Brown's slave rebellion failed.

A mass uprising did that happen, and John Brown himself was captured and executed.

CRAIG BENZINE: But despite the failure of his insurrection, his raid on a government military installation had shown just how far some people in the abolitionist movement were willing to go.

And the abolitionists knew at this point that the next phase of this fight to end slavery would be the Civil War.

MATT WEBER: The Civil War began in April of 1861 and lasted a little over four years.

In 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation made all slaves in the rebel states free and made it clear that the Union was fighting for the abolition of slavery.

CRAIG BENZINE: In the aftermath of the War, the Emancipation was made permanent through Constitutional Amendment, and the abolitionist movement in America could finally claim victory.

The Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and made African Americans free, but they did not make them equal.

Especially in the South.

MATT WEBER: In the decades after the war, there were efforts to ensure blacks had the same rights as everybody, but when the North ended its occupation of the South, many of those efforts were ignored as the South begin segregating itself.

CRAIG BENZINE: Schools, railroad cars, restaurants, and even movie theaters-- almost every aspect of society in the South was segregated into black and white.

And although they were supposed to be separate but equal, the facilities and services for black people were almost always inferior.

Segregation continued and was upheld by the Supreme Court on a number of occasions up until the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s.

Martin Luther King JR Is probably the most well known leader of the civil rights movement, and his campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience was able to gain wide support from the public.

But the civil rights movement, like the abolitionist movement before it, had many leaders and participants from all types of backgrounds with sometimes competing philosophies.

As was the case with Malcolm X, who advocated for a more aggressive fight against segregation and discrimination and thought racism need to be ended by any means necessary, including the use of violence.

MATT WEBER: The passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would end segregation, but the fight for racial equality would continue and many groups and movements would come after.

ROBERT WATSON: One of the problems in our society is that we have not identified the targets that we need to go after.

Slavery was a target.

I think the problem today is a little more complex.

One thing that we know for a fact is that there's a huge inequity disparity in how blacks and whites live in this society.

MATT WEBER: These disparities are particularly noticeable when looking at things like income and incarceration rates.

According to the US Department of Justice, in 2013, black males were incarcerated at a rate six times higher than white males.

African Americans also have the lowest median household income in the country.

And even though they account for only 12% to 13% of the population, 37% of unarmed people killed by police in 2015 were black.

So why aren't we trying to figure out ways to make certain that those disparities disappear?

I don't even think we're doing it in our schools.

I don't think we're doing it in our corporations.

We need to know the targets.

We need to develop strategies, and that means sitting down with people who we've never sat down with before.

I think people can look at the past, and they see success.

They see how people come together for progressive causes.

When I see young people of all persuasions marching in Black Lives Matter, or marching to demonstrate their concern about some of the inequities and unfairness in society, I'm optimistic.

So I think that legacy is no doubt part of who we are and is interwoven thick into the fabric of who we are as a country and a people.

So what do you guys think?

What are some challenges that face the movement for racial equality today?

And what progress do you think Black Lives Matter or any other recent movement has made?

Let us know in the comments.

This episode is brought to you by PBS Learning Media, a great source for classroom resources on Civil War history.

If you're interested in finding more video and lesson plans on what we talked about today, you can check out our page on Learning Media.

And for a more dramatic taken the Civil War, check out the new series "Mercy Street" on PBS.

A lot of what we explored in this episode gets talked about that show, too, so head on over to pbs.org to find out more.

[music playing]