Bearing witness to the historic reckoning with systemic racism, and amplifying dialogue to drive change that delivers on the promise of racial equality.
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The formerly enslaved didn’t actually have “absolute equality” in practice, though. They faced immediate violence from former slave owners and Confederate sympathizers if they tried to act on their freedom. Even after the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, lynching, Jim Crow laws, and various forms of state-backed discrimination reinforced the message that Black Americans didn’t have the same rights and basic liberties as white Americans.The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.
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