...Aspects of Negro Life. ( Modernism Period) 2 Initial reactions Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery to Reconstruction (1934) is an art piece painted by Aaron Douglas. He was an African-American painter during the Harlem Renaissance movement. As the title suggests, the painting is a description of the history of African-Americans from slavery through reconstruction time. The art piece is divided up into different sections and highlights the racism toward African-Americans. On the left side of the painting you see black people with drums and a crop growing in the background. This section of the painting shows a time where Africans were free and not slaves. Moving a little to the right, we see oppression and slavery through the black people being hunched over in the painting. Towards the middle of the art piece we see a person standing up pointing and showing the desire to fight against slavery and to the right of him you see people with their fists up and ready to fight against the oppression and slavery. This piece of art explores Negro heritage from left to right. I like this piece of art because of the soft colors and the neutral appearance of the silhouettes of people. This painting describes African-American culture and their struggle to end slavery. Everything in this painting describes life of African-American and their struggle in the 1900’s. Historical Context Douglas’s painting Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery to Reconstruction...
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...adversity, discrimination, oppression and segregation. They are a people once condemned by the country that stole their heritage and identity, forced them into slavery and labeled then subhuman. After imprisonments, the loss of lives, much sacrifice and an undeniable refusal of contentment, they are now America’s doctors, lawyers, priests, educators, judges and Secretary of State. From slavery to the White House, the African American took control over its fate and today continues to orchestrate its own destiny. After many years of involuntary servitude, beating, rapes and hangings, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865, stating, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.", the African American slave finally had a taste of freedom, so he thought. Even though the Thirteenth amendment was the Constitutional end of slavery in the United States, this was not the end of slavery. Instead the American southern states introduced slavery by another name. American History 1865-Present | End of Isolation states; “Neither military leaders nor politicians can change the ingrained cultural beliefs of a people.” (Bowles, 2011, 1:1) They were too many people that opposed freeing the Negro for many reasons that they felt were justifiable to them. One of the reasons was the free labor provided by the slave in the fields as well as in the homes of the...
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...races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea. Also, he states that part of this critical problem in American history had given rise to the Civil War. However, many of the men who marched South and North in 1861 may have fixed on the technical points, of union and local autonomy as a shibboleth, all nevertheless knew, as we know, that the question of Negro slavery was the real cause of the conflict. In 1861, the Civil War broke out in America over what was believed to be slavery. However, according to DuBois, Congress, the President, and Nation itself cried that the war was not over the institution of slavery. From this information, one may infer that Congress,...
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...trade and slavery which was rampant in Europe and the United States for the period between the 18th and the 19th century. The industrial and scientific revolution marked this period. To this end, slaves were in high demand on industries and plantations like the ones in South America. Most production was labor intensive, and this nature perhaps explains the intensification of the slave trade during this period. However, missionaries, philosophers and economists like Adam Smith started anti-slavery campaigns. Like Adam Smith, he was very certain that free people are more productive than slaves. Inhumane acts marked the lives of slaves. Masters could whip their Slaves even in public, and they were tied to immobilize them from running away. Thanks, to the antislavery campaigns through evangelism that led to the end of slave trade and slavery. An analysis of the second great awakenings reveals that there is a link between the evangelical spirit and the "reforming Impulse." This link animated the many movements of social reform in the years leading up to the American Civil War. The American evangelicals depicted Americans as the most religious people in the world. It gives an account of the American religious history and how the Protestant churches like the American Methodist Church came along. Several Protestant churches resulted from divisions in the denominations (McLoughlin 4). The American civil war resulted from the ideological differences between camps in America. On one hand...
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...1 Defending the Defenseless During the American Revolution, slavery was in the process of being abolished in Europe and in the Northern states of America. Even though parts of the world were willing to free slaves, the Southern states found ways to defend slavery. In Paul Finkelman’s book Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South, Finkelman provides the writings of many white leaders from the South who believed that slavery was essential to America’s society. The white leaders who spoke about proslavery included a broad range of defenses to justify themselves because they wanted Americans to believe that slavery had a lasting impact economically, religiously, legally, and racially. One of the defenders in Finkelman’s book was Thomas R.R. Cobb. He justified slavery by arguing the effects of abolition in the United States. Cobb said, “The emancipated negroes do not enjoy full and equal civil and political rights in any State in the union, except the State of Vermont” (Finkelman, 79). He was convinced that those who became free of slavery did not live a better life. He believed that any African American slave who is free is not capable of living successfully and “His moral condition compares unfavorably with that of the slave of the South” (Finkleman, 79). This argument states that African Americans who are enslaved are in better hands with the slave owners and therefore they should remain as slaves. Cobb’s defense was justifiable because he...
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...Tyranny and American Democracy Oppression is something dreaded by everyone. This universal fear was a much larger problem in the 1800’s than it is today. Tyranny was a fear that the Federalists, Anti-Federalists, and Alexis de Tocqueville had in common. The Federalists feared tyranny of the majority, or faction while the Anti-Federalists feared tyranny of the aristocracy. Tocqueville feared “soft despotism” but supported tyranny of the patriarchy. While the Federalist and the Anti-Federalists were the visionaries for America who tried to prevent different tyrannies, Tocqueville discusses the hypocrisies in America that the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists were against. The Federalists strongly believed that the newly founded republic needed a large, centralized government in order to discourage tyranny of the majority. Hamilton voices this opinion when he says “a firm Union will be of the utmost moment to the peace and liberty of the States as a barrier against domestic faction and insurrection.” (Hamilton, 66, Federalist No. 9) This is because a large, centralized government uses the system of the checks and balances, which prevent domestic faction and revolt. The Federalists made it clear that they opposed a mob ruling and the minorities being denied their rights. The main danger the new republic faced, they argued, was the superior force of an “interested and overbearing majority.” (Madison, 72, No. 10) The Federalists solution on how to deal with majority faction...
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...If America hadn’t had divided itself, than would The Civil War have even occurred. The Civil war was a time when America was divided into the North and the South. The Missouri Compromise stated that for every free state, there must be slave state. After The Missouri Compromise was made official, America started to divide itself. The Civil War was caused by many economic, political, and social reasons such as how the North and South relied on each other for supplies, the growth of slavery and how the people viewed it, and how slavery was treated in the South. First, the North and South relied on each other frequently for supplies. Both sides traded supplies to frequently that their economy was based on their trades. If either one of them decided...
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...anaphora and allusions to help portray his idea of racial equality for everyone, and a better future for America. Martin Luther King Jr. used the rhetoric device called anaphora to emphasize his theme of equality. There are several examples in this speech that we could use as examples. One example is the line or phrase, “And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let Freedom ring from the mighty mountain of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania” (324). King emphasized the words “let freedom ring” over and over again because he wants us to remember that certain phrase. He used these words to state that freedom should be from coast to coast for every person, and not just found in some states. He says “let freedom ring” and uses different geographic areas that are spread apart throughout the United States. King exclaims that freedom should be everywhere in the United States of America, and is an essential part of a better future for America. King wanted everyone to be treated equal, no matter what race you were or how you looked. There is another example that can be used as an anaphora. “But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity” (322)....
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...Slavery to Freedom – African American History Nimra Jilani Los Angles Harbor College History 012 Professor KJ Hitt April 28th 2012 [pic] Slavery to Freedom – African American History The first African American arrived in the North America as servants and worked under contract from sixteenth to nineteenth century. They were brought from Africa by European Traders. In the past they were known by many names such as Negroes, Blacks and Coloureds. The term Nigger was also used for the African Americans mostly in south. More than half of the population of the African American lived in the Southern States of the America. Slavery first began in the late 16th century When African Americans were brought to American Colonies, they were bought by white masters and they had to work on tobacco and cotton farms in the South. They were not paid anything for all their hard work and living conditions were terrible for them. Slave work was very difficult. Most African American women cooked, cleaned the house and raised the children of their white owners, where as the men were trained to become carpenter or masons but most of them remained to be farmers. Most of the African Americans lived in the South where the percentage of the slavery was at its extreme. The racism towards the African Americans was at its extreme. A very famous historian Karl Marx stated In Wage Labor and Capital, Written twelve years before the civil war that: “What is a negro slave...
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...“Slavery and Georgia” was mentioned in Egmont’s diary. Mr.James Oglethorpe viewed Georgia as an experiment upon the poor to be rehabilitated. The Earl of Egmont created observations in his diary about the debate of introducing slavery to Georgia. The diary selection consists of his recounts of desires of colonies to import slaves into the colony and the details of Mr.Oglethorpe response to the demand that slavery be introduced into the colony. The Scotts had settled into Joseph's town with their negro slaves, and were told by the trustees that it was not allowed . Georgia had banned slavery due to the inconsistency with their social and economic intentions. Mr.Samuel Eveleigh decided that he was not going to settle in Georgia anymore and...
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...revolutions of 1960s have made fulfilling such a responsibility less daunting than ever. Invaluable references, including Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Evelyn Brooks Higgingbotham, ed., Harvard Guide to African American History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); Arvarh E. Strickland and Robert E. Weems, Jr., eds., The African American Experience: An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001); and Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, eds., Dictionary of Afro- American Slavery (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1988), provide informative narratives along with expansive bibliographies. General texts covering major historical events with attention to chronology include John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000), considered a classic; along with Joe William Trotter, Jr., The African American 1  Experience (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001); and, Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold, The African American Odyssey (Upper Saddle River: Printice-Hall, Inc., 2000). Other general texts not to be overlooked are Colin A. Palmer’s Passageways: An Interpretive History of Black America Vol. I: 1619-1863 and Vol. II (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998), which emphasizes culture; and, Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson’s...
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...In fact, the Harlem community is the center and the Godfather. In addition, there are many black writers who have been interested in the cause of the cultural emancipation of the African Americans. They also had a stand against the slavery system and the unjust American society. Resultantly, that Harlem became the sacred place of the Negro and the center of the black community in America. In fact, the Harlem community is the center and the Godfather. In addition, there are many black writers who have been interested in the cause of the cultural emancipation of the African Americans. They also had a stand against the slavery system and the unjust American society. Resultantly, that Harlem became the sacred place of the Negro and the center...
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...started when the Confederate States of America seceded from the Union. The first shots fired in the Civil War was in Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861. On May 9, 1865, the Confederate army surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. In total, there was about 620,000 soldiers that died from combat, starvation, and disease. The Civil War was caused by the varying economies in the North and South, whether slavery should exist (expand westward), and the failure to establish a compromise. The first main cause of the Civil War was the varying economies between the North and the South. The North’s total population was 23,000,000 million,...
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...surpassed their only boundary: America. Each one of them did what was possible for them at the time. However, what they achieved, how they achieved it, and their ideologies were different in each leader. Malcolm X was born in a Baptist family in Nebraska in May 19, 1925. Since little, he always saw violence in the streets as an atmosphere in which everyone fought and tricked just to survive. He was born into a Baptist (father), and Seventh Day Adventist (mother) environment. Malcolm X was influenced by his father who was a nationalist and a follower of Marcus Garvey’s UNIA. After getting out of jail he was...
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...condition in America driving slow and painstakingly towards a radical crescendo at the close of the fourth article. Upon first glance, the Appeal seems to exhibit one the earliest written examples of the classical Negro sermon invoking the tools of emotional petition, scriptural analogy and historical scrutiny in outlining the core narrative. Through further revisions to the text, Walker was able to expand upon the original thesis to form the ideological framework of Black liberation theology, social theory and nationalist discourse with consideration towards both freedmen and enslaved Blacks. The Preamble of Walker's Appeal provides an intriguing context for the rise and influence of Black liberation theology where the theological construct exists as the last bastion of "free" intellectual inquiry available to those held in slavery. Walker mines the potentiality of biblical scripture in order to establish his case for the abolition of slavery through moral suasion, Pan-African struggle and armed resistance when necessary. For sewing these seeds of discord, Walker would find himself revered amongst enslaved Blacks and radical abolitionists, reviled amongst whites and slaveowners, held afar by moderate whites and Blacks alike who considered his approach too extreme and later murdered near his shop only a year from the publication of the manuscript. Walker divided his appeal into four distinct areas of discourse following the Preamble which considered the effects of Slavery, Ignorance...
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