African-American Studies Before the Mayflower

African-American Studies

Before the Mayflower

My reaction to chapters 5, 6, and 7 of "Before the Mayflower" and the film "A Dry White Season" is to add to my knowledge of the African-American people and their culture, especially the history of slavery, slave rebellions and revolts, and freed slaves who fought for freedom for others who were not so lucky.

I knew about some slave rebellions, and I have always wondered why more slaves did not revolt and run away from their masters. It seems that some plantations must have had large numbers of slaves that could have overpowered the few whites and run away. I know that this probably sometimes happened, but I wonder why it did not happen more. It seems like a lot more slaves probably could have gotten away than did, and I wonder about that. I also wonder if it did happen more than we know, and Southerners kept it quite because they were afraid other slaves might hear about it and try the same thing.

The slave narratives were very emotional and some of them were extremely hard to read because of the cruelties, but also of the emotions of slaves torn away from their families and their loved ones. It seems so cruel and heartless now, and it is hard to understand how any human being could do that to another human being. It seems so cruel and unusual that it is hard to read about and hard to understand. It is not so hard to understand why blacks would fight in the Civil War, because they understood that they were fighting for their own freedom. It is harder to fathom why blacks would fight on the side of the South, except that I understand that some blacks were well treated by their families, and they did not really think they needed to be free. Some of them were almost a part of the family, like a beloved pet or something, and they were very loyal to families that treated them well. I enjoyed reading about some of the standout black soldiers who won medals and awards, but it was hard to read about the prejudices against black soldiers. 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 the fighting men and how they fought so hard and so long is really difficult to read. I think that it is important that the book includes so many illustrations because they help make the people and the situations more real and more interesting, too.

I think that the film "A Dry White Season" really shows the difficulties of the blacks in South Africa, who really received civil rights so much later than American blacks that it is just stunning. The murder of the young black man is so brutal and so unnecessary, but what was so striking about the film is that is was not uncommon at all, and most of the whites were totally ignorant of what was going on (like the Donald Sutherland character), or simply turned their heads the other way and ignored the situation.