Evolution of Slavery Perspectives: From Acceptance to Prohibition

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Article 4 from The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is dedicated towards the abolishment of human slavery. To clear up any confusion, verbatim it states, “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.” The United Nations General Assembly created The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. A time where slavery was non-existent in the United States. In fact, slavery in the modern United States is viewed as an inhumane act by a majority of the population. Yet when the United States gained its’ independence from the British, slaves existed. To be a slave meant to be a piece of property or merchandise as depicted in Harriet Jacobs’s Incident In The Life Of A Slave Girl. The United States started off viewing slavery as just a natural part of life, but many of the challenges the United States faced helped redirect that belief into the modern day one where slavery is deemed as an …show more content…

Some Americans had a difficult time accepting people of color as their equals, for many still believed that that whites were superior to blacks. Even to the extent that “many Christian ministries and theologians taught that whites were the chosen people, blacks were cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation.” African Americans were treated as second class citizens and had to follow Jim Crow Laws, which segregated both white and people of color in areas such as school, restaurants, and many more. The Jim Crow Laws along with cases where black people were unjustly murdered by white people acted as a catalyst for the creation of civil right movement groups. Amongst such groups was the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was led by Martin Luther King Jr. King’s method of using peaceful protest paved the way to equal rights, because as King describes in his Power of Non Violence

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