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African-American Studies
Before the Mayflower
My reaction to the first four chapters of "Before the Mayflower" is to see that the African-American people have a long and varied history and heritage that they should be proud of and celebrate. I learned that many experts believe the Egyptians may have been black, and that many legends, stories, and Biblical passages may refer to Black history in Africa and beyond. I did not know how early Africans first came to America, and I did not know that slave trade (or at least blacks in America) began in America as early as 1619. I also did not know that European trade began as early as 1444. This really shocked me; I thought slavery happened much, much later. I knew that the Romans and Greeks had slaves, so I do not know why this was so surprising to me, but it definitely was. I was also surprised that in the beginning, blacks were a part of the community and they people did not think they were inferior.
A also knew that blacks had fought during the American Revolution, but I did not know that they were so involved in the initial outbreak and instigation of the Revolution, that also surprised me, and so did the fact that so many slaves went with the British after the war ended. That makes sense, but it was new information to me. I also knew about the desperate lives of slaves in the South, and how they were treated like animals, but to actually see the words of the advertisement that called them "breeding stock" like they were cattle or something was really eye opening and frightening. It was (and is) frightening to me that people could have treated each other this way. It is also frightening that it was condoned and even encouraged among masters who needed the cheap labor. I think that slavery was one of the darkest times in American history, and that we should never forget what happened to Africans who were shipped to America as slaves. Reading a book like this keeps this history alive, and it should. Americans should never forget what happened to African-Americans and they should be ashamed that something like this could happen in this nation.
" To understand African-Americans we must understand where they came from, what they gave up (besides of course their freedom), and what they hoped for. I believe that understanding more about the roots of this culture can only create more acceptance and tolerance among all people. Finally, I hope to achieve a good grade in this class! It is an interesting topic to me, and I feel that I will get
It seems funny that free slaves would organize troops to fight against the North, but I also understand that they were defending the only way of life they had ever known, and that life was in the South, not the North. The Civil War was a horrible conflict, and I know that thousands, even millions of men - black and white - died, and reading about the strength of
Yet, as Hendrick writes, Harriet also transformed those feelings into an engine of social change; "pursuing the Calvinist injunction to 'improve the affliction' and reap 'the peaceable fruits of righteousness' in the wake of" her son Charley's death, and "stirred up the nation to an awareness of its sin." Harriet wrote to her brother Henry, "You see...how this subject has laid hold of me...The poor slave on whom the
But by the year of the revolution, the "various forces of discord between Britain and American had combined, and," Adams continues on page 84, the result of those forces of discord "…did not take the direction which would have found a place for the thirteen colonies within the British Empire Commonwealth" (Adams, 84). The Trade acts and Navigation acts were "extremely galling," Adams comments on page 85, and King
Democratic Party in Massachusetts in the last few years of the decade. Particularly, the paper will assess why the Democratic Party seems to have lost its historic continuity with middle-income voters as evidenced by the popularity of republican themes and issues. The paper will also specifically, examine the role of African-American problems in the philosophy of the democratic party and the receptivity of office holders and office seekers to
C. By Michael Shively (June, 2005), the first hate crime laws were enacted during the sixties, seventies, and eighties. The first states to pass hate crime legislation were Oregon and Washington in 1981. The first federal hate crime legislation, Shively explains, was debated in 1985, and the first federal statute related to hate crimes was the Hate Crimes Statistics Act, passed in 1990. Subsequent to that Act, other pieces of