Freedom Freedom

Freedom is a term that many believe to be inherent and God-given. Numerous others believe freedom is something that is exclusive to certain races, genders, or sects of society. The truth is that the term freedom has varied greatly throughout the history of the United States, especially during the first half of the twentieth century. Freedom in the United States has changed in definition, expanded and contracted, and has had unprecedented consequences-- both good and bad-- on society. There are numerous reasons for why these changes have taken place and they are all connected to peoples outlook on each other and on themselves. The complications of how the definition of freedom affects us all begins with the definition of freedom itself.

When most people think of freedom, the first thing they think of is slavery. But freedom is so much more than simply lacking physical bonds. Freedom is a place where all persons could worship as they pleased, enjoyed economic opportunity, and had been emancipated from the oppressive social hierarchies of their homelands.1 According to this definition, every person should be allowed to live free of oppressive laws that seek to hinder ones beliefs. Freedom should also involve economic stability and separation from social inequalities. According to John Mitchell He is not a free man whose family must buy food today with the money thats earned tomorrow. He is not 1 Eric Foner, Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History(New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2008), 82 1

Freedom really free who is forced to work unduly long hours and for wages so low that he can not provide the necessaries of life for himself and his family.2 This quote took place during the progressive era when poverty was widespread, and millions of men, women, and children(including a vast number of immigrants) lived life day to day in an attempt to survive. This outlook on freedom is also economic in that people who are daily constrained to work for the majority of the day just to go home, sleep, and get up to work all day again is not truly living but rather is surviving. Another aspect of freedom is that of political freedom.

One of the greatest examples of political freedom is the struggle for womens rights. Behold our Uncle Sam floating the banner with one hand, Taxation without representation is tyranny, and with the other seizing the billions of dollars paid in taxes by women to whom he refuses representation.3 This quote by Carrie Catt(during World War one) was an argument for womens right to vote based on the fact that women paid just as much taxes as men. Catt went on to argue that women pull their own part in society just as much as men do and therefore women deserve to vote just as men get to vote. Women did obtain the right to vote but only after years of fighting sexist males who viewed women as inferior to men. Once again it is clear that the definition of freedom derives from the outlook of individuals in a society. The reason that women were not given many freedoms that men have such as certain jobs, participation in the military, 2 Foner, Voices of Freedom, 90 3 Foner, Voices of Freedom, 122 2

Freedom and voting is not because women are inferior to men, but because the society and culture of the time period viewed them as inferior to men and therefore undeserving of these freedoms. Womens struggle is similar to African americans struggle for freedom from segregation and the right to vote. Freedom therefore is not a concrete principle but is a concept that is ever changing just as society is ever changing.

Freedom is one of the ideas that the United States was founded upon. However, freedom has been constantly expanding and contracting ever since the United States began. Up until World War one, many groups such as African americans and immigrants were seeing an expansion of their freedoms and rights. When World War one struck however, there was widespread fear of communism and spies known as the red scare. In 1918, the Sedition Act made it a crime to make spoken or printed statements intended to cast contempt, scorn, or disrepute on the form of government or that advocated interference with the war effort.4 Over two thousand people were imprisoned during this era, many of whom were socialists. Many of these people were arrested with little supporting evidence. The most prominent was Eugene Debs who was the leader of the Socialist party at that time. In the court case, Debs defended himself by stating that he was to have the people understand something about the social system in which we live and to prepare them to change this system by perfectly peaceable and orderly means. Just like hundreds of others, Debs was sentenced to many years in prison(President Wilson released him after one year) for practicing the 4 Foner, Voices of Freedom, 126 3

Freedom so-called freedom of speech.Obviously this was an era of contraction of freedom and liberty. During World War two over one hundred and ten thousand Japanese-americans were removed from the west coast and placed in internment camps.5 The most famous case was that of Korematsu V United States. In this supreme court case, a JapaneseAmerican man named Fred Korematsu, who was born on American soil and was arrested for refusing to present himself for internment. In its ruling, the court stated that the internment policy was not based on race which was obviously false being that Japanese-Americans were the only ones forced into internment. This is yet another example of Americans suffering because of a social outlook on a particular race or group of society. There is obviously no internment camps or other race-based policies or laws today. This is yet another argument that freedom is based on what society thinks freedom is. Many groups have also seen an expansion of freedom.

One of the most well-known expansions of civil rights in history took place when desegregation of the public began in the 1950s. But even prior to desegregation, African americans were slowly but surely breaking their bonds of slavery-- both economically and politically. When blacks gained the right to vote, they were still not really free-- especially in the south where scare tactics and lynching were used to stop blacks from voting. African american freedom really started to take off during the great migration to the north when blacks were seeking industrial jobs and freedom from violent, racist whites in the south. It was in Harlem that the so-called new Negro was 5 Foner, Voices of Freedom, 224 4

Freedom born. The Harlem renaissance essentially attempted to unite African americans which meant the rejection of established stereotypes and a search for black values to put in their place.6 Even though the majority of blacks living in Harlem were poor, the artistic renaissance led to newfound confidence and a new reason to keep fighting for racial equality. Another huge factor in obtaining freedom for African americans was the document To Secure these Rights(1947). This document outlined the argument that We need more than protection of our rights against government; we need protection of our rights against private persons or groups seeking to undermine them.7 This was a huge step for African americans because what was truly infringing their rights and inhibiting their freedom were individual and local groups. Thousands of blacks in the south were lynched and brutally murdered for raping a white woman. The majority of these socalled rapes were backed by no evidence and basically just an excuse to kill a black man. To Secure these Rights set a precedent for aiding minorities at the local level instead of just signing a law and never enforcing it.

What ultimately matters is how the changing of freedom has affected the people of the United States today. The obvious affects are that we now have far more people voting, there are no more slaves, and there are many laws now set in place to protect the freedoms of individuals. But beyond the visible affects, there are many psychological affects that have deeply changed how we as Americans now view other people. It is 6 Foner, Voices of Freedom, 169 7 Foner, Voices of Freedom, 245 5

Freedom now seemingly easier to infringe upon the rights of others than to not infringe upon them. People in our modern culture seem to always think that their freedom is being hindered or abridged, and suing people in court is a common practice. Whether or not this sense of heightened awareness is good or bad is debatable. What is obvious is that the events of the past concerning the suffering of certain groups, such as African americans or Japanese-Americans, and the inequality between women and men have deeply scarred how our society looks at people today. It seems that in todays society, citizens are constantly watching out for groups, policies, and laws that would try to limit their freedom. In observing all that has happened concerning freedom with its expansions and contractions and changing in definition, one thing is for certain. Freedom is a living principle just as much as any human being, having the ability to change and adapt to what is around it, and it always will.

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