What Role Did the Freedmans Bureau Teachers Play in Reconstruction - Essay Example

One of the early demands of the freed slaves after the war was the right to education. This was heard by the Northern commanders occupying the South - and this led to the Port Royal Experiment. Furthermore, one of these Freedmen teachers, Mary Peake put up a school in 1861 in Virginia. 2. What was the Supreme Court Decision concerning segregation in the case, Plessy V. Ferguson? What was the Supreme Court Decision concerning segregation in the case, Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas?

The Supreme Court, accordingly after the Civil War, ruled in favor of the segregation policy in the South, where public places were segregated into different areas for blacks and whites. The rule being followed was "separate but equal" doctrine. In Plessy V. Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruled that Homer Plessy, who was colored yet by blood lineage, more white than black, was fallacious in his thinking by refusing to ride a train coach for colored people in Louisiana because in his view it rendered black people inferior.

In its decision, the Supreme Court ruled implicitly that inferiority is a matter of feeling or point of view - "it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put the construction upon it". In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Supreme Court, on the other hand, ruled against the segregation policy, when it said that segregation had no place in public education - "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal". The case arose as black children challenged the decision of the Topeka Board that put up separate facilities for black and white children. 3. What was the difference in their view of native Americans between men authors and women diarists Men and women authors differed when it came to the portrayal of Native Americans.

Men authors, who were white, were coming from a point of view on which American Indians were the enemies and white men who searched and fought for settlement areas in the West, were the heroes. Their source of information was their experience as white men and those of others who were also like them, white men. They, of course, emphasized that part of history when men had to conquer the lands, and in that way gave focus to the danger and treachery posed by the native Americans who were the enemies and of the heroic adventures of the settlers.

This point of view became the basis for the hostile policy against native Americans. Women authors, on the other hand, saw behind the wagon train tales of hostile action and adventure. American Indians, according to the diaries and recollection of women were recorded as friendly and of service. It was as not much of the danger posed by the native American that the women authors spoke of - but of other difficulties such as disease, drowning, and death in the move towards the West. Moreover, the women authors portrayed men who were their husbands as not necessarily good hunters or providers.

They humanized their men.