Cheating Time
In 1780, Pennsylvania’s Gradual Emancipation Act freed Black enslaved people who lived there for over six months. Then-president George Washington cheated this by making enslaved people travel across state lines every six months so planters could keep owning the enslaved for decades.
Cheating Logic
During Reconstruction, Black people voted and even won elections. But in the 1890s, grandfather clauses stripped that right by making voters eligible to vote only if their father or grandfather was qualified to vote before January 1, 1867 - when no Black person could vote yet.
Cheating Land
After the Civil War, freed enslaved people collectively acquired about 15 million acres of land. But 81% of these new landowners didn’t have legal resources and never created wills. So, their descendants inherited land without a title in limited ownership, also known as heirs’ property.
This made it easier for developers to buy and force Black people off their land.
Cheating Labor
Though the 13th Amendment technically abolished slavery, it also listed slavery as acceptable as a punishment for crimes. Today, Black incarcerated people are still made to work for zero-to-little income, yet producing $11 billion in goods and services a year.
For centuries, legal loopholes have taken so much from us. But do you think they’re mistakes in the legal system, or is it this system’s nature to work against us this way?