Reaction to Reconstruction Documentary

 

The Fifteenth Amendment African American parade in honor of adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment.

The Hope and Terror of Reconstruction

In class today, we watched a documentary on the Reconstruction era, and it changed how I think about the years after the Civil War. Reconstruction was exciting and revolutionary for African Americans, but what stayed with me most was how quickly that excitement ran into violent resistance. The achievements of this period created immense backlash and struggle, and the film made sure we understood that.

The documentary opened with the Charleston massacre, which it used to show a long history of white terror directed at African Americans. That framing made it clear that the backlash during Reconstruction was not an isolated reaction. It was part of a pattern that stretches across American history, and seeing it laid out that way made the past feel much closer to the present.

The McLean family on their front porch.

From there, the film took us back to Palm Sunday, which signaled the end of the Civil War and the death of slavery. Abraham Lincoln then spoke about Reconstruction and about the right to vote for African Americans, a major moment in a country that had denied Black people so much. 

What I found most moving was the human side of those early days of freedom. They were filled with both apprehension and excitement. Formerly enslaved people needed to reconnect and reunite with family members and loved ones they had lost. I can’t imagine the mix of joy and uncertainty that came with searching for the people taken from you while also trying to build a new life from scratch. Freedom was not just a legal status; it was deeply personal.

But that freedom was far from secure. The 13th Amendment had not been ratified by the states yet, which meant the legal foundation of freedom was still unsettled. Then came the Black Codes, which complicated things even more. Instead of getting a clear path forward, newly freed people were met with confusion and new barriers.

"Two Members of the Ku-Klux Klan
 in Their Disguises," published in
Harper's Weekly on December 19, 1868.

The most upsetting part of the documentary was the creation of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan terrorized African Americans who managed to acquire a decent amount of land, and it went after their children for attending school, all while others were still struggling to get by. Even small successes could turn a Black family into a target. Learning that was painful, because it showed that the violence was aimed at the very things that make freedom real: owning property, getting an education, and building a stable life. 

My biggest takeaway is that progress for African Americans during Reconstruction was met with violence almost immediately. The documentary didn’t let us treat this era as a simple victory story. It showed hope and terror existing side by side, and that tension is what I’ll remember. This is a part of history I want to keep learning more about, because understanding how quickly these gains were attacked helps me understand why the struggle continued.

Ai Disclosure: I used Claude. AI in a grammar correction and reformatting type of way for my blog post. I specifically asked Claude to not use any sources but my notes to reformat itself into a blog post around 500 words. The images and links embedded in them were done entirely by me, while Claude.AI is responsible for reformatting/grammar. 

GWTW Reaction Post

 

A Theatrical release poster of Gone With The Wind, depicting a passionate embrace between Scarlett and Rhett. 

Gone With The Wind 

My reaction after watching Gone with the Wind is wildly conflicted. While I can appreciate the film’s groundbreaking techniques in cinematography, given how it serves a lot of technological and cinematic advancements for its time. I am entirely put off by the blatant pro-confederacy propaganda and racist caricatures the film embraces. 

Historical Flaws and racism

The film’s depiction of the north is very cutthroat. The movie pushes the narrative that the union’s goal of seceding the south and abolishing slavery is unfair to the south and serves as a foil to our white protagonist. Northerners are called “Yankees” and are portrayed as barbaric un-american soldiers defiling the south’s main practice of its economy. 

It is awfully framed as a romantic and nostalgic southern fantasy of life in the mid-to-late 1800s; while whitewashing the horrors of slavery and historical mistreatment of African-American slaves. We do not see the faults of the confederacy, or Scarlett realizing how morally wrong slavery is. In a movie about the beginning and climax of the civil war. 

It is arguable that the film is intended to show off a flawed perspective of sheltered southerners and the disconnection of their view of slavery through the eyes of Scarlet. But, I strongly disagree with this interpretation as the story almost feels like an old white southern reminiscing about the “good” days of the south, glossing over why the confederacy had to fail. I severely doubt that a majority of filmmakers in 1930s Hollywood would have that much self-awareness regarding racism. 

The movie does not show us the cruelty of servitude.

Hattie McDaniel in a promotional image
as "Mammy" from Gone with the Wind

 It feeds into the “happy slave” trope that its narrative embraces: the racist lie that enslaved African-Americans gleefully consented to being forced into labor. White slave owners are portrayed as “caring” figures who treat their servants well, contributing to the erasure of systemic violence and power imbalance between a master and their slave. 

The film does not shy away with its outdated archetypes at all, given it has a supporting “Mammy” character that embodies all the stereotypical devoted, motherly caretaker

qualities that Black women were characterized as in media beforehand. 

Positive Aspects 

While I will jump to criticize a lot of dated aspects regarding the film’s historical flaws, I do appreciate the core film-making qualities of Gone With The Wind. Many scenes in this movie were shot gorgeously, with lighting being used as an excellent way of conveying the intensity of emotions in certain character moments. 

Intense climax scene between
Rhett and Scarlett displaying unique lighting

The sequence where Rhett kisses Scarlett is my favorite scene in the entire movie, highly because of its use of expressive, yet harsh lighting. Scarlett’s outburst towards Rhett’s unexpected departure from the journey is enhanced with the three-point lighting effect. The atmosphere's colors perfectly represent the conflict between our two romantic characters: red being used to display confrontation. It highlights the struggle of regulating the temper in our emotional state. While orange adds to the agitation and heat of the situation.

The colors put you into perspective to how Scarlett feels, and the betrayal and anger she holds against Rhett for leaving her. 

Conclusion

Gone With The Wind is a film’s glorified depiction of southern life during the brink of the Civil war that advocates pro-confederacy Ideology. It has a hand in producing in its time and overlooks a lot of blatant racism garnered in the movie. I can recognize the movie’s unique character acting and impressive lighting effects being positive attributions of its existence. 

But also heavily dislike the way the film refuses to address its idealization of slavery. 

Town Hall Reaction Post

Susan b. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton posed in a photograph

Elizabeth Cady Stanton on Abolition

I went into this town hall expecting a straightforward history lesson, but I left shocked by what I learned about Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 

Signers of the Declaration
of Sentiments at Seneca Falls in order

In 1848, she co-organized the first women's rights convention, where she spoke on women's suffrage as a major demand. She wanted women to have the right to vote, and she saw that fight as part of a larger fight for justice. 

In the speech, Stanton explained that she had been working with Susan B. Anthony and other abolitionists toward one clear goal: constitutional abolition. She did not want a gradual phase-out. She wanted abolition "written permanently into the law." What stood out to me was how firmly she chose permanence over compromise. For her, half measures were not enough.

Her choice of words struck me just as much. 

Stanton rejected calling slavery an "institution," arguing that the word is too soft. "Institution" sounds orderly, almost respectable. Instead, she called slavery tyranny, practiced generation after generation. By refusing the gentler language, she made her audience face the weight of what was being described.

She also spoke about the human cost, mentioning families being split up and sold. Hearing that detail alongside her demand for permanent change made her argument feel urgent and personal rather than abstract.

My biggest takeaway is how much language and legal permanence mattered to her. Stanton was not asking for slavery to be softened, managed, or slowly wound down. 

She was demanding that it be ended for good, and that the law say so plainly.

Ai Disclosure: I used Claude. AI in a grammar correction and reformatting type of way for my blog post. I specifically asked Claude to not use any sources but my notes to reformat itself into a blog post around ~300 words. The images and links embedded in them were done entirely by me, while Claude.AI is responsible for reformatting/grammar. 

Trial/EOTO #1 Reax Post

 

The Amistad off Culloden Point, Long Island, New York occuring on August 26, 1839

Freedom for Everyone: Three Moments That Shaped the  Fight Against Slavery

Freedom is easy to take for granted until you study the people who risked everything for it. A recent class presentation covered three moments in American history that show how ordinary people, and one extraordinary book, challenged the nation to live up to its ideals: the Amistad uprising, the American Anti-Slavery Society, and Uncle Tom's Cabin.

The Amistad Uprising

In 1839, a group of Africans were kidnapped in West Africa and forced onto a ship, the Amistad. They wanted to return home, and under the leadership of Joseph Cinque, they took control of the vessel. But the crew they spared steered north instead of east, and the ship eventually drifted into American waters. It was captured off Long Island, New York, by the U.S. Navy.

What followed was a major legal battle. The imprisoned Africans became the center of a case that reached the Supreme Court, which ruled that they were free. The case exposed the brutality of the slave trade to a wide audience, energized the abolitionist movement, and showed the power of resistance. It remains a reminder of why freedom matters.

The American Anti-Slavery Society

Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society in 1851

If the Amistad case showed what resistance looked like in a courtroom, the American Anti-Slavery Society showed what it looked like in public life. The society rejected the idea that freedom could belong to only some Americans. Its members demanded an immediate end to slavery rather than a slow, gradual one, arguing that the nation's promises of liberty and equality had to apply to everyone, not just certain people.

Their tools were speeches, newspapers, pamphlets, and petitions. The movement was closely tied to Black abolitionists, and Frederick Douglass became one of its most powerful speakers. He helped make slavery a major public issue and challenged Americans to act rather than look away. The society dissolved once slavery was abolished, its mission complete. 

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Looking for Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Then there is the book that brought the debate into American living rooms. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin in response to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and it helped push the country toward civil war. Its power came from making slavery personal. By portraying enslaved characters as human beings, Stowe turned undecided readers into abolitionists.

The book isn't without flaws, though. Many of its characters lean toward stereotypes, a limitation worth remembering when we read it today. It's a good example of how a work can be historically influential and still deserve a critical eye. 

Why It Matters

Each of these moments took a different path: a rebellion, an organized movement, a novel. Yet they share a message. Freedom isn't something granted from above. It is claimed, argued for, and defended by people willing to make the country face its own contradictions.

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Sources

• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Amistad mutiny"
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "American Anti-Slavery Society"
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
• National Archives, "Amistad" educational resources

AI Disclosure: I used Claude.ai to reformat notes I took during a town hall presentation into a professional blog post. I emphasized to Claude.ai to only use my written notes for information and to link any sources below. The reformatting was done entirely by Claude.ai, while I provided the notes and images with links embedded in them. 

State v. Mann Mock Trial

Thomas Ruffin. Photograph by Matthew Benjamin Brady (1822-1896), located in the National Archives and Records Administration. It is in the public domain.

Opening

• Your Honors, may it please the Court.

• I appear on behalf of the State of North Carolina to address one part of this case: the historical context for a master's authority over a person he has hired for a year.

Slavery has never gone entirely unregulated by law

• Slavery is not a new institution.

• Nearly four thousand years ago, the Code of Hammurabi in Mesopotamia treated slaves as property, but it still held an owner accountable if a slave was harmed by someone else.

• 

  Slave brick-makers,
  depicted in the tomb of the
  vizier Rekmire,c. 1450 BCE

  Ancient Egypt relied heavily on enslaved labor, including war captives and debtors bound to work they had not chosen, often for life.

• Greece and Rome built major parts of their economies on slavery as well.
  

• In each of these systems, the law still recognized the enslaved person as someone it had to account for, even while denying them freedom and treating them as property.

What happened to Lydia falls outside even that history

• She was whipped for a minor offense.

• When she tried to escape the whipping, she was shot and seriously wounded, by a man who had rented her services for a single year and did not even own her.

Answering the defense's argument

• The defense will argue that a master's power must be absolute for slavery to function, and that any limit on that power undermines the institution itself.

• The historical record does not support that claim.

• Slave systems going back thousands of years — in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and later the plantation economies of the Americas — treated enslaved people as property with very few rights.

• Even so, most of these systems still drew some line between disciplining a slave and endangering that slave's life.

Closing and request to the Court

• The jury in Chowan County reviewed the facts and found Mr. Mann's conduct cruel, unwarranted, and disproportionate to Lydia's offense.

• That finding was reasonable, and it was consistent with how the law has treated this question elsewhere.

• This Court is not being asked to change the underlying law of slavery in North Carolina.

• 

  1767, Chowan County Courthouse: A National Historic Landmark

  It is being asked whether any limit exists on what a person holding another in servitude may do to that person.

• The State submits that such a limit must exist, and respectfully asks this Court to affirm the verdict below.

• Thank you, Your Honors.

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Sources

• NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, "State v. Mann (A-94)"

• NCpedia, "State v. John Mann"

• North Carolina History Project, "State v. Mann"

• Wikipedia, "North Carolina v. Mann"

• Study.com, "History of Slavery in Ancient Times"

• Wikipedia, "Slavery in ancient Egypt"

• Equal Justice Initiative, "The Transatlantic Slave Trade — Origins"

• Encyclopedia Virginia, "The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Middle Passage"

AI Disclosure: I used Claude.ai as an assistant for research findings and for writing my script. I used key terms like "shape the research in the form of a script for oral arguments in the trial" and "write in a professional style, not academic." The images were found and embedded by me while the writing portion was done entirely by Claude.ai.

Eight Values of Free Expression

 

An overturned truck with a Pepsi logo burns in the center of Tehran during riots which paralyzed the city on December 27, 1978.

Dissent Isn’t always Universal 

Dissent isn’t something we should fear doing, it should be something we need to embrace in our current age of restrictive governments. 

Out of the eight values we have analyzed, I am most passionate about protecting one's ability to express their grievances towards the government. Best said by Steven Shiffrin in Dissent, Injustice, and the Meanings of America, “The First Amendment protects minority views, no matter how unpopular. You have a strongly protected right to disagree with the government — and everyone else. In fact, it is your patriotic duty to criticize the government” (American Civil Liberties Union, 2018, p. 2). If we have the legal right to articulate our opinions, even if they’re considered unpopular, and that it’s encouraged to criticize the government.

Why isn’t this usually followed through in different governments of various countries? 

I am Iranian-American and the subject of citizens and governments clashing together is not an unfamiliar subject for me. 

My mother and father’s experience living in the past era of the Islamic Republic of Iran opened my eyes to the importance of free speech and opinion; how it did not come easy for my parent’s post revolution given the censorship and threats against free speech. It was much harder for my mother given the drastic change in the cultural climate that came after the 1979 revolution: a new wave of strict Islamic codes and mandatory dress codes given to many women. The system controlled art, literature, media, and many forms of entertainment. This of course, included heavy institutional oversight to suppress public dissent and discourse over the Islamic government. 

The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance is an Iranian Government agency formed in 1984, responsible for overseeing and regulating any domestic media, cultural expression, and enforcing further state censorship. 

The Ministry was mentioned in a 2018 Reporters

Without Borders article, reflecting on the 39th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution and the legacy of the regime continuing to harass journalists and citizen-journalists. The regime’s ministry has persecuted the freedom to inform not only domestic media, but international media. 350 media outlets were closed, issuing more than 800 journalists and citizen-journalists being detained and interrogated with 500 of them being given prison sentences ranging from three months to 19 years.  Propaganda is recycled as official foreign media, funded by the regime which is also supported by fake news world networks that take pride in suppressing the freedom to inform. 

Public dissent, a concept that should be a universal right for all countries, cost the lives of many civilians. Protests that erupted in Iran on 28, December 2025, demonstrated the exhaustion from years of repression and censorship that have weighed on newer and older generations of men and women living in Iran. Iranian authorities responded with a deadly crackdown during January of 2026, by cutting off all internet access to conceal crimes against their own people. The regime has used unlawful force, firearms and other prohibited weapons, against protesters, which resulted in mass killings and serious injuries. It is unfair to the people of Iran that their own right to free speech is compromised by the regime, with excessive censorship further fueling the years of built up resentment towards the government. 

Protecting dissent is one of the most important Eight Values of Expression because of what it means for fighting against oppression and censorship. I believe that everyone has a right to criticize their own government, and that we need to be more socially aware of how the right doesn’t always apply to everyone’s government. 

People in Iran make their way toward Aichi cemetery in Saqez after the death of Mahsa Amini.

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Sources

• Amnesty International, "What happened at the protests in Iran?" — details the mass killings of protesters starting December 28, 2025, and the internet blackout Iran imposed to conceal the crackdown.

• Reporters Without Borders, "Revolution anniversary – 39 years of news control and censorship in Iran" — documents decades of media closures, journalist detentions, and censorship under the Islamic Republic.

• NBC News, "Iran attempts to crush dissent with a wave of arrests after deadly crackdown" — mass arrests following the deadly January 2026 crackdown.

Speech to the Town Hall

Photograph of Charles Sumner from the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C

In the voice of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts

[Introduction]

Friends, neighbors, fellow citizens —

My name is Charles Sumner. I am a Senator from the great state of Massachusetts, a lawyer by training, and — I will say it plainly — an enemy of slavery for as long as I have had breath to speak.

I did not come here tonight to flatter you. I came to tell you the truth as I see it, and to ask you to stand with me.

[The Moral Case]

I have stood on the floor of the United States Senate and called slavery what it is: a crime. Not a policy. Not a regional custom to be tolerated for the sake of quiet. A crime against justice, against liberty, and against the plain word of our own Declaration — that all men are created equal.

Some in this hall may tell you slavery is a "necessary evil," or worse, a positive good, a blessing to master and to slave alike. I have heard that argument dressed in fine language on the Senate floor. I reject it utterly. There is no dignity in chains. There is no blessing in the whip, the auction block, the family torn apart and sold to different corners of this country. I have seen the bills of sale. I have heard the testimony. Do not let anyone tell you this is a gentle institution. It is barbarism, and it wears a gentleman's coat.

[The Political and National Case]

The Caning of Charles Sumner

I am often asked — why should the North concern itself with what happens in the South? I will tell you why: because slavery does not stay where it is. It reaches for new territory. It reached for Kansas, and Kansas bled for it. I stood in that chamber and spoke against "The Crime Against Kansas" for two long days, and for my trouble I was struck down at my own desk, beaten nearly to death by a man who could not answer my arguments with anything but a cane.

I tell you that story not for your pity, but for your understanding. When the defenders of slavery cannot win the argument, they reach for the club. That alone should tell you which side stands on truth, and which side stands on force.

This is not merely a Southern question. It is an American question. A house divided between freedom and bondage cannot stand forever as it is. Sooner or later, this nation must choose — wholly free, or forever compromised.

[The Call to Action]

So I ask you tonight — not to hate your fellow countrymen who see this differently, but to refuse, absolutely, to make peace with an injustice simply because it is old, or profitable, or familiar.

Write to your representatives. Support those who will not bend on this question. Teach your children that liberty is not divisible — that it cannot belong to some men and not others and still call itself liberty at all.

I did not choose the easy road, and I will not pretend it is easy. But I would rather stand here, bruised and unbending, than sit comfortably and silent while three million of my fellow human beings are held as property.

[Closing]

Let it be said of this town, in this hall, on this night — that when the question was put, you did not look away. You chose justice. You chose freedom. And you chose it not because it was convenient, but because it was right.

I thank you for your hearing, and I ask for your hand in this work.

— Charles Sumner

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Sources

• American Battlefield Trust, "Charles Sumner" biography — basis for the account of the caning by Preston Brooks and Sumner's broader anti-slavery record

• American History, American Digital Collection — The Crime Against Kansas, Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, May 19, 1856 — basis for the reference to the two-day 1856 speech

AI Disclosure: I used Claude.ai as an assistant for research findings and for writing my script. I used key terms like "I am a college student" and "use professional style scripting rather than heavy academic style" in my prompting for this script. The images were found and embedded by me while the writing portion was done entirely by Claude.ai.