The relation to freedom from African Americans and Southern Whites has always been different, and each race could not understand and accept the ideas of their opponents. However, there were many supporters from the side of African Americans and Southern Whites, who could defend the point of view of different parties. However, the tension between these two opposite groups did not allow both sides to stop misunderstandings. Moreover, the development of the reconstruction plan created by Andrew Johnson put the solution to the problem of equity at a dead end and could not help in solving it for a long time.
African Americans and Southern Whites define freedom differently. For instance, African Americans say that freedom means escaping from harsh slavery, separation of families, discrimination of gender and age. Nowadays, African Americans secured their liberty at the federal level, and some of them still have an indifference to Sothern Whites (Mouzon et al 179). However, Southern Whites also formed their attitude to the freedom definition, and their plans looked at future perspectives like creating a modernized and advanced society. Many Southern Whites believed that cooperation with African Americans brings positive aspects, and this connection does not have any negative outcomes.
The word ‘freedom’ has two types of definitions that fully differ from each other. Consequently, they created a huge misunderstanding and negativity between two opposite groups. While African Americans blame Southern Whites for destroying their individuality, Southern Whites believe that their ancestors tried to improve the standard of living by cooperating with another race.
African Americans were identified as slavers, and this fate did not console this group of people even after liberation. African Americans did not feel much support from other races and nations, and this fact left them to struggle with their problem alone with no apparent success (Mouzon et al 180). However, negativity from Southern Whites to Latinas gave birth to the positive attitude to African Americans and increased cooperation with this race.
African Americans had more opponents than alliances, and modern can define more negative attitudes to this race rather than positive. For instance, one of the strongest opponents to African Americans was the Unites States, where people tried to grab every opportunity to improve living standards and ignored the workforce. Recognition of another race as slavers increased the USA’s negative attitude to African Americans. Southern Whites believed that African Americans should work hard to receive everything and nothing at the same time.
President Andrew Johnson, who ruled after Abraham Lincoln, believed that African Americans should have the same rights as Southern Whites and be equal to them. Inappropriate treatment of African Americans spawned a reconstruction plan which aimed to decrease the power of the government on deciding the destiny of blacks. However, Congress was against this plan, and its participants declared impeachment.
Johnson became the first impeached president for breaking the USA’s law and circumventing Congress’s laws (Les Benedict 227). The reconstruction plan became an initial stage towards achieving equality between African Americans and Southern Whites. The original motive of Johnson’s plan was not successful, but I think that achieving justice became faster. The unfinished reconstruction plan is successful as it did not lead to significant losses.
In conclusion, the definition of freedom has always had different meanings for diverse nations and races, and they could not understand each other in this question. Each side had its allies and opponents, and it wasn’t easy to get rid of it. However, the reconstruction plan created by Andrew Johnson gave a push to achieve equality between African Americans and Southern Whites. Even though this plan brought many problems, it helped to create a secure and free future.
Works cited
Les Benedict, Michael. “17. Andrew Johnson:”. The Presidents and the Constitution. New York University Press, 2016, pp. 227-238.
Mouzon, Dawne D., Taylor, Robert Joseph & Keith, Verna M. “Discrimination and psychiatric disorders among older African Americans”. Geriatric Psychiatry, 2016, pp. 175-182.