State v Mann review

This is John Mann, the man accused in this case.

State V Mann

A trial that asked if a person was more than property

In this blog post, I want to dive into the historic court case State v. Mann. The case involved John Mann, a white man from North Carolina, who shot an enslaved woman named Lydia in the back. 

The Incident and the Fine 

As I went through the details, I learned that Lydia was upset with Mann and tried to run away from him. When she fled, Mann shot her in the back with a pistol. He was initially fined $5 for his actions. However, he actually appealed the fine, claiming it was unfair and arguing that the State of North Carolina was being unjust toward him.

This is one of my classmates on prosecution

The Central Question 

Looking into these events raises a major central question. Was the State of North Carolina right in charging him? 

Abolitionism and Religion in North Carolina 

In looking at the state's side, I found it interesting that there was a lot of activism in North Carolina at the time, led by early abolitionists. Even though the movement was still young, there was real, meaningful progress being made that had a big impact. I also learned that religion was used as a defense against Mann's actions during this time. 

Rental Rights and Property Damage 

Furthermore, Mann did not even own Lydia. He had only rented her for a year from Lydia’s true owner, Elizabeth Jones. From the state's perspective, I noted that someone who borrows property cannot destroy that property without consequences. Most importantly, I realized that property rights should never outweigh human rights. 

The Legal Role of Physical Punishment 

On the other side of the courtroom, I found it troubling how the defense built its argument. I learned that physical punishment was often used and actively protected under the law, as enslaved people were expected to obey. The defense argued that Mann's actions were not cruelty, but rather a necessary measure to keep order. 

This is my teacher introducing  the case

 Arguments Regarding Paternalism and Property 

They even claimed that enslaved people were better off with their masters because they received food, clothes, and housing. Because enslaved people were considered property, the defense argued that any state interference with Mann was an attack on his property. 

 The Defense's Argument on Human Being Status 

Finally, I discovered that the defense asserted the state had to prove Mann assaulted a human being. They forced the court to ask if an enslaved person is a human being. The defense ultimately argued that slaves were not human beings, but were strictly considered property.  

AI DISCLOSURE: AI was used in this blog post to organize my notes into a blog post, I asked Gemini to turn my notes into a blog post with headings. AI was not used to do research.

Lucretia Mott Town Hall Post

 Friends and fellow citizens,

I thank you for gathering here today to consider a matter that tests both our nation's character and our individual consciences. I speak to you not as a politician, but as a woman whose faith and principles compel her to oppose slavery wherever it exists.

We are a people who speak proudly of liberty. We celebrate freedom as one of the greatest blessings granted by God and protected by our Republic. Yet while we proclaim these values, millions of our fellow human beings are denied the very rights we cherish. Men, women, and children are held as property. Families are torn apart. Labor is stolen. Education is forbidden. Human dignity is denied.

How can such a system exist in a nation that claims to believe that all people are created equal?

From my earliest years, I learned that injustice cannot be ignored simply because it is familiar. As a member of the Religious Society of Friends, I was taught that there is a divine light within every person. If we truly believe that all people are equal in the eyes of God, then we must reject any institution that treats one human being as the possession of another. Lucretia Mott devoted much of her life to abolition and helped found the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, working alongside other reformers to challenge slavery through public action and moral persuasion. [nps.gov], [loc.gov]

Some say that slavery is too deeply rooted to be challenged. Others tell us that change should come slowly and quietly. But injustice does not become acceptable because it has existed for a long time. The length of an evil does not make it less evil.

Every generation faces a choice. We may remain silent and benefit from an unjust system, or we may speak the truth and work to reform it. The abolitionist movement has never asked citizens to choose violence. We have asked them to choose conscience. We ask people to listen to the testimony of those who have suffered under slavery. We ask them to support organizations dedicated to freedom. We ask them to petition lawm
akers and refuse to participate in a system built upon human bondage.

These efforts are not without opposition. In 1838, anti-abolitionist violence led to the destruction of Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia during antislavery gatherings. Yet such events only reveal how greatly some fear the power of truth. [loc.gov], [tile.loc.gov]

I also believe that women have a vital role to play in this struggle. Too often, women have been told that questions of public justice are not their concern. Yet how can any person who sees suffering remain silent? If women possess the moral capacity to recognize right from wrong, then they possess the responsibility to speak when wrong is being done.

The fight against slavery is not only a political cause. It is a moral cause. It is a test of whether we will live according to the principles we proclaim.

Therefore, I urge you not to postpone justice. Do not wait for another generation to do what is right. Let us act now. Let us raise our voices, organize our communities, and stand firmly for freedom. Let our actions reflect our convictions, and let history remember that when confronted with injustice, we chose courage over silence.

Slavery cannot be reconciled with liberty. One must yield to the other.

I pray that it is liberty that prevails.

Thank you.

AI DISCLOSURE: AI was heavily used in this post it was used for research and formatting. I asked Gemini to write a town hall post from the viewpoint of Lucretia Mott talking about slavery.

The Tuskegee Institute - How A Single School Shaped Black Education

The Tuskegee Institute - How A Single School Shaped Black Education

    It started with no building, no land, and $2,000 that could only be spent on teacher salaries.

    That was the situation Booker T. Washington walked into on July 4, 1881, when he opened the doors of what would become the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. His "campus" was a borrowed shanty next to an African American church. His first class had 30 students (AURN).

    Washington was 25 years old and just six years removed from his own graduation at Virginia's Hampton Institute. He'd been born enslaved in 1856 and had walked hundreds of miles as a teenager just to get an education (Library of Congress). Now the state of Alabama had chartered a school and handed him almost nothing to build it with. The students built it themselves. They made their own bricks, laid them, and constructed the campus buildings by hand — turning construction into a classroom in masonry and self-reliance (National Park Service).

    Washington's approach wasn't accidental. He believed Black Southerners would gain acceptance and economic footing faster through practical, vocational skills — farming, carpentry, dressmaking, teaching — than through pushing for immediate social and political integration (Study.com). It worked, in the sense that it disarmed white opposition and drew major funding from Northern industrialists. But it was also controversial from the start. Critics, most famously W.E.B. Du Bois, argued Washington's model asked Black Americans to accept a subordinate status in exchange for economic crumbs, and that it shortchanged higher academic and professional ambitions (core.ac.uk).

    In 1896, Washington recruited a botanist named George Washington Carver to run the agriculture department. Carver spent the next 47 years at Tuskegee, developing crop-rotation techniques and finding hundreds of new uses for peanuts and sweet potatoes — work that helped push the South away from its ruinous dependence on cotton (Encyclopedia of Alabama). Carver didn't just stay in the lab. He and Tuskegee sent a horse-drawn "Jesup Wagon," and later a motorized "Movable School," out to rural Black farmers who couldn't come to campus, bringing modern techniques directly to the field (Encyclopedia of Alabama).

    Tuskegee's influence didn't stay inside Alabama. Its graduates went on to found schools across the South, multiplying its reach far beyond its own campus (George Washington Carver Life). Its hospital, John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital, became a training ground for Black doctors and nurses at a time when segregated medicine left them almost nowhere else to go. Decades later, the institute's airfield became the training site for the Tuskegee Airmen, the first Black military aviators in the U.S. armed forces, cementing the campus's role in yet another chapter of civil rights history (Encyclopedia of Alabama).

    Today, the school is Tuskegee University, and its original campus was designated a National Historic Site in 1974 — the only national park unit centred on a college campus (National Park Service). What began as a shanty with no land and no building became one of the most consequential Black institutions in American history — not because it had resources, but because it built its own.

    AI DISCLOSURE: AI was used in this blog post to come up with the research for the post as well as to frame the paragraphs.

Eight Values of Freedom - Free Expression

Eight Values - Free Expression 

I think the fourth Value of Free Expression - individual self-fulfillment aka self-actualization, is the Value of Free Expression that resonates the most with me, feels the most important, and is the most personal to me. I also think it’s one of the things we see the most in action today especially in social media. 

Individual self-fulfillment is freedom of speech, it enables people to express themselves however they want which lets people form and express their own personal identity. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression of personal-identity is a core aspect of human dignity, human agency and bodily autonomy. This feels the most important to me because if you cannot form you own personal identity then you will have a land of mindless people. 

We see individual self-fulfillment in action every single day. We see it in the differences between people in our everyday life, we see it in the different social media personalities online. Social media is the main way we see this and it’s a main way to help someone with self-actualization and free expression. Content creators build their platforms on free expression, without it then we wouldn’t be able to have so many different kinds of consumable media. 

Something going on in the real world that involves free expression, and free expression can explain something is the news and what’s happening with the American Government. If we didn’t have free expression then news outlets and social media influencers wouldn’t be able to report truthfully on the negative things going on with the government. An example of when free expression was impeded was in 2020 during COVID under the Biden Government when scientists' accounts were heavily censored and hidden. Their free expression was impeded and therefore they couldn’t share facts to the greater American community.

Slavery and the Bible

Slavery And The Bible  

 The Bible is very clear, slavery is not only something that’s expected, it’s something that’s good, even a blessing from God. In Genesis 24:35 it says “The Lord has greatly blessed my master, and he has become wealthy; he has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male and female slaves, camels and donkeys.”. This shows that slaves are treated as a gift from the Lord.

    In Ephesians 6:5-9 the bible says “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ, not with a slavery performed merely for looks, to please people, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the soul.” It also says, “...whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are enslaved or free.”. This shows that slaves were told to obey their masters as they obey Christ. It also says that both slaves and masters will receive the same good they do again by the Lord, showing that even though they are slaves, masters and slaves will go to the same place in death.

    Lastly in Exodus 21:2-11 the bible says “When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt.”. This shows that you cannot have a slave for longer than six years, that after a slave has served for seven years he will be free. However, the bible also says in Leviticus 24:44-46 “You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property.”. This directly goes against what is said in Exodus 21:2-11, because it says you may keep them and your children after you may inherit them, which signals that slaves are allowed to be kept for longer than 7 years. 

    As we can see through my evidence, the bible is very clear, it condones slavery. It is iffy on the finer details-how long you can have them, where you can take them from, who they serve-but it is clear, slavery, in the eyes of the Lord, is approved.