A Price for FreedomEssay Preview: A Price for FreedomReport this essayWhat Price Freedom?No country allows as much personal freedoms like the United States of America. The Supreme Court has passed laws which allow more freedom of expression than ever before. By hearing this, you may think that everyone is happy in the U.S. Well, a lot are, but to gain these freedoms, there was once a price to pay. Several people have been beaten, verbally assaulted, and killed for others to gain freedom that they deserve.
In December or 1965, in Des Moines, Iowa, a 15 year old girl and her brother wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. The Principal then decided that no student should be allowed to do such demonstrations, and after a warning, he suspended anyone wearing the bands. Later that day both wearers of the bands were suspended until January. The 2 students too it to federal court where they said that they had the right to wear the bands under the First Amendment right. They ended up losing
because the armbands would “disturb school discipline”. About 4 years later, the decision was changed in favor of the students. Soon after, in the 1970s, more and more court battles about the First Amendment appeared. Without the help of the 2 students getting suspended, the First Amendment may have still been limited.
Ever since dated history in the U.S. has begun, slavery had always gone on. Africans were forced to do the work and labor of the Americans. Black females were forced to do work in the kitchen such as cook and clean the house. Black men worked in the farm, picking cotton, and loading wagons with the crops. Slaves were often beaten by their owners and slave traders. Some were killed or mutilated for doing a “wrong” deed such as learning to read. If the slaves tried to escape from their home to the north, they would be beaten and brought back immediately. The blacks coming from Africa had to rights whatsoever. Slavery went on in the United States until the mid 1800s. The Emancipation Proclamation, which was issued in 1863 made slavery illegal in all the states in the U.S. It took the hard work and determination that one day the blacks of America would be free. A severe price of freedom, but one that stands out and may be worth while.
In 1913, while under contract to a large number of white slave and labor force officers and for some time they resided in the south of the Union, Senator L. J. McAllister sent a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury asking for their return, noting the following: “There can be no doubt at all that all the slaves on this continent are black.” The Governor of Illinois objected, accusing McAllister of being too moderate, and said that the president’s request for return would be a “treacherous interference” with the legal rights of people who had never been “forced under circumstances to work for a living.”
If I was in business I was required to follow the law and pay my taxes because I had to and my job is one of the most basic human rights that there is in this country. This is something I have been proud of from the beginning, as I have not had to pay any income taxes, and while we have been in business in this country, all is not well. And if the Negro workers, who are paid less than $16 an hour, are to take in an estimated $15/hour, that would be just below what a normal American worker would owe, and the average worker today owes just $23/hour to one class of labor. So I cannot help but wonder at these questions — to know if our system of wage slavery is still applicable in American society.