Colored_Citizens_Expanded_Visual_Presentation

We explore the Constitution and the challenges faced by colored citizens, examining foundational contradictions, racial hierarchy, resistance, and democratic repair.Our presentation roadmap guides you through five key areas: Promise, Contradiction, Adaptation, Analysis, and finally, our Proposal.The central claim is that the Constitution allowed for slavery and inequality. Reforms expanded rights, but racial hierarchy persisted through institutions, law, and policy. We argue equality needs to be enforceable.The national promise of natural rights centered on human equality, legitimate government, and democratic ideals like life, liberty, and happiness. But the central question was, who truly counted?Liberty and slavery were intertwined in the political order. The Three-Fifths Compromise, delayed international slave trade prohibition, and fugitive-slave provisions protected racial slavery.We delve into the ideology that justified this. While universal language spoke of liberty, a hierarchy based on racial difference translated into unequal power and control.Post-emancipation, constitutional changes expanded citizenship. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments abolished slavery, established citizenship, and prohibited voting denial based on race.However, racial hierarchy adapted after emancipation through Black Codes, convict leasing, Jim Crow, disfranchisement, and racial terror, weakening Black citizenship.We apply Charles Mills' framework of the racial contract, examining how institutions, knowledge, and personhood standards embed racial hierarchy politically, economically, epistemologically, and morally.Resistance movements, like those led by David Walker and W.E.B. Du Bois, organized and demanded citizenship, challenging the idea that freedom depended on white permission.