Fields, Dubois, And Oliphant Essay

472 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Civil war and the freedom of slaves

Graves, Fields, DuBois, and Oliphant’s perspectives of Black American treatment in the United States are all from different time periods. Although each piece is from a different time, all four perspectives unveil the oppression of Black Americans to expose how Black Americans feel restricted from their natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ultimately causing Black Americans to feel psychological scarred and to not feel human. Graves and Fields express simple, yet powerful descriptions of life as a slave. In Graves’ narrative, she explains how slaves were allotted and rented to other slave owners like property. In addition, Fields states that slaves wanted to be educated, but there were many punishments if slaves …show more content…

In “Of the Passing of the First-Born,” DuBois elegantly writes about “the Veil” that lies between whites and blacks about forty years after the end of the Civil War in connection to a first-born son dying. DuBois’ writing shows that some Black Americans were able to progress especially in education; however, when blacks try to be part of society, they still feel the oppression and the traumatic effects of slavery. In the end, the narrator states, “Surely there shall yet dawn some mighty morning to lift the Veil and set the prisoned free. Not for me,—I shall die in my bonds” (DuBois 14). Though slavery is no longer practiced, DuBois still claims to feel restricted and held back from achieving natural rights. DuBois also discusses whether it is a good thing the baby died, so the baby did not have to live in “the shadow of the Veil” (DuBois 3). Black Americans do not know whether it is worth to live in the world of the Veil that limits them from life and liberty. Presently, these feelings of frustration and sadness have not faded away. In the video, young Zianna Oliphant holds back tears while giving a testimony in front of the Charlotte City Council. Oliphant exhibits the same psychological trauma of Graves and Fields, and the same doubt of

Show More
Related

  • An Analysis Of Martha Sandweiss's 'Passing Strange'

    568 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Emancipation of the once enslaved African American was the first stepping stone to the America that we know of today. Emancipation did not, however automatically equate to equality, as many will read from the awe-inspiring novel Passing Strange written by the talented Martha Sandweiss. The book gives us, at first glance, a seemingly tall tale of love, deception, and social importance that color played into the lives of all Americans post-emancipation. The ambiguity that King, the protagonist, so elegantly played into his daily life is unraveled, allowing a backstage view of the very paradox that was Charles King’s life.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Mary Prince And Olaudah Equiano

    1365 Words  | 3 Pages

    Slavery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries consisted of brutal and completely unjust treatment of African-Americans. Africans were pulled from their families and forced to work for cruel masters under horrendous conditions, oceans away from their homes. While it cannot be denied that slavery everywhere was horrible, the conditions varied greatly and some slaves lived a much more tolerable life than others. Examples of these life styles are vividly depicted in the personal narratives of Olaudah Equiano and Mary Prince. The diversity of slave treatment and conditions was dependent on many different factors that affected a slave’s future. Mary Prince and Olaudah Equiano both faced similar challenges, but their conditions and life styles

    Read More

  • Were Black Americans Made Free and Equal by the Abolition of Slavery, 1865-1915?

    677 Words  | 2 Pages

    While the formal abolition of slavery, on the 6th of December 1865 freed black Americans from their slave labour, they were still unequal to and discriminated by white Americans for the next century. This ‘freedom’, meant that black Americans ‘felt like a bird out of a cage’ , but this freedom from slavery did not equate to their complete liberty, rather they were kept in destitute through their economic, social, and political state.

    Read More

  • Understanding Slavery: Its Impact on American Psyche and Economy

    963 Words  | 2 Pages

    When reading about the institution of slavery in the United States, it is easy to focus on life for the slaves on the plantations—the places where the millions of people purchased to serve as slaves in the United States lived, made families, and eventually died. Most of the information we seek is about what daily life was like for these people, and what went “wrong” in our country’s collective psyche that allowed us to normalize the practice of keeping human beings as property, no more or less valuable than the machines in the factories which bolstered industrialized economies at the time. Many of us want to find information that assuages our own personal feelings of discomfort or even guilt over the practice which kept Southern life moving

    Read More

  • Simple Justice

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • What did freedom mean to harriet jacobs

    1325 Words  | 3 Pages

    To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...

    Read More

  • The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B Dubois

    3326 Words  | 7 Pages

    The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B Dubois is a influential work in African American literature and is an American classic. In this book Dubois proposes that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." His concepts of life behind the veil of race and the resulting "double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others," have become touchstones for thinking about race in America. In addition to these lasting concepts, Souls offers an evaluation of the progress of the races and the possibilities for future progress as the nation entered the twentieth century.

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass and Slavery

    1020 Words  | 3 Pages

    As the United States grew, the institution of slavery became a way of life in the southern states, while northern states began to abolish it. While the majority of free blacks lived in poverty, some were able to establish successful businesses that helped the Black community. Racial discrimination often meant that Blacks were not welcome or would be mistreated in White businesses and other establishments. A comparison of the narratives of Douglass and Jacobs demonstrates the full range of demands and situations that slaves experienced, and the mistreatment that they experienced as well. Jacobs experienced the ongoing sexual harassment from James Norcom, just like numerous slave women experienced sexual abuse or harassment during the slave era. Another issue that faced blacks was the incompetence of the white slave owners and people. In ...

    Read More

  • Slavery by Another Name

    584 Words  | 2 Pages

    For most American’s especially African Americans, the abolition of slavery in 1865 was a significant point in history, but for African Americans, although slavery was abolished it gave root for a new form of slavery that showed to be equally as terrorizing for blacks. In the novel Slavery by Another Name, by Douglas Blackmon he examines the reconstruction era, which provided a form of coerced labor in a convict leasing system, where many African Americans were convicted on triumphed up charges for decades.

    Read More

  • Slavery’s Dehumanizing Effects on American Slaves and Slaveholders

    1652 Words  | 4 Pages

    Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, brings to light many of the social injustices that colored men, women, and children all were forced to endure throughout the nineteenth century under Southern slavery laws. Douglass's life-story is presented in a way that creates a compelling argument against the justification of slavery. His argument is reinforced though a variety of anecdotes, many of which detailed strikingly bloody, horrific scenes and inhumane cruelty on the part of the slaveholders. Yet, while Douglas’s narrative describes in vivid detail his experiences of life as a slave, what Douglass intends for his readers to grasp after reading his narrative is something much more profound. Aside from all the physical burdens of slavery that he faced on a daily basis, it was the psychological effects that caused him the greatest amount of detriment during his twenty-year enslavement. In the same regard, Douglass is able to profess that it was not only the slaves who incurred the damaging effects of slavery, but also the slaveholders. Slavery, in essence, is a destructive force that collectively corrupts the minds of slaveholders and weakens slaves’ intellects.

    Read More

  • Essay On Slave Trade

    1329 Words  | 3 Pages

    Since the beginning of slavery in the America, Africans have been deemed inferior to the whites whom exploited the Atlantic slave trade. Africans were exported and shipped in droves to the Americas for the sole purpose of enriching the lives of other races with slave labor. These Africans were sold like livestock and forced into a life of servitude once they became the “property” of others. As the United States expanded westward, the desire to cultivate new land increased the need for more slaves. The treatment of slaves was dependent upon the region because different crops required differing needs for cultivation. Slaves in the Cotton South, concluded traveler Frederick Law Olmsted, worked “much harder and more unremittingly” than those in the tobacco regions.1 Since the birth of America and throughout its expansion, African Americans have been fighting an uphill battle to achieve freedom and some semblance of equality. While African Americans were confronted with their inferior status during the domestic slave trade, when performing their tasks, and even after they were set free, they still made great strides in their quest for equality during the nineteenth century.

    Read More

  • Slavery Synthesis Essay

    1347 Words  | 3 Pages

    When one thinks of slavery, they may consider chains holding captives, beaten into submission, and forced to work indefinitely for no money. The other thing that often comes to mind? Stereotypical African slaves, shipped to America in the seventeenth century. The kind of slavery that was outlawed by the 18th amendment, nearly a century and a half ago. As author of Modern Slavery: The Secret World of 27 Million People, Kevin Bales, states, the stereotypes surrounding slavery often confuse and blur the reality of slavery. Although slavery surely consists of physical chains, beatings, and forced labor, there is much more depth to the issue, making slavery much more complex today than ever before.

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass: The Dehumanization Of African American Slaves

    1734 Words  | 4 Pages

    Frederick Douglass’ landmark narrative describes the dehumanization of African-American slaves, while simultaneously humanizing them through his moving prose. Douglass shows the dehumanization of slaves through depictions of violence, deindividuation, and the broken justice system. However, Douglass’ pursuit of an education, moving rhetoric, and critique of his own masters demonstrates to the reader that African-Americans are just as intelligent as white people, thus proving their humanity.

    Read More

  • Double Consciousness and the American Narrative

    1077 Words  | 3 Pages

    DuBois presents the question “[h]ow does it feel to be a problem?”, introducing the attitude towards African-Americans upon their emancipation (DuBois 3). The idea of freedom for slaves meant equality, but “the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land […] the shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon the Negro people” (6). The challenge faced during this time was how to deal with the now freed slaves who once had no rights. DuBois states that African-Americans merely wish “to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly i...

    Read More

  • Slavery During the 1800s

    481 Words  | 1 Pages

    Slavery in the eighteenth century was worst for African Americans. Observers of slaves suggested that slave characteristics like: clumsiness, untidiness, littleness, destructiveness, and inability to learn the white people were “better.” Despite white society's belief that slaves were nothing more than laborers when in fact they were a part of an elaborate and well defined social structure that gave them identity and sustained them in their silent protest.

    Read More

More about Fields, Dubois, And Oliphant Essay

Open Document