Chains in the Constitution

Do you know that the very document hailed as the foundation of freedom—the U.S. Constitution—was

written with chains hidden in its margins? On September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia,

men dressed in fine coats, sipping wine, praised liberty, equality,

and justice. But between those lines, they created a system designed to enslave

millions of Black people, to deny them humanity while calling the land “the land of

the free.” The Three-Fifths Compromise turned human beings into math.

A Black person’s life counted as three-fifths of a man, not whole,

because the country wanted political power without granting rights. Families torn apart