📚 Summer School · The Reading Room
⛓️💥
1865–1870 · Amendments
The 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments
Ending slavery, and promising everyone counts the same.
Remember this
Freedom, equal treatment, and the vote — for everyone.
✏️Broken chains falling away from open hands, sunrise behind.
For a long, sad time, some people in America were held as slaves. It was very wrong. The 13th change to the rulebook ended slavery forever.
✏️A big pair of scales perfectly balanced, with different kinds of people on each side, all level.
The 14th said every person born here is a citizen, and the law must treat everyone equally. No one is above you, and you are above no one.
✏️A line of grown-ups of every color dropping ballots into a box, kids watching proudly.
The 15th said you cannot be stopped from voting because of the color of your skin. Your voice counts the same as anyone’s.
✏️A road stretching to the horizon with footprints, some faded, some fresh, still walking.
The promises were written down — but keeping them took many, many years and brave people. That work is still going.