“A battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it.”-Frederick Douglass When you think of slavery, you may want to consider the effects of an earthquake because that’s how powerful it was. Like many earthquakes, slavery produced various damaging ramifications to everything around it. This included devastation to family structures and in worst cases the loss of human life; and without doubt slavery claimed the lives of many just as Harriet Jacobs expressed “I once saw a slave girl dying after the birth of a child nearly white. In her agony she cried out, “O Lord, come and take me!” Her mistress stood by, and mocked at her like an incarnate friend (Jacobs 20).”The energy released from slavery is interminable and will always live on throughout African-Americans. Although, being practiced years before, slavery became well prominent in America in the 18th century. African-Americans were beaten, starved, and deprived of their rights. It was common for them to live in dreadful conditions, and work in unjust circumstances. Along with being raped day by day, certainly not least, they were bereaved of their freedom. They were handled as assets and dismantled from society, as well as their relatives. And if this was not alarming sufficiently, when slavery was legitimately abolished “White America” found another way to control African-Americans, through Jim Crow laws. Jim Crow laws immediately became the modernized slavery institution. Further creating a barrier between opportunities and Blacks, for they were seen as intellectually and culturally inferior to mainstream America. African-Americans needed to heal from ongo... ... middle of paper ... ...all. However, society’s dividing beliefs soon began to influence all that was to become of them. Their struggles became their motivations in life, especially as they took on a new world and found what was beyond plantations and hard work. Why was slavery and racism so powerful? They were no longer just units of language, they had obtained meaning. “White America” had become aroused and attached its emotional and physical sensations to the controlling of African-Americans. They had merely separated their feelings from life. And even so, they used fear as a shield to protect their sentiments. However accordingly, through African-Americans past, present, and growing future, a wound can never be fully healed, for you will always carry it for the rest of your life. But, through mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional practices it is easier to succumb to the pain.
Over the years most of us have read a great deal about the institution of slavery and it’s effects on this country and the African American race as a whole. The fact of the matter is most of us have only learned certain information about slavery. There are only certain facts and historical figures that we lean about. No to say that the information we get is wrong, but we were not taught the whole story. This could be due to the approach of different instructors or because school curriculums are supposed to focus on the interesting facts and stories about slavery. The fact of the matter is there are some areas that go untouched when learning about slavery in most schools. Reading the book Black Southerners was something different for me. It was like some one opened a door and when I entered in I found hidden facts and knowledge about an institution that has a tremendous effect on my country and this history of race.
In this story it clearly shows us what the courts really mean by freedom, equality, liberty, property and equal protection of the laws. The story traces the legal challenges that affected African Americans freedom. To justify slavery as the “the way things were” still begs to define what lied beneath slave owner’s abilities to look past the wounded eyes and beating hearts of the African Americans that were so brutally possessed.
By this time, the mindset of people who owned slaves, thought of ex-slaves as if they were still objects and property to be owned. The inequality and treatment of ex-slaves were ridiculous. Even some objects were more valuable than the life of an ex-slave, or any colored person. Leary, Hammond, and Davis stated in the “Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome” article, “Being reminded that our ancestors were treated as property and only as humans when it was profitable to their owners stirred our emotions… The author details how blacks were counted as 3/5 of a person… American slaves had no legal rights as property, but interestingly enough, slaves outside of the United States did have rights and could even buy themselves out of slavery under certain conditions” (Leary, Hammond, and Davis, “Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome”). This played a major role into Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome making a lasting effect throughout generations and generations to come. There were people who believed in the great plan of equality and fairness, but those people were very few. Even when President Lincoln passed the emancipation proclamation, people still did not want slaves to be free or even wanted to acknowledge them as people. This started to cause the Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome because there was no closure on the situation and the pain that came out of it. To this day,
The effects of slavery linger in this country even today. After the Civil War and even the Reconstruction period, racial inequality and
“The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, – this longing to attain self-consciousness, manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message f...
...ontinued the cycle of structural and environmental violence. Years after slavery ended African American communities continue to be subjugated by White folk into structures that are not allowing them to flourish. African American families should be allowed to call the South home while having access to all the resources they would otherwise have access to in urban communities, as it is their basic civil and human rights to do so. However, with the injustices they face it is wonderful that the familial bonds keeps the communities stabilized and know that they can count on each other whether they are blood or fictive kin.
I agree with the author African Americans reflect the distress of the horrific treatment of their ancestors. They are still deeply affected by the ideas that were once instilled within their culture and ethnicity and because of the lack of recognition this is a continuous process. A possible solution to this problem is for African Americans to be reeducated of the past so that they can become motivated once a new perspective is created.
In the 1860’s there were about 4,441,830 African American living the the United States. Many were living in the southern states of the United States. During this time period, there were many white men who owned an African American, as a slave. Slavery was caused because of the white men believing that they were superior towards other races, especially the African people. About 3,953,760 were slaves, and only about 488,070 African Americans were free. “In nothing was slavery so savage and relentless as in its attempted destruction of the family instincts of the Negro race in America. Individuals, not families; shelters, not homes; herding, not marriages, were the cardinal sins in that system of horrors”(Fannie Barrier Williams). Slavery destroyed many families, African American were being sold and treated as merchandise, not as a human. During the time of slavery there were some white men that did not believe in racism. Abraham Lincoln once said, “Those who deny freedom for others deserve it not for themselves” (Abraham Lincoln). Lincoln believed African Americans should not be slaves if others races were not treated as slaves themselves. Though some African Americans were living in the south, there were also a small amount of African Americans living in the north of the United States.
In 1619 a well-known issue was brought to life that is now known as an American catastrophe. In the book Black Southerners, the author John B. Boles doesn’t just provide background of how slavery began or who started it, and doesn’t just rant about the past and how mistreated the African American race was; he goes on to explain how as slavery and racism boosted the families of these slaves began to grow closer to a community and the efficiency and profitability of slavery. He also shows the perspective of not just the slaves, but the bondsmen as well to show the different perspectives throughout this point in time. As far as my generation goes, we all picture slavery as African American’s picking cotton, or doing chores around the house, going
Slavery has impacted our society today because people are still prejudiced and discriminatory towards African Americans. Still in this day, African Americans living in poverty don’t have proper education and are not given equal opportunities for jobs.
Slavery was a horrible evil that still affects the American black community today. The system ripped apart generations of black people and psychological scars the notion of race. Although ¼ of the US south population owned a slave, US capital boomed directly from slavery. Northerner benefited by the overproduced materials from the south and the fugitive slave business. It seems that all the white population benefited from the institution of slavery. Slavery created a huge rift between the rich planters and merchants to the poor townsmen. There was the development of transportation connecting southern town, but social progress has stagnated. The elite used racial violence to spark the townsmen to support slavery; even though, slavery barely
In From Slavery to Freedom (2007), it was said that “the transition from slavery to freedom represents one of the major themes in the history of African Diaspora in the Americas” (para. 1). African American history plays an important role in American history not only because the Civil Rights Movement, but because of the strength and courage of Afro-Americans struggling to live a good life in America. Afro-Americans have been present in this country since the early 1600’s, and have been making history since. We as Americans have studied American history all throughout school, and took one Month out of the year to studied African American history. Of course we learn some things about the important people and events in African American history, but some of the most important things remain untold which will take more than a month to learn about.
Racism, discrimination and slavery were major problems in the United States for over 300 years; and continue to impact African-American’s lives today. Slavery first began in the 1690’s when members of African tribes were stripped from their homes and taken to America on ships filled with soon to be slaves. Many slaves often died from disease, malnutrition, or suicide, in effort to avoid their future enslavement. After hundreds of years of slavery, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation making slavery illegal in the United States. Slavery continued on for many years; and racism still presents itself in today’s society and continues to limit and degrade African descendants.
Beginning in the 1600’s millions of Africans were kidnapped, enslaved, and shipped to the Americas under terrible conditions. Almost two million people died at sea during the rough journey. For the next two hundred year, the enslavement of africans in the United States created wealth and opportunity for millions of Americans. As American slavery grew, an elaborate and enduring ideology about the inferiority of black people was created to legitimate and defend slavery. This mythology survived slavery’s formal destruction following the Civil War. In the South, where the enslavement of black people was widely used, rebellions to ending slavery existed for another hundred years following the passage of
...en we think of slave, because in all essence that is what they are. Our strength comes from the hardships we live throughout day in and day out and the past hardships and agony that our descendants had and was forced to live through. WE must realize that “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not surrender, that is strength” (Arnold Schwarzenegger) as African American we have the necessary power to not surrender is the face of the oppressor and hardships that we face. Many will say slavery didn’t help the African American community and holistically it didn’t but what it did help create and give birth to unsung heroes of those slaves/martyr who live then and those who are living now; because at eh end of the day every day we live we continue to add on to the story to the story of the slave.