Dec 23, 2009

Uncle Tom's Cabin | Compare and Contrast

1850: The U.S. Congress voted to pass the Fugitive Slave Law, which required Northerners to return runaway slaves to their Southern masters and tightened restrictions on free blacks as well as fugitive slaves.

1950s: Jim Crow laws were still in effect in the Southern states, limiting the rights of African-Americans. Slowly, many of those laws began to be reversed in the 1950s, such as the 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared school segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education.

Today: Many African-Americans now serve in Congress, sit...