A Black newspaper proposed racial equality in the constitution within months of emancipation

Evidence

Within months of slavery’s end, in fall of 1865, a Black newspaper called the New Orleans Tribune put forth a radical plan for an America that had been purged by fire. The paper called for suffrage for Black men, equality before the law, the redistribution of land from the former labor camps to the formerly enslaved, and equal access to schools and transportation. The plan advocated that the Constitution be amended to prohibit states from making “any distinction in civil rights and privileges” based on race. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 146

Categorization

• XREF: Specific empirical claim supporting the reframing thesis: Black actors proposed land redistribution and constitutional equality before the Reconstruction amendments — grounds the ‘Black Americans as architects of equality’ argument in a concrete dated document.