During the Civil War, Frederick Douglass gave a speech entitled,

Negroes and the National War effort.

As he addressed the audience at National Hall in Philadelphia, he argued,

Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter U.S.,

let him get an eagle on his button and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket,

and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship

in the United States.

Douglas's statement was a response to the fact that black men had been barred for military

service and a call to duty now that Abraham Lincoln had allowed black enlistment in the Union Army.

But it also was a call for the racial equality and equal rights that Frederick Douglass believed

Black military service would bring.

It must have seemed that Douglas was too optimistic, or just plain wrong about the connection

between service and rights.

The Union Army gladly began accepting Black soldiers in 1863,

but equality was not part of the deal.

Black soldiers were paid $10 each compared to the $13

white soldiers earned.

And while white soldiers were given an extra $3 for uniform needs, Black soldiers had the same amount deducted from their paycheck.

And the inequity didn't stop there.

Only white men were allowed to be commissioned as officers.

African American leaders around the country,

and the soldiers themselves, worked simultaneously to protest inequity in the

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