Read the excerpt from a historical petition below:
"We, your petitioners, most respectfully represent to your honorable bodies that we are ex-slaves... who did, by our labor, clear the forests, cultivate the fields, and build the cities of the South... We now ask that a law be passed by Congress to grant us a pension, not as a matter of charity, but as a matter of justice and compensation for our unpaid labor."
— Petition of the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty, and Pension Association to the United States Congress, late 1890s
Based on this petition and its historical context, which of the following best describes the core argument for pensions presented by the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty, and Pension Association?
- The association framed the pensions as earned compensation and economic redress for the stolen labor that built the nation's infrastructure and wealth.Cevap
- BThe association requested federal funds to facilitate the mass emigration of formerly enslaved people to West Africa to establish independent sovereign colonies.
- CThe association proposed that the pensions be distributed strictly as spiritual aid, maintaining that Black civic organizations should not engage in political advocacy.
- DThe association argued that federal pensions should be used to subsidize and stabilize the sharecropping system to ensure it functioned as an equitable labor contract.
Cevap
The association framed the pensions as earned compensation and economic redress for the stolen labor that built the nation's infrastructure and wealth.
The correct answer is correct because the petition explicitly asserts that formerly enslaved people built the infrastructure of the South through their labor and asks for a pension as 'justice and compensation' rather than 'charity.' This reflects the core argument of the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty, and Pension Association, which framed pensions as a debt owed for stolen labor.
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Anahtar Kavram
The National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty, and Pension Association's grassroots campaign for pensions as early reparations for enslaved labor.