For Their Rights as Citizens :: essays papers

For Their Rights as Citizens During the Civil War, almost 200,000 African Americans fought alongside white people. What did these African Americans fight for? Some fought for the freedom of others of their kind. While others fought for equality in the eyes of white people. Even some fought for revenge against the Southern way of life. But what I believe that they fought for was their rights as citizens. They wanted to be treated as Citizens of the United States of America, and have all of the privileges endowed to citizens. â€Å"If we fight to maintain a Republican Government, we want Republican privileges.....all we ask is the proper enjoyment of the rights of citizenship,† p205. This tells me that the African Americans were thinking of their rights of citizenship before the war had concluded. To them, being a citizen of the United States meant that they could do what ever they wanted to do. They could pursue dreams they had to go visit everywhere and anywhere in this country freely. Nobody would be holding them down or selling off their children anymore. They would no longer be automatons, they would have a say in what they wanted to accomplish in life, from banking to farming, to being land owners themselves. The African Americans also wanted to demonstrate that they were willing to fight for their rights. Sergeant Charles Singer wrote, â€Å"show the whole world that we are willing to fight for our rights...† p.215. This shows that they wanted to prove that they were willing to die for those rights allotted to citizens. â€Å"Let us by a common cause now made holy by our blood, raise ourselves from the mire,† p.216. To me this shows the willingness of the African Americans to join together fight for a cause, and not fear death. Because in the end, they would earn citizenship and all of its benefits. This is a good reason to fight, earn freedom from oppression, and be given the rights allotted to all citizens. Some fighting under the banner of citizenship and its rights, believed that they disserved the same rights as the white people. â€Å"...I am not willing to fight for anything less that the white man fights for.......Give me my rights, the rights that this Government owes me, the same rights that the white man has,† p.208. This tells me that the African Americans wanted no less than what the white people already had.