Freedom and Progressivism in the United States

Freedom and Progressivism: Often, the story of the United States is told as one of ever-expanding freedom. While there are ways in which that may be true, we have also seen many examples of how freedom was restricted, particularly in moments of social upheaval and change. In your essay, choose three moments of crisis where freedom remained an unfulfilled promise for an individual or group. Use your examples to analyze definitions of freedom that were being contested at that time (contextualize based on example). In each example, consider how power was exercised on and by individuals and groups: who benefitted from this definition of freedom, and how was it explained, and who contested it? Explain this power and your examples in terms of race, class, gender, nationality, sexuality, and ability, as appropriate. Use links in attached for sources of references.  1) Exceptionalism by Donald Pease: https://keywords.nyupress.org/american-cultural-studies/essay/exceptionalism/ 2) What a white supremacist coupe looks like by Caleb Crain: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/27/what-a-white-supremacist-coup-looks-like 3) Ida B. Wells – A Red Record – Chapter 1: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14977/14977-h/14977-h.htm#chap1 4) Zinn – the Socialist Challenge: https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/socchal13.html