Douglass very artistically states how the song’s true meaning was beyond its literal content, and actually contradicts his previous thought that the songs showed a sense of happiness from the slaves. When Fredrick Douglass remembered those songs the slaves used to sing, a feeling of happiness would no longer cloud up his mind, but instead
One reason Tatum used to explain why it is profitable to speak about racism and encourage others to break the silence is that, “unchallenged personal, cultural, and institutional racism results in the loss of human potential, lowered productivity, and a rising tide of fear and violence in our society” (pg. 200). When reading the chapter, Embracing a Cross-Racial Dialogue, I noticed one question showing up continuously when discussing breaking the silence of racism. If I don't do it, who will? This question really stood out to me for a few reasons.
When Frederick Douglass addressed the audience with his speech, it was very emotional and straight from his heart. As we all know, he was a freed slave and mainly considered his “slavery” as not being able to read and write, until his white master’s wife taught him to do so. With Douglass becoming a freed man and moved up North to pursue the life he dreamed to live, all he wanted was for the rest of the African American slave population to be free as well. Douglass believed that everybody had the right to succeed in society; he never understood how our country was founded on freedom but not everybody was free. Throughout Frederick’s speech, he repeatedly would ask the crowd uncomfortable questions and somewhat “guilt-trap” the people, example being “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine.
Others in the Black community would look up to her situation, as it was a symbol of hope. Another example of a woman resisting abuse is Mary Prince (1788-1833). Prince was born into an enslaved family, and then sold to a number of brutal masters. At one point, she was able to travel to England with her slavemaster. There, she had the chance to escape and become free, yet this would only apply in Britain.
A lot of these leaders were born into slavery and escaped, passing on powerful messages to the people to come together and fight for their rights. I found Fredrick Douglas to be a good example of one who was born into slavery. He had a slave mom and a white dad that resulted in him being sent to another plantation to be a servant because of his color. In 1838, Douglas escaped and became part of an Anti-Slavery Society in 1841. He gave a powerful speech on the fourth of July addressing his fellow African Americans called ‘What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July.’ He portrays how all of America celebrates Independence Day with their political freedom.
He's going to ameliorate their conditions, he's going to make their slavery on his plantations so effective, so good, such an even joyous form of labor, that he will be doing God's work by improving slavery” (Blight). Therefore, “there are plenty of pro-slavery writers who also, to some extent, whether out of guilt or out of awareness, saw slavery as wrong, but they saw it as a problem more for white people than for black people. Their concern was not the conditions of blacks but what slavery did to whites, and usually they ended up in the same situation as Colcott Jones.”
Later on, he realizes that it is very wrong. In the novel, racism portrays the slaveholder as soft as it does those who are enslaved. It creates a sense of moral confusion in which people who seem to be nice, such as Miss Watson and Sally Phelps who express no concern at all about the injustices of slavery or separating Jim from his family. Society’s “norm” about slavery isn’t completely gone from Huck’s head, but he does seem to have a good sense of what is right and what is wrong compared to some of the adults in the society. When Huck is impersonating Tom at Sally Phelps’ house and she asks why he was delayed the last several days, he replies saying that a cylinder on the steamboat blew up.
He had to maintain independence because he was a slave and knew that he could be moved around to the ownership of another slave master. While Douglass was still a slave he started a school in the cabin of a freed black man to teach people to read. He wanted to express to people that it was important to know how to read and be independent so slaves won’t have to depend on their
We were exposed to slavery and learned about what truly happened during the life of a slave. I was shown the newspaper, The Liberator. This gave me such inspiration and motivated me to support the anti-slavery groups within our nation. Understanding the struggles of African slaves was so eye opening because, even though we were very different, I understood how it was like to be mistreated within the workplace and to be taken advantage of. If women should have equal rights, why shouldn’t slaves?
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an abolitionist and author. She wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in response to the Fugitive Slave Act. She felt the public shouldn’t be sheltered to what went on in a slave’s life. Some people ignored the fact that slaves were treated horribly because they only saw them as property. Uncle Tom’s Cabin shined a light onto their cruel, abusive lives.