Amend: The Fight for America (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Episode #1.1 - full transcript
What do you think about
when you think of America?
♪ This land is your land… ♪
This ball is crushed.
♪ From California ♪
♪ Well, to the New York island… ♪
What words come to mind?
Justice?
Freedom? Equality?
What about citizenship?
To my fellow Americans,
our newest Americans,
what a remarkable journey
all of you have made.
The fabric of America
is held together
on the threads of these powerful ideas.
People have fought and died
over the definitions of these words,
but what do they really mean?
- What do we want?
- Justice!
- When do we want it?
- Now!
Every day as Americans, we are
standing on the legacy of this fight.
And we are challenged in every moment
to live up to the promise of these ideals.
The 14th Amendment of the Constitution…
We want the 14th Amendment
to apply to women.
The 14th Amendment is
cited in more litigation
than any other Amendment.
From its ratification to today,
its relevance has never wavered.
And yet, we barely know it exists.
What astounds me is that average,
ordinary Americans
are unabashed about talking about
their First Amendment rights.
There are Americans for whom
the Second Amendment,
that seems to be
the most important to them.
And yet, most of how
we think about ourselves as Americans,
most of what we are proudest of,
and most of the ways in which
we believe we are free
are embedded in the 14th Amendment.
So when I learned about it,
I just had to tell you.
This is why we're here.
Mark.
Action!
To tell our story,
to tell its story.
The story of the 14th Amendment.
The 14th Amendment.
It's okay if you don't know it
by heart but,
it is the center of the promise of America
and it goes something like this:
If you're born in the United States,
you're a citizen. Pretty simple, right?
And under the law,
everyone in America gets this thing
called equal protection.
That means we all have the same rights
and the same legal protection,
and no one can take those away
without due process.
That's your day in court.
So, basically, the 14th Amendment says
we're all equal players on the same team.
And, as simple as that sounds,
it's revolutionary.
It's what the American Dream is made of.
Were it not for the 14th Amendment,
I would not be a citizen
of the United States.
Without the 14th Amendment,
marriage equality
probably still wouldn't exist.
I am married to a white man,
which would not at all be possible
without the 14th Amendment.
The fundamental promise
that the 14th Amendment presents to us
is the promise of a society of equals.
Growing up in Philly,
my family was no stranger
to the inequalities in this country.
But, despite their struggles,
my parents and grandparents
believed wholeheartedly
in the promise of America,
and I've seen firsthand
how the 14th Amendment
lays out the path
towards the American Dream.
At the heart of the 14th Amendment
is the definition
of citizenship in America.
It is through this definition
that all the rights we cherish
are granted and defended.
To tell this story,
we've got to go back to a time
before the 14th Amendment existed,
before slavery was abolished in America.
We begin with one man,
Frederick Douglass.
You may have heard his name before,
but he is so much more
than his killer fro.
♪ I don't know 'bout y'all… ♪
Frederick Douglass is born into slavery
at a time when slavery has been
a part of this land for almost 200 years.
♪ It's just sweat and tears ♪
♪ Mixed drippin' down my ears… ♪
No one would expect Douglass
to gain his freedom,
much less lead a revolution.
Despite the risk of beatings or worse,
Douglass breaks the law
by teaching himself to read.
And even though his first attempts
to escape slavery fail,
he doesn't give up.
By the time he's 20 years old,
he successfully escapes to New York City.
That's where we meet him.
"I'm in the great city of New York,
safe and sound.
Walking amid the hurrying throng
and gazing amid
the dazzling wonders of Broadway.
Dreams of my childhood now fulfilled.
A free state around me,
and free earth under my feet."
"What a moment."
When Frederick Douglass
arrives in the streets of lower Manhattan
an escaped slave,
he at first
feels this indescribable euphoria.
Breathing free air
for the first time in his life.
He tried to escape slavery before
and now he seems to finally
have achieved his freedom.
And he bumps into this guy
that he knows from Maryland
who was also enslaved there,
who Douglass knows as Jake.
The guy says,
"That's not who I am anymore."
He says, "I'm William Dixon in New York."
That Mr. Dixon tells him,
"Don't trust anybody.
Don't trust me. I don't trust you.
Anyone here can betray you."
Dixon tells Douglass to
"keep your eyes peeled for slave catchers.
Be on your guard."
Also, there are histories
of Black and white slave-catching rings.
It's really simple.
Douglass is worth a lot of money.
Legally, someone owns him,
and legally that person
has a claim on them,
can send out slave catchers
in pursuit of this property that they own.
A price on their body,
a price on their very existence.
In the moment of his freedom,
he realizes he's not free.
Now, just because your society and laws
don't recognize you as a citizen,
it doesn't mean that a person,
throughout time,
doesn't declare
that they have those rights.
Douglass was certainly one of those
who claimed every right as a citizen,
despite the fact
that the laws of his country denied them.
Prior to the 14th Amendment,
there is an open and notorious question,
what makes one
a citizen of the United States?
For African Americans,
citizenship is a hotly debated,
highly contentious,
and very messy question.
Citizenship is the right to have rights.
You have the right
to participate, the right to vote,
you've got the right
to call on the government
and also to get protections
against the government.
All the things that we naturally
take for granted,
the benefit of all the laws,
protection from violence,
people prosecuted
if they do something to us.
If you're not a citizen,
then you can't take advantage of those.
"I spent the day gathering flowers
and weaving them into festoons
while the dead body of my father
was lying within a mile of me.
What cared my owners for that?
He was merely a piece of property.
Moreover, they thought he had
spoiled his children
by teaching them
to feel that they were human beings.
This was blasphemous doctrine
for a slave to teach.
Presumptuous in him,
and dangerous to the masters.
You never knew what it is to be a slave.
To be entirely unprotected
by law or custom.
To have the laws reduce you
to the condition of a chattel.
Entirely subject to the will of another."
There were people who said,
"Citizenship belongs only to
white people."
The United States of America did not
intend for people of color
to be included in that definition.
Remarkably, the founders don't
think very hard about citizenship at all.
The original Constitution is kind
of silent on the subject of citizenship.
It doesn't have any statement of how
someone becomes a citizen,
or who is a citizen or who isn't.
In that space
of having this undefined term, "citizen,"
racism was allowed to flourish.
"All men are created equal"
is a founding ideal
of the United States Constitution.
We today understand that it was an ideal
kind of embedded in the Constitution,
but not at all a reality.
The Constitution talks a big game
about freedom.
Blah, blah, liberty, blah, blah,
more perfect union,
but it also has
the Three-Fifths Compromise.
It starts off fine.
We're basing representatives
on total number of free persons.
Cool, cool.
Excluding "Indians." Not cool.
And three-fifths of all "other persons."
"Other persons" is the Constitutional way
of saying "urban."
Now imagine that. Three-fifths a person?
No, nothing to see here,
just fractioning humanity.
How did this happen?
Well, the South
wanted more representation,
so they argued that slaves
deserve representation, but not rights.
Um, you just fought a revolutionary war
about all this mess.
How do you not see the irony in that?
The majority of the first 16 presidents
were slave owners.
No wonder slavery didn't just die out
on its own.
And it also gave slaveholders
a legal argument
that the Constitution approves of slavery,
of treating human beings
like property before the law.
We had the country founded on
both the Declaration of Independence
and the institution of slavery.
And so for enslaved persons,
they're citizens
in the sense of being humans
of moral worth and dignity,
but they weren't citizens
in the legal sense.
Some abolitionists,
like Frederick Douglass,
have this dangerous idea
that enslaved people
are actually citizens.
So, what's next?
They set out to see if they can
stir up public support for this idea.
Blacks born free in the North,
like Frances Harper,
share the story of oppression
through essays and poetry.
"We are all bound up together
in one great bundle of humanity,
and society cannot trample
on the weakest of its members
without receiving the curse
in its own soul."
They also, like Maria Stewart,
lecture publicly on anti-slavery.
"It is not the color of the skin
that makes the man,
but it is the principles
formed within the soul."
Harriet Jacobs
and her brother John Jacobs
expose their experiences with slavery
to provoke Americans into action.
"All men are created free and equal
by their maker
and endowed with certain
inalienable rights.
Where are the Colored man's rights
in today's America?"
The abolitionist movement
is a fascinating part of American history
that people don't fully understand,
in part because it was so diverse.
One branch of the abolitionist movement
really believed the Constitution is evil,
the Constitution is pro-slavery.
They said that the US Constitution
was a covenant with death
and an agreement with Hell.
They said what needed to happen
was a destruction of the Constitution.
"Let's dissolve the Union."
But there was another wing.
And the most famous member of that
was Frederick Douglass.
Douglass' first autobiography
is certainly a risky project.
Risky as an enslaved person,
as a fugitive,
to advertise oneself.
He himself is still,
in a formal legal sense, a slave.
He is a person with a price,
rather than a free man.
It became a classic
instantaneously, and it still is.
It's read all over the world.
It was critical at that time
to have someone like Frederick Douglass,
a Black man who had been a slave,
who could talk personally
about the experience of slavery,
who could talk about it
from a human dimension.
He often said that
his greatest fear during slavery
was less the danger to his body
than the danger to his mind.
The internalization of the idea
that some people
are somehow born to be free,
and others are born to be slaves.
There is a moment
in his first autobiography
where he just stops, asking…
"Why am I a slave?"
It's an ancient,
existential question.
"Why am I a slave?
When these other white children I see
are free to grow up,
free to have books, free to be educated,
free to roam and travel.
Why am I a slave?"
He's felt what it's like,
the brutality of enslavement,
the exploitation.
He has decided that he's going to fight.
♪ I've been low… ♪
He travels all over the world
speaking about his experience as a slave,
speaking about the need for Black freedom.
That is the cause
to which he devotes his life.
He had a talent,
a gift to get up and speak.
Probably the greatest orator
of the 19th century.
♪ I'm a Black man in a white world… ♪
He was so impressive
that the Southern apologists
kept spreading rumors
that he'd never been a slave,
that he'd been brought in
from some other country,
that he was an actor.
There's no question
about whether he wrote it.
From 1848 on, he continues
to bolster his public profile.
He publishes The North Star,
really incredibly popular
among white abolitionists.
There's this argument
that Douglass is making,
that he'll continue to make,
for a transition from slave to citizen.
♪ Oh, it's all right
I'm a Black man in a white world… ♪
1852, Frederick Douglass is
probably the most famous Black person
in the world.
He understood that what he said
was tremendously consequential
for the strategy that would be taken
by the anti-slavery movement.
His argument was the Constitution
is an anti-slavery document,
it's pro-freedom.
He thought that the United States,
with its Declaration of Independence
and with its revolutionary tradition,
that slavery was not something
that should be tolerated.
According to Douglass,
the Founding Fathers had not
created a document that enshrined slavery,
but in fact had created a document
that guaranteed to every man
the right of self-governance,
of liberty, and of human rights.
He did believe, and wanted to believe,
that people like him really were part
of the national community.
The Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society
of Rochester, New York
invited Frederick Douglass
to speak on the 4th of July.
Six hundred people
came to Corinthian Hall for this event.
But his audience was not just
the 600 people in the hall that day.
His audience was us.
His audience was the future.
Let me set the stage.
Those 600 people in the audience
are mostly white men and women.
They generally agree
with Frederick Douglass.
But Douglass knows there's a difference
between agreeing in theory
and understanding deeply
the reality on the ground.
In order to really make them see,
he's got to tell them the truth
about themselves…
…in 1852.
This could get interesting.
"Fellow citizens,
the signers of the Declaration
of Independence were brave men.
Your fathers succeeded.
And today, you reap the fruits
of that success."
Douglass makes his audience
feel very comfortable
about the Fourth of July.
He says the Founding Fathers
were geniuses.
They created this beautiful thing
called the American Republic.
It's a very calm opening.
And then there's a moment where he says,
"Pardon me."
"Why am I called upon to speak here today?
What have I, or those who I represent,
to do with your national independence?
The Fourth of July is yours, not mine.
You may rejoice.
I must mourn.
Do you mean, citizens, to mock me
by asking me to speak here today?"
And then he blasts away at his audience
with a litany of the terrors and horrors
of the slave trade,
slave auctions in the American South.
He makes his audience
feel their own senses.
He tells them what the hold
of a slave ship smelled like.
He tells them the sounds and the feelings
of a woman weeping
as her child was sold.
He takes them to the horrible heart
of what slavery actually is.
"To rob them of their liberty,
to work them without wages,
to beat them with sticks,
to flay their flesh with lash,
to knock out their teeth,
to burn their flesh.
Your shouts of liberty and equality,
your sermons and thanksgivings
are mere hypocrisy.
There is not a nation on Earth
guilty of practices
more shocking and bloody
than are the people of the United States
at this very hour."
Hmm.
He's speaking to the people who are…
on his side, and saying,
"You're not on my side enough.
You're not doing enough to fight slavery.
It's 1852.
I've been free for 14 years,
but this is still going on."
This is a nation that's supposed to be
built around freedom,
built around concepts of human equality.
As long as slavery persists,
the nation is a lie.
"America is false to the past,
false to the present,
and solemnly binds herself
to be false to the future.
Allow me to say in conclusion,
I do not despair of this country.
The doom of slavery is certain
and I therefore leave off where I began…
…with hope."
I think he considers himself a citizen.
The question is whether the government
considers him a citizen.
That's really the key thing.
I think for so many people,
so many African Americans,
we've always thought of ourselves
as citizens,
always thought about the United States
as being our country.
The question's whether the country
has thought about us that way back.
The United States Supreme Court
is housed in this magnificent
white marble edifice.
Equal Justice Under Law.
The language of the Constitution
isn't always crystal clear.
And that's one reason why
we have the Supreme Court.
Part of its job is to interpret,
to help make sense
of what the Constitution means
and then hold us all accountable to it.
It's our third branch of government
and the ultimate authority
of our judicial system.
So, what did the Supreme Court have to say
about who is
or is not an American citizen?
Eighteen fifty-seven,
Dred Scott versus Sandford.
Dred Scott's the worst decision
ever made by the Supreme Court.
The only debate is
if it's the worst or second worst.
Dred Scott is enslaved to a surgeon.
The surgeon had brought Scott on a job
from the slave state of Missouri
into Wisconsin, which was a free state.
Later, back in Missouri, the doctor died.
Eventually,
Scott goes to the Supreme Court
arguing that once he had
lived in a free state,
he was no longer property,
and became a free citizen.
If the Court rules in favor of Dred Scott,
enslaved people would have a clear path
to become free citizens.
If they rule against, the door is closed.
"We think Negroes are not included,
and were not intended to be included
under the word 'citizens'
in the Constitution,
and can therefore
claim none of the rights and privileges
which that instrument provides for
and secures to the citizens
of the United States."
The Court says, "We're going to
go back to the framing of the Constitution
and ask ourselves,
'What did those people intend in 1787?'
It's obvious to me,
Roger B. Taney,
they didn't want Black people
as part of their country.
They didn't put it in the Constitution
because it would never occur to them
that anyone would be stupid enough
to allow non-whites
into the American body politic."
"They had for more than a century been
regarded as beings of an inferior order
and altogether unfit
to associate with the white race.
And so far inferior
that they had no rights
which the white man was bound to respect."
Its rhetoric is bone-chilling.
African Americans are indeed not citizens.
Never were, never can be.
It affirmed the idea that,
no matter what their status,
free or enslaved, Black people
were not equal to white people.
They were not fully human.
They were not evolved.
The Dred Scott case announces
that Black people can never
be citizens of the United States.
Dred Scott himself
never even had the right to sue.
Frederick Douglass had insisted
anti-slavery politics could
operate in harmony with the Constitution.
But the Court seemed
to leave no way forward.
They said, "No, the Constitution
is completely pro-slavery."
The Constitution
is totally anti-Douglass, if you will.
Citizenship, it's the locus of rights.
After Dred Scott,
Douglass can never
be part of this community,
never be an American citizen.
So, the question then became,
"What's the next step?"
The South wants the stamp
of national approval on slavery.
They can't have it.
Lincoln was a big critic
of that case.
That was partly what he ran on.
If it were not for
the reaction to Dred Scott,
many people think that he would not
have become the president.
And you will be the greatest president
in our history.
Lincoln also saw the country
moving to fight over this question
of the legality of slavery.
So, Lincoln understands
that slavery is bad,
which is a good start,
but…
…he says that,
"If I could save the Union
without freeing any slaves,
I would do so."
If the Civil War is over slavery,
then why doesn't Lincoln immediately
free all the enslaved people in the South?
Because his goal is preserving the Union.
The South has just seceded.
They're calling themselves
the Confederacy now.
Lincoln is not going to be the president
that straight-up loses half the country.
He has got to get the South back,
and at this point,
he'll do whatever it takes to win,
even if it's at the expense
of Black Americans.
In the midst of all the chaos,
Abraham Lincoln invited a small group
of African American leaders
to the White House.
He had stenographers
and the press there to record this,
and in effect Lincoln did not
have a discussion with them,
he gave them a lecture.
"Your race are suffering,
in my judgment,
the greatest wrong inflicted
on any people.
But even when you cease to be slaves,
you are yet far removed from being placed
on an equality with the white race."
I do not like where this is going.
"Consider what we know to be the truth.
But for your race among us,
there could not be war."
He basically blames the presence
of Black people in America
for the Civil War,
and then he wants to get them
to endorse a plan to quote-unquote
colonize freed Black people
outside the United States.
"There is an unwillingness
on the part of our people,
harsh as it may be,
for you free Colored people
to remain with us.
It is better for us both,
therefore, to be separated."
Whoa, time out.
You're Abraham Lincoln, right?
The dude on the penny?
Okay, keep going.
He's saying, "We all understand
that equality is what this country
is supposed to be about,
but, really, racial equality
is not going to happen.
So, get with the program."
"The place I'm thinking about
having for a colony is Central America."
What? Wait.
The enlightened, progressive president
who ultimately ended slavery
first wanted to send Black Americans
to Costa Rica?
¿Por qué?
Douglass is… He's outraged.
Part of what Lincoln is doing here is
trying to get at that gnawing uncertainty
in Black people
that maybe we can't actually
belong in this country.
This is what African Americans
fear might be their fate,
if in fact they are not citizens.
Douglass responded, "No,
it is not the presence of Black people.
It is slavery and the power
that slave owners have,
and the way it warps the whole society.
That is the cause of the Civil War."
This was all in the midst,
we have to remember, of all-out Civil War.
And that summer,
his side is not winning the war.
In a war like that,
you needed every soldier you could get.
But the government kept insisting
that Blacks couldn't be in the militia.
They couldn't be in the regular army.
"They're savages. They'll run amok.
You give them arms, they'll massacre
every white person they see."
"Why does the government
reject the Negro?
Is he not a man?"
Our generals are calling for men.
'Send us men, ' they scream.
I have implored the imperiled nation
to unchain against her foes
her powerful Black hand.
Liberty won by white men
would lose half its luster.
Who would be free themselves
must strike the blow."
Douglass makes the case
that if Black men go to war
and bleed for their country,
that they could never then
be denied the rights of citizenship.
He makes that point explicitly.
He toured the country
giving speeches.
You couldn't win the war
without abolishing slavery.
You couldn't win the war
without enlisting Black soldiers
into the Civil War, into the Union Army.
He's trying to manipulate Lincoln
to invite Black people
to join this fight
against the slave owners.
Douglass is convinced
they will prove they are citizens,
that they're deserving of rights,
and that they're deserving of
legal equality.
He couldn't at this point
really conceive of the United States
as a biracial society,
but his views will begin to move forward
very, very dramatically.
Finally, Frederick Douglass' efforts work.
Desperate for soldiers, Lincoln signs
the Emancipation Proclamation,
freeing enslaved Americans
in the Southern states.
Now Black men can join the Union Army.
These Black soldiers get to prove
what Frederick Douglass
has been saying all along.
They want to fight for their freedom.
♪ Our world ♪
♪ Yeah, the whole world's ours ♪
♪ Our world ♪
♪ It's time we show 'em the power
The world is ours, uh ♪
The Emancipation Proclamation
is a critical turning point in the war,
adding, by the end, 200,000 Black men
to the Union Army and Navy.
It was not just a war of small battles
and regular armies fighting.
It was mass armies, both North and South.
The Emancipation Proclamation
is issued as a military order.
It's to help win the war.
♪ This is our world ♪
We were supposed to be lazy,
we were supposed to be cowardly
and undisciplined.
And so to have African Americans serve,
and serve nobly,
was such a powerful riposte
to those narratives
that were being advanced.
♪ They feelin' us now, uh ♪
It was powerful for Black people
to be on the front, to shed blood.
Black service in the military
began to change white racial attitudes.
Many, many Northerners, who had never
thought about Blacks as being citizens,
believed that,
by their service in the Army,
they have earned the right
to be equal citizens of the United States.
Two of Douglass' sons serve in
the 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry.
He saw the tremendous
real and symbolic power
of Black men putting, as he said,
the label "U.S." on their belt.
"We want a country which shall not brand
the Declaration of Independence as a lie.
The mission of this war
is national regeneration."
Since the start of the war,
Douglass is saying that the war
would not only transform
Black people's lives,
but transform the United States
as a whole.
"We are not fighting
for the old Union as it was,
but for something 10,000 times
more important.
And that thing, crisply rendered,
is national unity.
A unity of which the great principles
of liberty and equality
and not slavery and class superiority
are the cornerstone."
He's defining the Civil War.
The country is destined.
That it's essential that the country
will live up to the creed
of its founding documents.
The war must end not only
with the defeat of the Confederacy,
but with a new nation being created,
one based now on equality.
Part of the hardship
of the Civil War
is seeing how many people are dying,
and Lincoln is having
to grapple with the question of why.
"Four score and seven years ago,
our fathers brought forth
on this continent a new nation,
conceived in liberty,
and dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal."
A way to think about Gettysburg
is that it's an echo
of what Douglass has been saying.
Emancipation is the definition
of the war effort.
"This nation under God
shall have a new birth of freedom."
Lincoln's most famous line here,
"A new birth of freedom."
That's something that Douglass had been
saying since the start of the war.
And that's rhetoric not that dissimilar
from what Douglass talks about,
national regeneration,
a new birth of freedom.
Both of them now are seeing the Civil War
as creating something new.
"And that government of the people,
by the people, for the people
shall not perish from the Earth."
Part of what he's doing
in Gettysburg is helping himself
grapple with the tragedy,
the human cost of the war.
If this is a war about the Union,
then maybe too many people have died.
But if this is a war about emancipation,
if this is a war for Black freedom,
uh, then maybe Gettysburg is worth it.
This is where I think Lincoln
becomes so compelling,
is that you really see…
how much a person can change.
For Lincoln to go from urging colonization
to talking about Black people's future
is incredible.
I think they came
to respect one another very deeply.
They were both self-made men.
Lincoln had one year of formal schooling.
Douglass had none.
Both of them had risen to prominence
through their wits, through their mind.
Whatever they became,
they made themselves into,
and I think they were kind of
kindred spirits in that respect.
Douglass is feeling
really optimistic
that he can continue to work with Lincoln
toward a Black American future.
On April 9th, 1865,
General Lee of the Confederacy
surrenders to the Union,
marking the beginning of the end
of the Civil War.
Sometimes history appoints certain people,
like Douglass,
to be the voice of a movement,
and when they can find an advocate
like President Lincoln,
who's willing to listen and change,
its incredible to see what those leaders
can accomplish together.
Unfortunately, history can also
cut those relationships tragically short.
In celebration of Lee's surrender,
Lincoln gave a speech
to say that African American soldiers
who had served in the Union Army
ought to be given the right to vote.
One of the people in the crowd that day
listening to the speech
was John Wilkes Booth.
Booth was upset
at the idea of equal citizenship,
and he turned to a friend and said,
"That's the last speech
that he'll ever make."
Eight months
after Lincoln's assassination,
the 13th Amendment is ratified,
finally abolishing slavery
and permanently freeing
every enslaved person in America.
But freedom isn't the end of the story.
We think of the assassination of Lincoln
as a great tragedy, and it is,
but the real tragedy is
that his assassination means
that the presidency
passes to Andrew Johnson.
"This is a country for white men,
and, by God, as long as I am president,
it shall be a government for white men."
He is reactionary,
he is racist, he is bigoted.
He is as far from Lincoln
as the sun is from the moon.
He loved the idea of big rallies.
He loved to get up and make long speeches,
largely about himself.
I think we've all seen political figures
like this at various points in history.
Once he becomes president,
he more or less says upfront
that his goal is to prevent
the dilution of citizenship.
Frederick Douglass
went to the White House
to visit this president.
It was a terrible moment.
Andrew Johnson makes very clear
that he thinks that Frederick Douglass
is beneath him.
He thinks Black people
should be grateful to him.
"I've owned slaves,
and I have bought slaves,
but I've never sold one.
Practically, so far as my connection
with slaves has gone,
I've been their slave
instead of their being mine."
After the meeting with Douglass,
Johnson said to his secretary…
"I know that damn Douglass.
He's like any other nigger.
He would sooner
cut a white man's throat than not."
You're not likely to get Andrew Johnson
supporting vigorous enforcement
of the rights of the former slaves,
which of course he did not do.
I get it. Johnson's a racist,
but a racist president
shouldn't hurt Black people
now that slavery's been abolished.
If you hated Black people so much,
you shouldn't have joined the Union.
Too late now.
Hold up, just because you're free,
doesn't mean you're a citizen,
and without citizenship,
Black folks have no recourse against
Southern attacks on Black freedom.
As soon as the 13th is passed,
state legislatures across the South
pass Black Codes.
While the name Black Code sounds like
an amazing new Shonda Rhimes show,
uh-uh, it's anything but.
We're talking about laws.
See, many of these laws
require Black people and only Black people
to sign year-long labor contracts
with white employers,
and tax them up to $100
for taking employment
as anything other than
a farmer or servant.
And they even force Black children
into mandatory "apprenticeships"
to keep them in the labor force. Kids!
Sure, while the North is outraged,
these Southern legislatures basically say,
"What are you talking about?
Black Codes aren't slavery.
- It's an entirely different word.
- It's two words, even.
And look. They're getting paid now."
Right.
But guess what happens if a Black person
refuses these new restrictions?
What happened if they tried
to exercise their freedom?
Well, they could be taken to jail
and surprise, surprise, forced into labor…
without pay.
The New York Herald Tribune
even runs this headline:
"South Carolina Re-establishing Slavery."
Can you imagine?
Black folks just fought, and won,
an entire war for their freedom,
and this is what they get?
The 13th Amendment isn't gonna cut it.
Question is, what will?
Enter John Bingham, an Ohio Congressman.
Bingham believes in freedom for everyone.
True freedom.
"I take exception to the abuse
of the word 'nigger.'
To me, it does not denote color of skin,
but designates a class of creatures
by the color of their souls.
Those who set their feet
upon defenseless fellow men
and convert them
into what we call a 'slave.'
These man-stealers,
though their skins
be as white as the driven snow,
are the real niggers."
He's looking at what's happening
in the South, like,
"Y'all,
it's not looking too good down there."
He's like, "We have to do something.
We have to amend the Constitution.
Provide them equal citizenship."
John Bingham, among others,
led the way to argue for
and craft the heart of the 14th Amendment.
What Bingham wants is to do
exactly what Frederick Douglass called for
in his Fourth of July speech:
Make America live up to its promise,
to expand American citizenship
in the Constitution,
to right the wrongs of Dred Scott
and secure the blessings of equality
for all in writing
so no one can ever take them away.
To do that, Bingham
and a group of radical Republicans
build 14 to include many of the rights
that were denied to Black Americans.
And they fight to make 14
a constitutional amendment.
That's important, because they understand
that they won't always be in charge.
The next guys might want it gone.
Now, amendments
are extremely difficult to pass,
but they're also very hard to get rid of.
And Bingham succeeds.
In 1868, the 14th Amendment
officially becomes
a part of the Constitution.
And it proves that the United States
is on board
with this new mission of equality for all.
"All persons born or naturalized
in the United States
and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,
are citizens of the United States
and of the state wherein they reside."
If you look at the language,
it's quite striking.
"Person born in the United States,"
and there's no other restriction.
It doesn't say a white person
born in the United States.
Therefore,
people of African descent are citizens.
"No state shall make or enforce any law
which shall abridge the privileges
or immunities of citizens
of the United States."
What this means
is that the first eight amendments
to the US Constitution,
what we call the Bill of Rights,
all citizens have those rights,
and have them against state governments
as well as the federal government.
"Nor shall any state deprive any person
of life, liberty, or property
without due process of law."
Black people,
from the Antebellum Period,
have been trying to use courts
to get what they want.
They want to be able to defend themselves
against violence.
And now the 14th Amendment says that,
yes, you can go to court
if something happens.
"Nor deny to any person
within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the laws."
Citizenship becomes
so clearly delineated
that citizenship was automatic,
that full citizenship,
not three-fifths, not conditional...
The moment you breathe that first breath
of American air, you're an American.
If you are born here, you are
born with all of the liberties
and the protections of US citizenship.
It overturns
the Dred Scott decision,
which said Black people
could not be citizens,
no matter where they were born,
even if they'd been here for generations.
The 14th Amendment is absolutely pivotal.
in moving us from a white male nation
into a future in which
there was a possibility
for diversity within our democracy.
The 14th Amendment also
includes the first time that the word…
"equal" is used in the Constitution.
And it becomes enshrined
in our Constitution.
In a lot of ways
our country wasn't founded in 1776.
It was founded when John Bingham
and the Congress passes the 14th Amendment
because that's the modern Constitution.
Douglass and others recognize
that the 14th Amendment has
changed the way
the nation's laws will work.
It's not viewed uncritically,
but it is cause of tremendous celebration.
This is a moment of incredible optimism.
African Americans are
filled with this excitement
about what it means to be full citizens.
After the passage of the 14th Amendment,
there is this belief and excitement
that we've hit the reset button
on a badly mismanaged project…
…and America is now
going to step into her own.
One of the biggest successes
is the flourishing of Black education.
People in the South
build up institutions
for their own education
because of the importance of literacy.
Black people spend a few million dollars
of their own money for education,
and these are people in the South
who had no money.
Frederick Douglass,
you just say his name,
and to me it's like a prayer.
He was remarkable
in that he had an aptitude
that could not be contained.
He didn't want Black people
to just be free from slavery.
He wanted them to be full citizens.
What an extraordinary man and human being.
"I seem to be living in a new world.
Who could have imagined what has occurred?
The great triumph of justice and liberty,
not only for the slaves emancipated,
but a Civil Rights bill,
the right to vote.
All for a class stigmatized
but a little while ago
as worthless goods and chattel,
but now regarded as men,
recognized as such before the law."
Frederick Douglass.
Enslaved person,
fugitive,
free non-citizen,
citizen.
But his incredible journey
doesn't end there.
Throughout his long life,
Frederick Douglass would
continue to champion the rights
of Black Americans, women, and immigrants,
and the impact of his fight
has echoed through generations.
Even today.
♪ Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, hey, hey… ♪
These images
show the crane and a flatbed truck
removing the statue of Roger B. Taney
in the wee hours of the morning Friday.
So he said Blacks were so far inferior
that they had "no rights
which the white man was bound to respect."
So we asked that night
for forgiveness and…
the Scotts embraced us and forgave us.
There were people in my family who said,
"I don't know if I want
to meet those people."
And the unexpected and impromptu apology
was given.
I have cousins who were in tears.
When that starts to happen
and you get to level of understanding
and relationship,
other things become possible.
We can all do something like that.
If the Scotts and the Taneys
can reconcile, can't you?
We talk about equality
a lot in America.
We talk about justice.
We have a Pledge of Allegiance
that has these words,
and the 14th Amendment
was intended to make that vision real.
What we didn't account for…
is how unprepared we were
to actually embrace true equality.
I pledge that I will never accept
the false teachings
that all races equal or the same.
- No justice!
- No peace!
All we say to America is,
be true to what you said on paper.
As soon as the 14th is ratified,
it's attacked.
In the courts, in the streets,
even in our history books.
Why haven't we learned the story
of the 14th Amendment?
Because there are a lot of people
out there who fought very hard
to make sure you'd never know.
when you think of America?
♪ This land is your land… ♪
This ball is crushed.
♪ From California ♪
♪ Well, to the New York island… ♪
What words come to mind?
Justice?
Freedom? Equality?
What about citizenship?
To my fellow Americans,
our newest Americans,
what a remarkable journey
all of you have made.
The fabric of America
is held together
on the threads of these powerful ideas.
People have fought and died
over the definitions of these words,
but what do they really mean?
- What do we want?
- Justice!
- When do we want it?
- Now!
Every day as Americans, we are
standing on the legacy of this fight.
And we are challenged in every moment
to live up to the promise of these ideals.
The 14th Amendment of the Constitution…
We want the 14th Amendment
to apply to women.
The 14th Amendment is
cited in more litigation
than any other Amendment.
From its ratification to today,
its relevance has never wavered.
And yet, we barely know it exists.
What astounds me is that average,
ordinary Americans
are unabashed about talking about
their First Amendment rights.
There are Americans for whom
the Second Amendment,
that seems to be
the most important to them.
And yet, most of how
we think about ourselves as Americans,
most of what we are proudest of,
and most of the ways in which
we believe we are free
are embedded in the 14th Amendment.
So when I learned about it,
I just had to tell you.
This is why we're here.
Mark.
Action!
To tell our story,
to tell its story.
The story of the 14th Amendment.
The 14th Amendment.
It's okay if you don't know it
by heart but,
it is the center of the promise of America
and it goes something like this:
If you're born in the United States,
you're a citizen. Pretty simple, right?
And under the law,
everyone in America gets this thing
called equal protection.
That means we all have the same rights
and the same legal protection,
and no one can take those away
without due process.
That's your day in court.
So, basically, the 14th Amendment says
we're all equal players on the same team.
And, as simple as that sounds,
it's revolutionary.
It's what the American Dream is made of.
Were it not for the 14th Amendment,
I would not be a citizen
of the United States.
Without the 14th Amendment,
marriage equality
probably still wouldn't exist.
I am married to a white man,
which would not at all be possible
without the 14th Amendment.
The fundamental promise
that the 14th Amendment presents to us
is the promise of a society of equals.
Growing up in Philly,
my family was no stranger
to the inequalities in this country.
But, despite their struggles,
my parents and grandparents
believed wholeheartedly
in the promise of America,
and I've seen firsthand
how the 14th Amendment
lays out the path
towards the American Dream.
At the heart of the 14th Amendment
is the definition
of citizenship in America.
It is through this definition
that all the rights we cherish
are granted and defended.
To tell this story,
we've got to go back to a time
before the 14th Amendment existed,
before slavery was abolished in America.
We begin with one man,
Frederick Douglass.
You may have heard his name before,
but he is so much more
than his killer fro.
♪ I don't know 'bout y'all… ♪
Frederick Douglass is born into slavery
at a time when slavery has been
a part of this land for almost 200 years.
♪ It's just sweat and tears ♪
♪ Mixed drippin' down my ears… ♪
No one would expect Douglass
to gain his freedom,
much less lead a revolution.
Despite the risk of beatings or worse,
Douglass breaks the law
by teaching himself to read.
And even though his first attempts
to escape slavery fail,
he doesn't give up.
By the time he's 20 years old,
he successfully escapes to New York City.
That's where we meet him.
"I'm in the great city of New York,
safe and sound.
Walking amid the hurrying throng
and gazing amid
the dazzling wonders of Broadway.
Dreams of my childhood now fulfilled.
A free state around me,
and free earth under my feet."
"What a moment."
When Frederick Douglass
arrives in the streets of lower Manhattan
an escaped slave,
he at first
feels this indescribable euphoria.
Breathing free air
for the first time in his life.
He tried to escape slavery before
and now he seems to finally
have achieved his freedom.
And he bumps into this guy
that he knows from Maryland
who was also enslaved there,
who Douglass knows as Jake.
The guy says,
"That's not who I am anymore."
He says, "I'm William Dixon in New York."
That Mr. Dixon tells him,
"Don't trust anybody.
Don't trust me. I don't trust you.
Anyone here can betray you."
Dixon tells Douglass to
"keep your eyes peeled for slave catchers.
Be on your guard."
Also, there are histories
of Black and white slave-catching rings.
It's really simple.
Douglass is worth a lot of money.
Legally, someone owns him,
and legally that person
has a claim on them,
can send out slave catchers
in pursuit of this property that they own.
A price on their body,
a price on their very existence.
In the moment of his freedom,
he realizes he's not free.
Now, just because your society and laws
don't recognize you as a citizen,
it doesn't mean that a person,
throughout time,
doesn't declare
that they have those rights.
Douglass was certainly one of those
who claimed every right as a citizen,
despite the fact
that the laws of his country denied them.
Prior to the 14th Amendment,
there is an open and notorious question,
what makes one
a citizen of the United States?
For African Americans,
citizenship is a hotly debated,
highly contentious,
and very messy question.
Citizenship is the right to have rights.
You have the right
to participate, the right to vote,
you've got the right
to call on the government
and also to get protections
against the government.
All the things that we naturally
take for granted,
the benefit of all the laws,
protection from violence,
people prosecuted
if they do something to us.
If you're not a citizen,
then you can't take advantage of those.
"I spent the day gathering flowers
and weaving them into festoons
while the dead body of my father
was lying within a mile of me.
What cared my owners for that?
He was merely a piece of property.
Moreover, they thought he had
spoiled his children
by teaching them
to feel that they were human beings.
This was blasphemous doctrine
for a slave to teach.
Presumptuous in him,
and dangerous to the masters.
You never knew what it is to be a slave.
To be entirely unprotected
by law or custom.
To have the laws reduce you
to the condition of a chattel.
Entirely subject to the will of another."
There were people who said,
"Citizenship belongs only to
white people."
The United States of America did not
intend for people of color
to be included in that definition.
Remarkably, the founders don't
think very hard about citizenship at all.
The original Constitution is kind
of silent on the subject of citizenship.
It doesn't have any statement of how
someone becomes a citizen,
or who is a citizen or who isn't.
In that space
of having this undefined term, "citizen,"
racism was allowed to flourish.
"All men are created equal"
is a founding ideal
of the United States Constitution.
We today understand that it was an ideal
kind of embedded in the Constitution,
but not at all a reality.
The Constitution talks a big game
about freedom.
Blah, blah, liberty, blah, blah,
more perfect union,
but it also has
the Three-Fifths Compromise.
It starts off fine.
We're basing representatives
on total number of free persons.
Cool, cool.
Excluding "Indians." Not cool.
And three-fifths of all "other persons."
"Other persons" is the Constitutional way
of saying "urban."
Now imagine that. Three-fifths a person?
No, nothing to see here,
just fractioning humanity.
How did this happen?
Well, the South
wanted more representation,
so they argued that slaves
deserve representation, but not rights.
Um, you just fought a revolutionary war
about all this mess.
How do you not see the irony in that?
The majority of the first 16 presidents
were slave owners.
No wonder slavery didn't just die out
on its own.
And it also gave slaveholders
a legal argument
that the Constitution approves of slavery,
of treating human beings
like property before the law.
We had the country founded on
both the Declaration of Independence
and the institution of slavery.
And so for enslaved persons,
they're citizens
in the sense of being humans
of moral worth and dignity,
but they weren't citizens
in the legal sense.
Some abolitionists,
like Frederick Douglass,
have this dangerous idea
that enslaved people
are actually citizens.
So, what's next?
They set out to see if they can
stir up public support for this idea.
Blacks born free in the North,
like Frances Harper,
share the story of oppression
through essays and poetry.
"We are all bound up together
in one great bundle of humanity,
and society cannot trample
on the weakest of its members
without receiving the curse
in its own soul."
They also, like Maria Stewart,
lecture publicly on anti-slavery.
"It is not the color of the skin
that makes the man,
but it is the principles
formed within the soul."
Harriet Jacobs
and her brother John Jacobs
expose their experiences with slavery
to provoke Americans into action.
"All men are created free and equal
by their maker
and endowed with certain
inalienable rights.
Where are the Colored man's rights
in today's America?"
The abolitionist movement
is a fascinating part of American history
that people don't fully understand,
in part because it was so diverse.
One branch of the abolitionist movement
really believed the Constitution is evil,
the Constitution is pro-slavery.
They said that the US Constitution
was a covenant with death
and an agreement with Hell.
They said what needed to happen
was a destruction of the Constitution.
"Let's dissolve the Union."
But there was another wing.
And the most famous member of that
was Frederick Douglass.
Douglass' first autobiography
is certainly a risky project.
Risky as an enslaved person,
as a fugitive,
to advertise oneself.
He himself is still,
in a formal legal sense, a slave.
He is a person with a price,
rather than a free man.
It became a classic
instantaneously, and it still is.
It's read all over the world.
It was critical at that time
to have someone like Frederick Douglass,
a Black man who had been a slave,
who could talk personally
about the experience of slavery,
who could talk about it
from a human dimension.
He often said that
his greatest fear during slavery
was less the danger to his body
than the danger to his mind.
The internalization of the idea
that some people
are somehow born to be free,
and others are born to be slaves.
There is a moment
in his first autobiography
where he just stops, asking…
"Why am I a slave?"
It's an ancient,
existential question.
"Why am I a slave?
When these other white children I see
are free to grow up,
free to have books, free to be educated,
free to roam and travel.
Why am I a slave?"
He's felt what it's like,
the brutality of enslavement,
the exploitation.
He has decided that he's going to fight.
♪ I've been low… ♪
He travels all over the world
speaking about his experience as a slave,
speaking about the need for Black freedom.
That is the cause
to which he devotes his life.
He had a talent,
a gift to get up and speak.
Probably the greatest orator
of the 19th century.
♪ I'm a Black man in a white world… ♪
He was so impressive
that the Southern apologists
kept spreading rumors
that he'd never been a slave,
that he'd been brought in
from some other country,
that he was an actor.
There's no question
about whether he wrote it.
From 1848 on, he continues
to bolster his public profile.
He publishes The North Star,
really incredibly popular
among white abolitionists.
There's this argument
that Douglass is making,
that he'll continue to make,
for a transition from slave to citizen.
♪ Oh, it's all right
I'm a Black man in a white world… ♪
1852, Frederick Douglass is
probably the most famous Black person
in the world.
He understood that what he said
was tremendously consequential
for the strategy that would be taken
by the anti-slavery movement.
His argument was the Constitution
is an anti-slavery document,
it's pro-freedom.
He thought that the United States,
with its Declaration of Independence
and with its revolutionary tradition,
that slavery was not something
that should be tolerated.
According to Douglass,
the Founding Fathers had not
created a document that enshrined slavery,
but in fact had created a document
that guaranteed to every man
the right of self-governance,
of liberty, and of human rights.
He did believe, and wanted to believe,
that people like him really were part
of the national community.
The Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society
of Rochester, New York
invited Frederick Douglass
to speak on the 4th of July.
Six hundred people
came to Corinthian Hall for this event.
But his audience was not just
the 600 people in the hall that day.
His audience was us.
His audience was the future.
Let me set the stage.
Those 600 people in the audience
are mostly white men and women.
They generally agree
with Frederick Douglass.
But Douglass knows there's a difference
between agreeing in theory
and understanding deeply
the reality on the ground.
In order to really make them see,
he's got to tell them the truth
about themselves…
…in 1852.
This could get interesting.
"Fellow citizens,
the signers of the Declaration
of Independence were brave men.
Your fathers succeeded.
And today, you reap the fruits
of that success."
Douglass makes his audience
feel very comfortable
about the Fourth of July.
He says the Founding Fathers
were geniuses.
They created this beautiful thing
called the American Republic.
It's a very calm opening.
And then there's a moment where he says,
"Pardon me."
"Why am I called upon to speak here today?
What have I, or those who I represent,
to do with your national independence?
The Fourth of July is yours, not mine.
You may rejoice.
I must mourn.
Do you mean, citizens, to mock me
by asking me to speak here today?"
And then he blasts away at his audience
with a litany of the terrors and horrors
of the slave trade,
slave auctions in the American South.
He makes his audience
feel their own senses.
He tells them what the hold
of a slave ship smelled like.
He tells them the sounds and the feelings
of a woman weeping
as her child was sold.
He takes them to the horrible heart
of what slavery actually is.
"To rob them of their liberty,
to work them without wages,
to beat them with sticks,
to flay their flesh with lash,
to knock out their teeth,
to burn their flesh.
Your shouts of liberty and equality,
your sermons and thanksgivings
are mere hypocrisy.
There is not a nation on Earth
guilty of practices
more shocking and bloody
than are the people of the United States
at this very hour."
Hmm.
He's speaking to the people who are…
on his side, and saying,
"You're not on my side enough.
You're not doing enough to fight slavery.
It's 1852.
I've been free for 14 years,
but this is still going on."
This is a nation that's supposed to be
built around freedom,
built around concepts of human equality.
As long as slavery persists,
the nation is a lie.
"America is false to the past,
false to the present,
and solemnly binds herself
to be false to the future.
Allow me to say in conclusion,
I do not despair of this country.
The doom of slavery is certain
and I therefore leave off where I began…
…with hope."
I think he considers himself a citizen.
The question is whether the government
considers him a citizen.
That's really the key thing.
I think for so many people,
so many African Americans,
we've always thought of ourselves
as citizens,
always thought about the United States
as being our country.
The question's whether the country
has thought about us that way back.
The United States Supreme Court
is housed in this magnificent
white marble edifice.
Equal Justice Under Law.
The language of the Constitution
isn't always crystal clear.
And that's one reason why
we have the Supreme Court.
Part of its job is to interpret,
to help make sense
of what the Constitution means
and then hold us all accountable to it.
It's our third branch of government
and the ultimate authority
of our judicial system.
So, what did the Supreme Court have to say
about who is
or is not an American citizen?
Eighteen fifty-seven,
Dred Scott versus Sandford.
Dred Scott's the worst decision
ever made by the Supreme Court.
The only debate is
if it's the worst or second worst.
Dred Scott is enslaved to a surgeon.
The surgeon had brought Scott on a job
from the slave state of Missouri
into Wisconsin, which was a free state.
Later, back in Missouri, the doctor died.
Eventually,
Scott goes to the Supreme Court
arguing that once he had
lived in a free state,
he was no longer property,
and became a free citizen.
If the Court rules in favor of Dred Scott,
enslaved people would have a clear path
to become free citizens.
If they rule against, the door is closed.
"We think Negroes are not included,
and were not intended to be included
under the word 'citizens'
in the Constitution,
and can therefore
claim none of the rights and privileges
which that instrument provides for
and secures to the citizens
of the United States."
The Court says, "We're going to
go back to the framing of the Constitution
and ask ourselves,
'What did those people intend in 1787?'
It's obvious to me,
Roger B. Taney,
they didn't want Black people
as part of their country.
They didn't put it in the Constitution
because it would never occur to them
that anyone would be stupid enough
to allow non-whites
into the American body politic."
"They had for more than a century been
regarded as beings of an inferior order
and altogether unfit
to associate with the white race.
And so far inferior
that they had no rights
which the white man was bound to respect."
Its rhetoric is bone-chilling.
African Americans are indeed not citizens.
Never were, never can be.
It affirmed the idea that,
no matter what their status,
free or enslaved, Black people
were not equal to white people.
They were not fully human.
They were not evolved.
The Dred Scott case announces
that Black people can never
be citizens of the United States.
Dred Scott himself
never even had the right to sue.
Frederick Douglass had insisted
anti-slavery politics could
operate in harmony with the Constitution.
But the Court seemed
to leave no way forward.
They said, "No, the Constitution
is completely pro-slavery."
The Constitution
is totally anti-Douglass, if you will.
Citizenship, it's the locus of rights.
After Dred Scott,
Douglass can never
be part of this community,
never be an American citizen.
So, the question then became,
"What's the next step?"
The South wants the stamp
of national approval on slavery.
They can't have it.
Lincoln was a big critic
of that case.
That was partly what he ran on.
If it were not for
the reaction to Dred Scott,
many people think that he would not
have become the president.
And you will be the greatest president
in our history.
Lincoln also saw the country
moving to fight over this question
of the legality of slavery.
So, Lincoln understands
that slavery is bad,
which is a good start,
but…
…he says that,
"If I could save the Union
without freeing any slaves,
I would do so."
If the Civil War is over slavery,
then why doesn't Lincoln immediately
free all the enslaved people in the South?
Because his goal is preserving the Union.
The South has just seceded.
They're calling themselves
the Confederacy now.
Lincoln is not going to be the president
that straight-up loses half the country.
He has got to get the South back,
and at this point,
he'll do whatever it takes to win,
even if it's at the expense
of Black Americans.
In the midst of all the chaos,
Abraham Lincoln invited a small group
of African American leaders
to the White House.
He had stenographers
and the press there to record this,
and in effect Lincoln did not
have a discussion with them,
he gave them a lecture.
"Your race are suffering,
in my judgment,
the greatest wrong inflicted
on any people.
But even when you cease to be slaves,
you are yet far removed from being placed
on an equality with the white race."
I do not like where this is going.
"Consider what we know to be the truth.
But for your race among us,
there could not be war."
He basically blames the presence
of Black people in America
for the Civil War,
and then he wants to get them
to endorse a plan to quote-unquote
colonize freed Black people
outside the United States.
"There is an unwillingness
on the part of our people,
harsh as it may be,
for you free Colored people
to remain with us.
It is better for us both,
therefore, to be separated."
Whoa, time out.
You're Abraham Lincoln, right?
The dude on the penny?
Okay, keep going.
He's saying, "We all understand
that equality is what this country
is supposed to be about,
but, really, racial equality
is not going to happen.
So, get with the program."
"The place I'm thinking about
having for a colony is Central America."
What? Wait.
The enlightened, progressive president
who ultimately ended slavery
first wanted to send Black Americans
to Costa Rica?
¿Por qué?
Douglass is… He's outraged.
Part of what Lincoln is doing here is
trying to get at that gnawing uncertainty
in Black people
that maybe we can't actually
belong in this country.
This is what African Americans
fear might be their fate,
if in fact they are not citizens.
Douglass responded, "No,
it is not the presence of Black people.
It is slavery and the power
that slave owners have,
and the way it warps the whole society.
That is the cause of the Civil War."
This was all in the midst,
we have to remember, of all-out Civil War.
And that summer,
his side is not winning the war.
In a war like that,
you needed every soldier you could get.
But the government kept insisting
that Blacks couldn't be in the militia.
They couldn't be in the regular army.
"They're savages. They'll run amok.
You give them arms, they'll massacre
every white person they see."
"Why does the government
reject the Negro?
Is he not a man?"
Our generals are calling for men.
'Send us men, ' they scream.
I have implored the imperiled nation
to unchain against her foes
her powerful Black hand.
Liberty won by white men
would lose half its luster.
Who would be free themselves
must strike the blow."
Douglass makes the case
that if Black men go to war
and bleed for their country,
that they could never then
be denied the rights of citizenship.
He makes that point explicitly.
He toured the country
giving speeches.
You couldn't win the war
without abolishing slavery.
You couldn't win the war
without enlisting Black soldiers
into the Civil War, into the Union Army.
He's trying to manipulate Lincoln
to invite Black people
to join this fight
against the slave owners.
Douglass is convinced
they will prove they are citizens,
that they're deserving of rights,
and that they're deserving of
legal equality.
He couldn't at this point
really conceive of the United States
as a biracial society,
but his views will begin to move forward
very, very dramatically.
Finally, Frederick Douglass' efforts work.
Desperate for soldiers, Lincoln signs
the Emancipation Proclamation,
freeing enslaved Americans
in the Southern states.
Now Black men can join the Union Army.
These Black soldiers get to prove
what Frederick Douglass
has been saying all along.
They want to fight for their freedom.
♪ Our world ♪
♪ Yeah, the whole world's ours ♪
♪ Our world ♪
♪ It's time we show 'em the power
The world is ours, uh ♪
The Emancipation Proclamation
is a critical turning point in the war,
adding, by the end, 200,000 Black men
to the Union Army and Navy.
It was not just a war of small battles
and regular armies fighting.
It was mass armies, both North and South.
The Emancipation Proclamation
is issued as a military order.
It's to help win the war.
♪ This is our world ♪
We were supposed to be lazy,
we were supposed to be cowardly
and undisciplined.
And so to have African Americans serve,
and serve nobly,
was such a powerful riposte
to those narratives
that were being advanced.
♪ They feelin' us now, uh ♪
It was powerful for Black people
to be on the front, to shed blood.
Black service in the military
began to change white racial attitudes.
Many, many Northerners, who had never
thought about Blacks as being citizens,
believed that,
by their service in the Army,
they have earned the right
to be equal citizens of the United States.
Two of Douglass' sons serve in
the 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry.
He saw the tremendous
real and symbolic power
of Black men putting, as he said,
the label "U.S." on their belt.
"We want a country which shall not brand
the Declaration of Independence as a lie.
The mission of this war
is national regeneration."
Since the start of the war,
Douglass is saying that the war
would not only transform
Black people's lives,
but transform the United States
as a whole.
"We are not fighting
for the old Union as it was,
but for something 10,000 times
more important.
And that thing, crisply rendered,
is national unity.
A unity of which the great principles
of liberty and equality
and not slavery and class superiority
are the cornerstone."
He's defining the Civil War.
The country is destined.
That it's essential that the country
will live up to the creed
of its founding documents.
The war must end not only
with the defeat of the Confederacy,
but with a new nation being created,
one based now on equality.
Part of the hardship
of the Civil War
is seeing how many people are dying,
and Lincoln is having
to grapple with the question of why.
"Four score and seven years ago,
our fathers brought forth
on this continent a new nation,
conceived in liberty,
and dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal."
A way to think about Gettysburg
is that it's an echo
of what Douglass has been saying.
Emancipation is the definition
of the war effort.
"This nation under God
shall have a new birth of freedom."
Lincoln's most famous line here,
"A new birth of freedom."
That's something that Douglass had been
saying since the start of the war.
And that's rhetoric not that dissimilar
from what Douglass talks about,
national regeneration,
a new birth of freedom.
Both of them now are seeing the Civil War
as creating something new.
"And that government of the people,
by the people, for the people
shall not perish from the Earth."
Part of what he's doing
in Gettysburg is helping himself
grapple with the tragedy,
the human cost of the war.
If this is a war about the Union,
then maybe too many people have died.
But if this is a war about emancipation,
if this is a war for Black freedom,
uh, then maybe Gettysburg is worth it.
This is where I think Lincoln
becomes so compelling,
is that you really see…
how much a person can change.
For Lincoln to go from urging colonization
to talking about Black people's future
is incredible.
I think they came
to respect one another very deeply.
They were both self-made men.
Lincoln had one year of formal schooling.
Douglass had none.
Both of them had risen to prominence
through their wits, through their mind.
Whatever they became,
they made themselves into,
and I think they were kind of
kindred spirits in that respect.
Douglass is feeling
really optimistic
that he can continue to work with Lincoln
toward a Black American future.
On April 9th, 1865,
General Lee of the Confederacy
surrenders to the Union,
marking the beginning of the end
of the Civil War.
Sometimes history appoints certain people,
like Douglass,
to be the voice of a movement,
and when they can find an advocate
like President Lincoln,
who's willing to listen and change,
its incredible to see what those leaders
can accomplish together.
Unfortunately, history can also
cut those relationships tragically short.
In celebration of Lee's surrender,
Lincoln gave a speech
to say that African American soldiers
who had served in the Union Army
ought to be given the right to vote.
One of the people in the crowd that day
listening to the speech
was John Wilkes Booth.
Booth was upset
at the idea of equal citizenship,
and he turned to a friend and said,
"That's the last speech
that he'll ever make."
Eight months
after Lincoln's assassination,
the 13th Amendment is ratified,
finally abolishing slavery
and permanently freeing
every enslaved person in America.
But freedom isn't the end of the story.
We think of the assassination of Lincoln
as a great tragedy, and it is,
but the real tragedy is
that his assassination means
that the presidency
passes to Andrew Johnson.
"This is a country for white men,
and, by God, as long as I am president,
it shall be a government for white men."
He is reactionary,
he is racist, he is bigoted.
He is as far from Lincoln
as the sun is from the moon.
He loved the idea of big rallies.
He loved to get up and make long speeches,
largely about himself.
I think we've all seen political figures
like this at various points in history.
Once he becomes president,
he more or less says upfront
that his goal is to prevent
the dilution of citizenship.
Frederick Douglass
went to the White House
to visit this president.
It was a terrible moment.
Andrew Johnson makes very clear
that he thinks that Frederick Douglass
is beneath him.
He thinks Black people
should be grateful to him.
"I've owned slaves,
and I have bought slaves,
but I've never sold one.
Practically, so far as my connection
with slaves has gone,
I've been their slave
instead of their being mine."
After the meeting with Douglass,
Johnson said to his secretary…
"I know that damn Douglass.
He's like any other nigger.
He would sooner
cut a white man's throat than not."
You're not likely to get Andrew Johnson
supporting vigorous enforcement
of the rights of the former slaves,
which of course he did not do.
I get it. Johnson's a racist,
but a racist president
shouldn't hurt Black people
now that slavery's been abolished.
If you hated Black people so much,
you shouldn't have joined the Union.
Too late now.
Hold up, just because you're free,
doesn't mean you're a citizen,
and without citizenship,
Black folks have no recourse against
Southern attacks on Black freedom.
As soon as the 13th is passed,
state legislatures across the South
pass Black Codes.
While the name Black Code sounds like
an amazing new Shonda Rhimes show,
uh-uh, it's anything but.
We're talking about laws.
See, many of these laws
require Black people and only Black people
to sign year-long labor contracts
with white employers,
and tax them up to $100
for taking employment
as anything other than
a farmer or servant.
And they even force Black children
into mandatory "apprenticeships"
to keep them in the labor force. Kids!
Sure, while the North is outraged,
these Southern legislatures basically say,
"What are you talking about?
Black Codes aren't slavery.
- It's an entirely different word.
- It's two words, even.
And look. They're getting paid now."
Right.
But guess what happens if a Black person
refuses these new restrictions?
What happened if they tried
to exercise their freedom?
Well, they could be taken to jail
and surprise, surprise, forced into labor…
without pay.
The New York Herald Tribune
even runs this headline:
"South Carolina Re-establishing Slavery."
Can you imagine?
Black folks just fought, and won,
an entire war for their freedom,
and this is what they get?
The 13th Amendment isn't gonna cut it.
Question is, what will?
Enter John Bingham, an Ohio Congressman.
Bingham believes in freedom for everyone.
True freedom.
"I take exception to the abuse
of the word 'nigger.'
To me, it does not denote color of skin,
but designates a class of creatures
by the color of their souls.
Those who set their feet
upon defenseless fellow men
and convert them
into what we call a 'slave.'
These man-stealers,
though their skins
be as white as the driven snow,
are the real niggers."
He's looking at what's happening
in the South, like,
"Y'all,
it's not looking too good down there."
He's like, "We have to do something.
We have to amend the Constitution.
Provide them equal citizenship."
John Bingham, among others,
led the way to argue for
and craft the heart of the 14th Amendment.
What Bingham wants is to do
exactly what Frederick Douglass called for
in his Fourth of July speech:
Make America live up to its promise,
to expand American citizenship
in the Constitution,
to right the wrongs of Dred Scott
and secure the blessings of equality
for all in writing
so no one can ever take them away.
To do that, Bingham
and a group of radical Republicans
build 14 to include many of the rights
that were denied to Black Americans.
And they fight to make 14
a constitutional amendment.
That's important, because they understand
that they won't always be in charge.
The next guys might want it gone.
Now, amendments
are extremely difficult to pass,
but they're also very hard to get rid of.
And Bingham succeeds.
In 1868, the 14th Amendment
officially becomes
a part of the Constitution.
And it proves that the United States
is on board
with this new mission of equality for all.
"All persons born or naturalized
in the United States
and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,
are citizens of the United States
and of the state wherein they reside."
If you look at the language,
it's quite striking.
"Person born in the United States,"
and there's no other restriction.
It doesn't say a white person
born in the United States.
Therefore,
people of African descent are citizens.
"No state shall make or enforce any law
which shall abridge the privileges
or immunities of citizens
of the United States."
What this means
is that the first eight amendments
to the US Constitution,
what we call the Bill of Rights,
all citizens have those rights,
and have them against state governments
as well as the federal government.
"Nor shall any state deprive any person
of life, liberty, or property
without due process of law."
Black people,
from the Antebellum Period,
have been trying to use courts
to get what they want.
They want to be able to defend themselves
against violence.
And now the 14th Amendment says that,
yes, you can go to court
if something happens.
"Nor deny to any person
within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the laws."
Citizenship becomes
so clearly delineated
that citizenship was automatic,
that full citizenship,
not three-fifths, not conditional...
The moment you breathe that first breath
of American air, you're an American.
If you are born here, you are
born with all of the liberties
and the protections of US citizenship.
It overturns
the Dred Scott decision,
which said Black people
could not be citizens,
no matter where they were born,
even if they'd been here for generations.
The 14th Amendment is absolutely pivotal.
in moving us from a white male nation
into a future in which
there was a possibility
for diversity within our democracy.
The 14th Amendment also
includes the first time that the word…
"equal" is used in the Constitution.
And it becomes enshrined
in our Constitution.
In a lot of ways
our country wasn't founded in 1776.
It was founded when John Bingham
and the Congress passes the 14th Amendment
because that's the modern Constitution.
Douglass and others recognize
that the 14th Amendment has
changed the way
the nation's laws will work.
It's not viewed uncritically,
but it is cause of tremendous celebration.
This is a moment of incredible optimism.
African Americans are
filled with this excitement
about what it means to be full citizens.
After the passage of the 14th Amendment,
there is this belief and excitement
that we've hit the reset button
on a badly mismanaged project…
…and America is now
going to step into her own.
One of the biggest successes
is the flourishing of Black education.
People in the South
build up institutions
for their own education
because of the importance of literacy.
Black people spend a few million dollars
of their own money for education,
and these are people in the South
who had no money.
Frederick Douglass,
you just say his name,
and to me it's like a prayer.
He was remarkable
in that he had an aptitude
that could not be contained.
He didn't want Black people
to just be free from slavery.
He wanted them to be full citizens.
What an extraordinary man and human being.
"I seem to be living in a new world.
Who could have imagined what has occurred?
The great triumph of justice and liberty,
not only for the slaves emancipated,
but a Civil Rights bill,
the right to vote.
All for a class stigmatized
but a little while ago
as worthless goods and chattel,
but now regarded as men,
recognized as such before the law."
Frederick Douglass.
Enslaved person,
fugitive,
free non-citizen,
citizen.
But his incredible journey
doesn't end there.
Throughout his long life,
Frederick Douglass would
continue to champion the rights
of Black Americans, women, and immigrants,
and the impact of his fight
has echoed through generations.
Even today.
♪ Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, hey, hey… ♪
These images
show the crane and a flatbed truck
removing the statue of Roger B. Taney
in the wee hours of the morning Friday.
So he said Blacks were so far inferior
that they had "no rights
which the white man was bound to respect."
So we asked that night
for forgiveness and…
the Scotts embraced us and forgave us.
There were people in my family who said,
"I don't know if I want
to meet those people."
And the unexpected and impromptu apology
was given.
I have cousins who were in tears.
When that starts to happen
and you get to level of understanding
and relationship,
other things become possible.
We can all do something like that.
If the Scotts and the Taneys
can reconcile, can't you?
We talk about equality
a lot in America.
We talk about justice.
We have a Pledge of Allegiance
that has these words,
and the 14th Amendment
was intended to make that vision real.
What we didn't account for…
is how unprepared we were
to actually embrace true equality.
I pledge that I will never accept
the false teachings
that all races equal or the same.
- No justice!
- No peace!
All we say to America is,
be true to what you said on paper.
As soon as the 14th is ratified,
it's attacked.
In the courts, in the streets,
even in our history books.
Why haven't we learned the story
of the 14th Amendment?
Because there are a lot of people
out there who fought very hard
to make sure you'd never know.