Final Blog Post

One thing I really wanted to talk about from this semester was the note taking style we used in this class. Professor Smith, you had us take notes word for word, exactly as you wrote them or said them, because that's what would be on the quizzes. And honestly, at first I thought it was pretty strict, I thought Why would he make us take these notes word for word, letter for letter. I didn't truly understand, but then I took the first quiz and realized that whatever was in my notes was the exact answer to the question. I talked to Professor Smith about this, and he told me that in law, everything is word for word, and one different word can change the meaning of the entire phrase.

As a pre-law student who wants to be a lawyer, I realized this is actually really valuable preparation. In law, everything has to be exact. You can't just paraphrase a contract or a statute because changing even one word can completely change the meaning. Like, legal documents are super specific for a reason, and if you're off by even a little bit, it can mean something totally different than what was intended.

Thats the thing about legal documents is that they are written the way they are for a reason. Every word is written the way it is and in the place it is in for a reason.  Lawyers have to quote cases accurately, draft documents where every word matters, and if you misquote something in court or in a brief, that can be a serious problem. You could lose a case or even face ethical consequences.

When having to write these notes down exactly as they were said or written, it not only allows me to get a good grade on the quiz, but it also prepares me for my future in law. Lawyers quote cases all the time, and when they do this, these quotes have to be accurate word for word, just like the notes we took in class. 

Learning this as a freshman is a big advantage, I'm building this habit now, early on. Most people don't develop this level of precision until law school, so I'm getting a head start on what will be expected of me professionally. Having this advantage going into Law school gives me one less step of the hard process that law school is. 

There were points this semester where I didn't see the point of the word for word notes and just wanted to write down the main points. But now I see that something I thought was annoying and tedious is now something that is going to give me a huge advantage and have a very good effect in my future. 

So I just wanted to say thank you, Professor Smith, for making the notes we took have to be word for word. But also for an amazing semester, this class has taught me so much more than I thought it would. This class and specifically the note taing has built habits and brought things to my attention that will help me tremendously in my future, not only as a lawyer but also as a person. 

Also im gonna need to start investing in some silver and gold rather than stocks. Maybe that will help me the most.

EOTO Post Brown v Board

Massive Resistance in Virginia

Image from Resistance in Virginia

The Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 declared school segregation unconstitutional, but the battle for integration had only just begun. Virginia's Massive Resistance campaign, led by Senator Harry F. Bar, resulted in laws that closed integrating public schools and funded private segregation academies instead. By 1958, multiple Virginia schools shut down rather than admit Black students, and while courts eventually struck down these measures, the resistance delayed integration for years.

Stand in the Schoolhouse Door

The Stand in the Schoolhouse Door at the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963, brought national attention to the ongoing struggle. Governor George Wallace physically blocked the entrance to Foster Auditorium to prevent Vivian Malone and James Hood from enrolling despite a federal court order. President Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard to force Wallace aside, demonstrating that federal enforcement was essential for civil rights progress.

The 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing

Image from the Bombing on 16th Street

The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham on September 15, 1963, revealed the brutal violence underlying segregationist resistance. A KKK bomb exploded during Sunday service preparation at 10:22 AM, killing four young girls instantly—Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carol Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley, ages 11-14. Over 20 others were injured in the attack, and 8,000+ people attended the
girls' funerals, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered moving eulogies calling them martyrs. Justice came slowly, with Robert Chambliss convicted in 1977 and Thomas Benton and Bobby Frank Cherry not convicted until 2001-2002.

Legislative Victories

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally provided comprehensive legal tools to combat discrimination. The 1964 Act prohibited discrimination in public accommodations, authorized desegregation lawsuits, and created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The 1965 Act banned discriminatory voting practices like literacy tests and poll taxes while requiring federal preclearance for voting law changes in states with discrimination history. These measures increased Black voter registration from 23% to 61%, fundamentally reshaping American democracy.

AI Disclosure- Claude AI was used to transform my notes from the EOTO presentations into a readable blog post. 

Brown v. Board The Constitutional Case Against School Segregation

In one of the most consequential arguments ever presented before the Supreme Court, attorneys challenging school segregation confronted a fundamental question: Can the government force children apart by race and still claim to offer equal protection under law? The answer, rooted in constitutional principle and supported by the Court's own precedents, was an emphatic no.

The Fatal Flaw in "Separate But Equal"

State-mandated segregation in public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Even Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 decision that established the "separate but equal" doctrine, acknowledged that laws cannot create systems marking one race as inferior. Yet segregated schools do exactly that—in function, in message, and in effect.

The Court's own decisions had already begun dismantling this framework. In Sweatt v. Painter, the justices recognized that educational equality depends on intangible elements: institutional prestige, the quality and diversity of the student body, and the freedom to engage meaningfully with peers and faculty. These essential advantages cannot exist in a system deliberately built on racial division.

When Separation Itself Becomes the Harm

The Court went even further in McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents. A Black graduate student was admitted to a white institution but forced into isolation—seated apart in classrooms, assigned to separate tables, given segregated library seating. The Court held that this treatment restricted his ability to learn and limited meaningful intellectual exchange, directly violating the Equal Protection Clause. The harm

flowed from the separation itself, regardless of the physical facilities provided.

Together, these cases established an unmistakable principle: segregation creates inequality that no amount of supposedly equal facilities can remedy. Education isn't defined solely by buildings or textbooks—it depends fundamentally on interaction, shared experiences, and equal access to every dimension of school life. Segregated schools deny Black children these essential opportunities by design, which cannot satisfy constitutional requirements of equality.

Dismantling State-Imposed Caste Systems

The Fourteenth Amendment was created to dismantle state-imposed caste systems following the Civil War. School segregation represents exactly that: a legal structure assigning Black children to a separate and lesser category, announcing through state authority that they don't belong. This message carries lasting educational, psychological, and civic consequences—all of which the Equal Protection Clause expressly forbids.

The Court had already rejected Plessy in higher education through Sweatt and McLaurin. The reasoning leads to one unavoidable conclusion: if separate is unequal for adults in universities, it's even more damaging for children. Young students' development, confidence, expectations, and sense of identity are shaped daily in the classroom during their most formative years. Segregated schools harm children precisely when they're most vulnerable to lasting damage.

The Constitutional Standard

When separation limits a child's ability to learn, grow, and participate fully
as a future citizen, the Constitution does not permit the state to enforce it. The Supreme Court ultimately agreed, recognizing that state-mandated racial segregation in public education violates fundamental constitutional guarantees. The principle remains clear: equal protection under law requires more than identical facilities—it demands genuine equality of opportunity, free from government-imposed racial hierarchies that mark any group as inherently inferior.

AI Disclosure- Claude AI was used to transform my script into a well-worded and easily readable blog post. I then read through the post to make sure it was correct and read well.  

In the Heat of the Night

After watching In the Heat of the Night in class, it became obvious that the idea of separate but equal never worked the way people thought it would. At the very beginning of the movie, you see Virgil Tibbs arrested on sight, with no evidence. He was arrested because he was Black and had money in his wallet. This shows how separate but equal wasn't equal at all because had Tibbs been white, he would have never gotten arrested, questioned, or even stopped in the first place.

Another moment in the movie that shows the failure of separate but equal is when Tibbs is questioning Mr. Endicott at his cotton plantation. When Detective Tibbs starts questioning Mr. Endicott, he is shocked and irritated that a black man is speaking to him as if they were equals. Mr. Endicott slaps Tibbs in the face and expects him to just take it, because that's how the system in Sparta worked at the time. When Tibbs slapped him back, it shows how fragile the entire system is. Mr. Endicott tears up after getting slapped, and this shows how he is realizing that the old world of total control he had is starting to fade away. This scene again shows that the idea of separate but equal didn't work as people thought, and that it
also wasn't equal at all. 

The changing relationship of Detective Tibbs and Chief Gillespie continues to show the problems with this separate but equal idea, but also shows the changes happening in society during this time. At the start of the movie, Gillespie wants absolutely nothing to do with Tibbs; he doubts and mocks Tibbs and even almost sends him out of town. But as the investigation goes on, they are forced to work together, and this causes Gillespie to realize that Tibbs is the smartest in the room and also the best detective in the room. A key moment that shows Gillespie starting to realize this is at the diner when he steps in to protect Tibbs from the men who were at the diner. This shows his views toward Tibbs starting to change, and while their relationship still isn't perfect, it is much better than at the beginning. Their relationship changing shows how society during this time is slowly having to accept that segregation is coming to an end, and they have to start recognizing Black people have abilities and can help society as well.

Overall, In the Heat of the Night makes it clear that the concept of separate but equal was never actually real, and the movie shows this through the characters in the movie and their relationships. From Tibbs being wrongfully arrested, to him going and talking to Mr. Endicott, and his changing relationship with Chief Gillespie. These three examples show the failure of the separate but equal theory, but also Tibbs' relationship with the chief changing, and the scene with Mr. Endicott shows the changes starting to take place, and the old views of black people not being equal starting to change, and whites being forced to accept that. At the end of the movie, it is obvious how separate but equal failed and how change is only going to happen if people challenge the current system.

Reconstruction's Unfinished Promise: From Hope to Betrayal

On June 17, 2015, a gunman walked into Emanuel AME Church in Charleston and joined a Bible study for an hour before opening fire, killing nine African American worshippers. The massacre, rooted in deep-seated hatred toward Black Americans, sparked a national conversation about race, violence, and justice. Yet to fully understand this tragedy's roots, we must look back to the era of Reconstruction—a period when the promise of equality briefly flickered before being systematically extinguished.

The War's End and the Fight for Freedom

When Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, it marked not just the end of the Civil War but the beginning of a profound question: what would become of four million formerly enslaved people? The answer to this question would shape American society for generations to come. Black Americans themselves had been instrumental in securing Union victory, with 180,000 men, most of them formerly enslaved, answering the call to fight for their own freedom. President Lincoln himself acknowledged that Black soldiers were crucial to abolishing slavery and winning the war.

In the immediate aftermath of the war, the federal government created the Freedmen's Bureau, an unprecedented federal agency tasked with managing the transition from slavery to freedom. The Bureau had access to considerable resources, including vast tracts of abandoned Confederate land. General William Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15 promised up to 40 acres to formerly enslaved families along the Atlantic coast—a policy that came to be known as "40 acres and a mule." This land redistribution represented more than economic opportunity; it symbolized true independence and the possibility of building generational wealth.

Johnson's Betrayal

However, these hopes were short-lived. After Lincoln's assassination, President Andrew Johnson, a white supremacist and former slaveholder, began systematically undermining Reconstruction efforts. Johnson pardoned Confederate leaders and returned confiscated land to former slave owners, betraying the freedpeople who had already begun farming their allocated plots. Freedpeople appealed to Johnson for justice, but their pleas went unanswered. The United States had squandered a historic opportunity to establish economic independence for formerly enslaved people. By 1866, Johnson had granted 7,000 presidential pardons to former Confederates, enabling them to reclaim property and political power.

The Black Codes and the Rise of Terror

The situation deteriorated further when Johnson's reconstructed state governments enacted Black Codes beginning in November 1865. Mississippi led the way, passing the first and harshest set of these laws. These codes, which spread throughout the South, required every adult Black person to sign a work contract with a white employer or face fines and imprisonment. The Mississippi Black Code also prohibited African Americans from owning firearms, renting land outside incorporated towns, and serving as witnesses against white people in court. The Ku Klux Klan emerged in Tennessee in 1866, coinciding with these repressive laws, and launched a campaign of terror against Black communities. African Americans were targeted for various reasons, including the "crime" of owning land or attempting to exercise their rights.

Massacres and the Path to Constitutional Change

The violence reached horrifying levels in Memphis on May 1, 1866, when white mobs and police rampaged through the streets, burning every Black church and school to the ground. Forty-six African Americans were killed while not a single white person died at Black hands. Five Black women were raped, and 91 homes were destroyed. A year later, 40 more Black people were murdered by a white mob in New Orleans during a peaceful demonstration supporting voting rights. The New Orleans Massacre of July 30, 1866, occurred when white supremacists and ex-Confederates, aided by local police, attacked freedmen gathered outside the Mechanics Institute. These massacres demonstrated that under Johnson's Reconstruction, Black lives were treated as expendable.

Memphis survivors helped galvanize Congress to enshrine freedpeople's rights in the Constitution. In 1868, the 14th Amendment was ratified, fundamentally redefining American citizenship. The amendment declared that anyone born in the United States was a citizen and guaranteed that no state could deny any person equal protection or due process under the law. This represented a constitutional revolution, overturning the Dred Scott decision and establishing a framework for civil rights.

Radical Reconstruction and the Struggle to Vote

By spring 1867, Radical Republicans had seized control of Congress and implemented more aggressive Reconstruction measures. They passed the Reconstruction Acts, which required Southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment and guarantee Black voting rights before rejoining the Union. Military districts were established to oversee the implementation of these policies and protect freedpeople from violence. South Carolina and seven other states complied just in time. Yet exercising the right to vote required tremendous courage—African Americans had to arm themselves and travel in groups, carefully timing their arrival at polling places to avoid white violence.

General Ulysses S. Grant, who had insisted during the war that Black soldiers were essential to Union victory, continued supporting African Americans' civil rights even before the 13th and 14th Amendments
were ratified. His commitment to equality stood in stark contrast to Johnson's betrayal and represented the unfulfilled promise of what Reconstruction could have achieved.

One hundred years after emancipation, African Americans were still fighting for the fundamental rights that Reconstruction had promised but failed to deliver. The legacy of Reconstruction was not just violence and broken promises—it was also one of hope, resilience, and an unfinished struggle for justice that continues to this day. The 2015 Charleston massacre serves as a painful reminder that the work of Reconstruction remains incomplete, and that the promise of true equality still demands our attention and action.

AI Disclosure: Claude AI was used in this blog post. After watching the reconstruction video in class and taking notes, Claude was used to transform my notes into a smooth, flowing, and readable blog post. 

Trial Team Reaction Post

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) stands as one of the most infamous decisions in American history because it legally justified segregation for more than half a century. The case began when Homer Plessy, a man who was seven‑eighths white and one‑eighth Black, deliberately sat in a “whites‑only” train car in Louisiana and refused to move when ordered. His quiet protest was meant to challenge the state’s Separate Car Act, which required separate railway cars for white and Black passengers.

One speaker for Plessy argued that the law violated the basic rights of citizenship. He emphasized that Plessy was a paying customer and a citizen, not a criminal. He hadn’t caused any disturbance or broken any moral law — he was simply punished for who he was. Another speaker built on that by describing the mixed-heritage culture of New Orleans, where people of mixed heritage had long played vital roles in business, education, and community life. Segregation, he argued, wasn’t just separation; it was an attempt to erase that cultural diversity and push people into racial boxes that ignored who they truly were.

The state’s defense took a very different approach. One lawyer argued that segregation was about “order, not oppression.” According to him, keeping races separate wasn’t meant to degrade anyone but to preserve social stability and peace. He claimed the law reflected “local customs” that both races supposedly preferred. Another state argument focused on economics. It suggested that railroads needed separate cars to satisfy white passengers and prevent conflict — though the logic behind that was deeply flawed. Essentially, it excused discrimination by calling it “practical.”

The moral and emotional side of the debate came through powerfully in several arguments. One speaker referenced biblical principles, saying that dividing people by skin color defied the belief that all people are created in God’s image. Another quoted Justice John Harlan’s famous dissent, declaring that “the Constitution is color‑blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” This resonates with the meaning of the 14th Amendment, which states that no state may “deny to any person … the equal protection of the laws.” At the same time, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude — the foundational promise of freedom that segregation would come to undermine.

In the end, Plessy v. Ferguson revealed how deeply racism was embedded in the nation’s laws and institutions. The arguments in the case exposed the twisted reasoning used to justify inequality and highlighted the voices that demanded something better — a true promise of equal rights under the law.

AI Disclosure- ChatGPT was used to transform my notes into a readable and well-flowing blog post. 

Video Reaction Post

 The period following the Civil War was one of the most transformative eras in American history, especially for African Americans. From the ashes of slavery emerged stories of resilience, struggle, and determination that would shape the nation for generations to come.

One of the most inspiring figures of this era was Booker T. Washington, who was born enslaved in Virginia. Washington promised himself he would change his fate and taught himself to read. He worked as a janitor to pay for his education, and by age 25, he founded the Tuskegee Institute for African Americans in Alabama. The school focused on vocational education, teaching practical skills like farming. Under his leadership, it grew to serve 800 students across 30 buildings. Washington's famous speech in Atlanta about education garnered national attention, and in 1901, he became the first Black leader invited to dine at the White House. His philosophy was clear: education and economic empowerment were the keys to success.

However, the path to progress was dramatically altered by Lincoln's assassination on April 14th, 1865. John Wilkes Booth killed President Lincoln, derailing his vision to heal a divided nation. Lincoln had developed a moderate approach to rebuilding the South with his 10 percent plan, wanting Southern states to rejoin the Union quickly. When Lincoln expressed his desire to give African Americans the right to vote, Booth switched from wanting to kidnap him to wanting to kill him. After Lincoln's death, Andrew Johnson allowed Southern states to rejoin America with no punishment. These states quickly made Black Codes and maintained white supremacy. Lincoln's death didn't just end a presidency but altered an entire plan for reconstruction.

The aftermath of the Civil War brought freedom to four million formerly enslaved people, but from this emerged sharecropping, described by many as "slavery under a different name." Plantations were divided into small plots worked mostly by Black people but also some poor whites, who labored for the ability to live there and receive some of the crops. Most sharecroppers ended the season in debt, having to work another year to pay it off. By 1870, only 30,000 African Americans owned land. The system was designed to maintain white supremacy. Sharecroppers couldn't sell independently and could only meet as a group on Sundays. Those who challenged the system faced intimidation, violence, or death. This oppressive system didn't end until after World War II.

Despite these challenges, the Reconstruction era from 1865 to 1877 witnessed the biggest political changes in American history for Black people. The 14th and 15th Amendments truly opened the door for
political participation. Black men rushed to register to vote, and Black votes determined election results across the South. Sixteen Black members even served in Congress during this period.

As conditions in the South remained difficult, six million African Americans participated in what became known as the Great Migration, leaving the South and heading north and west. They were escaping economic hardship, Jim Crow laws, and lynchings. Black families headed to industrial cities like New York and Philadelphia, where they found jobs in factories and earned steady wages for the first time in their lives. Black communities became vibrant centers of culture and opportunity. The North was no promised land though. African Americans faced redlining practices forcing them into certain neighborhoods, but even with these challenges, they didn't return to the South. The Great Migration proved that African Americans would seek freedom and opportunity wherever they could find it.

AI Disclosure- Claude AI was used in this blog post to transform my notes from watching the videos into a smooth flowing, and well-written blog post.