Jefferson owned slaves and Franklin, for most of his life, adamantly believed that African Americans were lesser. b.) But, quite unlike the mainstream ideals of their time, both men held strong ideals of equality. Franklin did at the end of his life reverse his ideas about African Americans, and dedicated many of his later years to equality for blacks. Jefferson also believed slavery to be an atrocious blot on the face of America.
Slavery, which was a major uproar from colonial America to the civil war, is the racial epidemic of the enslavement of people for money and cheap labor with extensive abuses. The question that could be asked is were the slaves dignified, did they still keep their dignity? The word dignity is the conducting of self-respect as a person sees himself or herself rather than, how others perceive that person. Slavery has been around for years and slaves have been treated unfairly for countless of reasons and situations. Did they still keep their self-respect?
To support his thesis, he pointed out that any lower social class was sent to do manual labor. Some however, were simply better and cheaper to have as slave laborers, such as the African Slaves. (Williams 10) Racism was simply a consequence of slavery so that people could justify the idea of employing and owning slaves. For many years, historians and sociologists have debated the relationship between racism and slavery. Some contend that slavery caused and perpetuated racism, while others argue that racism caused and perpetuated slavery.
This was due to the fact that they shared in the general prejudice of their time and because of the fact that they considered other reforms (such as lower tariffs) to be more important that anti-lynching laws. African American leaders such as Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Marcus Garvey strongly disagreed with the opinions and actions of the Progressive era and took action on their own to alleviate poverty and discrimination. A former slave, Booker T. Washington proposed a response to discrimination that was widely accepted by both whites and African Americans in the hostile racial climate of the 1880s and 1890s. In 1881, Washington established the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama.
It’s important to understand that slavery wasn’t because of racism but because the pursuit of profit. Slavery was by all definitions unpaid labor which helped build our new world (D’Souza, pg. 467). It’s not so much that race defined slavery relations, but that slavery defined race relations, “Racism developed and spread in America as an ideology to rationalize the enslavement and exploitation of black by a white master class” (D’Souza, pg. 467).
Southern Christianity and Slavery One of the many character flaws of being human is trying to find justification in the wrong doings of either our self or our family members. In the United States, this trait is seen mostly in Southern Conservative Christian families, but during the years surrounding the Civil War the sense of justification for why slavery was not as horrendous as the Northerners had thought was that the followers of Christ, “held slaves without the disapproval of God.” In the early years of Christianity slavery was a sign of economic stature in the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages. The Bible uses the Hebrew term “ebed” to refer to slavery, but that is not exactly correct. “Ebed” refers more to servant or hired worker than a slave. Biblically slavery is only referred to in the Old Testament through the story of Ham, but historically slavery was an integral part of ancient commerce, taxation, and temple religion.
Washington preferred a gradual incline of black involvement and acceptance, whereas DuBois preferred immediate direct action. DuBois tried to get African Americans to be involved in politics for this would be the only way their freedoms would be maintained and that could gain influence in society. Carter Woodson states that without political involvement, they would “lose ground in the basic things of life,” (Doc I). DuBois says that the original democratic system does not exist anymore; a caste system replaced it with the white men on top, who try to diminish the civil liberties of those below them, the blacks (Doc F). Dubois’s solution is that African Americans must constantly fight and argue for what they desire in order to ever gain their rights (Doc E).
The beginning of slavery began as punishments for crimes in Africa, leading to Europe wanting them. Which also lead to the United States also wanting them because of economic problems which started the triangular trade. Free slaves came to happen because of the Confiscation Act of 1862, but even when freed, they were still discriminated and lacked choices to choose from to live their lives. Also, the freed slaves didn’t know what to do to survive on their owns. Slaves were better off than freedmen because they had food and shelter, some slave owners were kind to the slaves, and slaves knew what they had to do.
“On Civil Disobedience” by Mohandas Gandhi, an excerpt from “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr., and an excerpt from “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau, all show how all three of them have similar views towards civil disobedience. Some people may believe that civil disobedience is not an effective way to attain change. However, they may not have realized that civil disobedience has helped many people achieve his or her goals, proving that civil disobedience is effective. For example, civil disobedience has helped African Americans gain certain rights and free them from racial injustice. In “Letter from Birmingham City Jail”, King talks about how African Americans were treated differently due to the color of their skin.
Fredrick even notices and identifies this in his narrative by saying "it is the wish of most masters . . . to keep their slaves thus ignorant". Growing up as children in slavery is a difficult life.