Thesis

"I don't say they will fight better than other men," he exclaimed. "all I say is, give them a chance!"
~ Frederick Douglass

"The iron gate of our prison stands half open, one gallant rush... will fling it wide."
~ Frederick Douglass

The Emancipation Proclamation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln in early 1863, allowed governor John Andrews to create an African-American Regiment, the 54th Massachusetts. With their performance in battle, led by a white man, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, they broke barriers by gaining respect for African-American soldiers. They helped bridge the gap between blacks and whites, one century before the civil rights movement.

War Department

Washington City, Jan. 26, 1863

Ordered: That Governor andrew of Massachusetts is authorized, until further orders, to raise such numbers of volunteers , companies of artillery for duty in the forts of Massachusetts and elsewhere, and such corps of infantry for the volunteer military service as he may find convenient, such volunteers to be enlisted for three years, or until sooner discharged, and may include persons of African descent, organized into special corps. He will make The usual needful requisitions on the appropriate staff bureaus and officers, for the proper transportation, organization, supplies, subsistence, arms and equipments for such volunteers.

Edwin M. Stanton,

Secretary of War.

Storming Fort Wagner

-A depiction of Shaw and his colored troops fighing confederates at the front line at Fort Wagner

-Britannica