Tuesday, March 14, 2017

A Summer of Trails, 1903 and A River of Anger: Douglas Blackmon Reading Quotes

Kaveena Bullock
Professor Young
AFAM 2100: The New Jim Crow
19 March 2017
A Summer of Trails, 1903
1.    “At the same time, black preachers and African Americans who had established some silver of financial security grew fearful of the rising temperature around them. They had learned through bloody experience the dangers of challenging the status quo of white domination, and also that in the inflexible rituals of Southern racial interaction men such as themselves were expected to prostrate themselves before whites as proof that they gave no credence to the inquiries demanded by President Roosevelt and Judge Jones” (Blackmon, page 225).
·      This is an important quote because it displays how important the black church and black preachers were during this time. It must have been a difficult situation to be in as leaders for black people but also trying not to trigger white people around them. Preachers in a church are supposed to be strong leaders but even they became fearful of the rise of racism even more. Even though they may have been fearful, the black preachers still had to stand strong for black people being killed and discriminated against even though slavery was “over” for blacks.
2.    “The Civil Rights Act of 1866, passed in the wake of the war to formalize the ending of slavery, simply declared all persons born in the United States to be full-fledged citizens with the right to vote regardless of race or previous ‘condition of slavery or involuntary servitude.’ But it did not clearly state that the holding of statues was a crime, and the disparate treatment of former slaves was made only a misdemeanor, carrying a maximum penalty of one year in jail” (Blackmon, page 227).
3.    “Later statues in the 1870s made segregated accommodations, schools, and anti-black-voting measures illegal, but actually weakened the minimum penalty for violations. In 1883, the U.S. Supreme Court declared even those laws unconstitutional, ruling that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments, approved in 1869 to abolish slavery and establish black citizenship, didn’t authorize Congress to pass such enforcement laws” (Blackmon, page 227).
·      This quote seems to show some progress when it comes to having equality for blacks but the last line stands out the most. Although these different laws may be illegal, Congress did not pass such enforcement laws. This means that even the freedmen were still trapped under laws that did not protect them nor did it give them equality.
·      A black man or woman does not receive the same equal civil protection that a white person has, even until this day. Having court rights are something that white people had, so black men and women should have the same rights. Although blacks were making progress, this displayed how whites saw them even more. If blacks could be respected inside a courtroom with their own case, there was no opportunity to receive respect outside the courtroom.
5.    “’God forbid that the time will ever come in this country when you are helpless and distressed and have been the victim of oppression when you will be denied that protection of the law to which you appeal and to which every law, abiding human being is entitled among all civilized people.’ Jones told the jury” (Blackmon, page 232).
·      I found this quote by Judge Jones to be ironic since he is saying this to a jury about what blacks were dealing with at the time. Three key words he uses in his statement are "helpless", "distressed" and "the victim of oppression". These keywords are a small glimpse of what black people were going thru and how they felt at the time. Another key phrase in this quote is "denied that protection of the law…" This is important because it is an unsettling fear that the law cannot protect you even though that is what they are there for.
A River of Anger
1.    “A frenzied mob in Scottsboro, Alabama, gunned down the town sheriff in front of his family as he refused to turn over a black teenager who had allegedly ‘attempted criminal assault’ on a nineteen-year-old white girl. Once the sheriff was dead, the black man was seized from his cell and hanged from a telegraph pole that night” (Blackmon, page 234).
3.    “The big nostrils, flat nose, massive jaw, protruding lip and kinky hair will register their animal marks over the proudest intellect and the rarest beauty of any other race. The rule that had no exception was that one drop of Negro blood makes a Negro” (Blackmon, page 237).
·      The way I interpreted this quote was that just because a black person had one drop of blood of black DNA, that does not make them black. Their intelligence and rare beauty, which is what truly makes a “Negro” a “negro”.
4.    “At a meeting of the state medical association in Georgia, one physician presented a paper that purported a document the close similarities between a long list of black features, skin, mouth, lips, chin, hair, nose, nostrils, ears, and navel, and those of the horse, cow, dog, and other barnyard animals. From that claimed evidence, Dr. E. C. Ferguson extrapolated that the ‘negro’ is monkey-like; has no sympathy for his fellow-man; has no regard for the truth, and when the truth would answer his purpose the best, he will lie…and seek subsistence as best they can, growing up like an animal” (Blackmon, 239).
5.    “The emancipation act that had ended the Civil War had transmogrified into ‘a race feud,’ he said. ‘Not a single Southern legislature stood ready to admit a Negro under any conditions, to the polls; not a single Southern legislature believed free Negro labor was possible without a system of restrictions that took all its freedoms away; there was scarcely a white man in the South who did not honestly regard Emancipation as a crime, and its practical nullification as a duty” (Blackmon, page 245).
·      There were no white Southerners that believed a black person could work for free without a system that did not keep them in captivity. I interpreted this as in order for “Negro” labor to work was to have a system that keeps them as another form of slaves. After all the work blacks fought for and the passing different acts, they still did not matter to the white Southerners. It put black people in a stuck state of what is considered free for them and when would they ever become free. I thought this quote was important because having a system that takes away someone’s freedoms is not the only way to have labor. I believe they had other ways of creating a new system so blacks could have their freedom but they white people wanted to keep blacks under the hand of another form of slavery.


Wednesday, February 8, 2017

What Really Caused the Civil War?

Kaveena Bullock
Professor Young
AFAM: The New Jim Crow
9 February 2017
What Caused the Civil War?
Prior to this lesson about the Civil War, in high school I remember learning about the Civil War as something smaller in a larger section of American history. I was always taught that the Civil War was a battle between the North and the South, which had the Confederate states. The war was about slavery and how the North wanted to end slavery, which is what they were fighting about. There was a man named General Robert E. Lee that led the Confederate side. He was known in American history as a great General that led our troops. I was also taught that blacks fought in the slave but white men did not want them in the war. Once the war happened, the North won and then slavery was over. I more so remember the movie that was made with Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman called Glory. The teacher would rather play the movie than teach the lesson. We watched the movie at the end of our unit about the Civil War but never taught the specific events that led to the war.
One factor that I do remember about the Civil War was tariffs and how significant they were to the Southern states. The first factor that I learned more about in this lesson was about the Tenth Amendment, which was to state that laws differed depending on the state. I did not know that this caused problems when it came to Congress and representations of each state. The conclusion to this so each state could have a fair say in how many representatives they had was The Great Compromise. This meant that each state had the same amount of representatives in the Senate and their population was based on the representation in the House of Representatives. Because of this, the South wanted more representation than the North. This led to the 3/5 compromise.
The 3/5 compromise meant that every slave counted as 3/5 of a person, not even a full human being. This caused a stir in the North because even though the Tenth Amendment was part of the Bill of Rights, this compromise contradicted what the Declaration of Independence stated. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (Declaration of Independence). In school I was not taught that the South considered slaves 3/5 of a person to count them for more representations. I was also not taught how contradicting laws and declarations are in this country when it came to the Civil War. There was the illusion that this war “fixed” slavery problems until Jim Crow laws and the 1960s era came around. This information taught me that this war was more than just North versus South and that this helped ended slavery.

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

The Process to Slavery Increase

Kaveena Bullock
Professor Young
AFAM: The New Jim Crow
2 February 2017
“Slavery Increase” Response
Question: The process and system by which slavery increased.
There was more than one process that was done in order to increase the amount of slaves. Not only was there a way to increase slaves, but also a way to keep blacks into captivity permanently. “The system of leasing convicts soon radically altered the implications of the debt enforcement process and the significance of each official involved in it” (Blackmon, 64). There was a system of having blacks being in debt where white officials knew that they were never going to be able to pay it off. This is how the counties kept blacks under a lease.
By the time it was the early 1880s, there were 29 counties in Alabama that were leasing their prisoners (page 65). This was the beginning of more and more black workers increasing. “Because of the financial benefits of leasing convicts rather than sending them to state officials, some counties opted to prosecute men accused of felonies on misdemeanor charges-solely so the sheriff and other locals could receive the proceeds of the prisoner’s lease” (Blackmon, 65). The state was making more money by having prisoners in their counties given to landowners than keeping them in jail.
Another tactic that was used for slavery increase was “’confess judgment’, an archaic legal concept under which the accused confesses his responsibility before being tried” (Blackmon, 67). This would happen with minor situations such as a black person having a weapon or even speaking loudly in front of a white woman. Blacks who did this confess judgment statements did this to be avoid being sold but was traded with labor contracts or to a landowner who they were familiar with, which was better than being sold into slavery. However, the result of this, these blacks were being returned as unpaid workers, beaten and even held in shackles (page 67). The irony of this was that they were treated this way in fields where they were working free before doing a confess judgment.
There were two problems that whites had that misdemeanor convict leasing solved for them. The first one was “it terrorized the larger black population into compliance with a social order in which they willingly submitted to complete domination by whites,” and the second was “it significantly funded the operations of government by converting black forced labor into funds for the counties and states” (Blackmon, 68-69). The value of leasing blacks convicts became popular among the different counties and grew into a large profit.
An example of how these rules were double standard and were made to increase the number of slaves was James Cottingham. He was charged with assault and battery with a weapon. His fine came out to one dollar along with court fines. Of course with that being such a low charge, he was able to pay it and was free. “Little changed over the next two years, with the number of inmates in the county jail never exceeding twenty. All of that transformed as the value of leasing black convicts became more apparent” (Blackmon, 69-70).  
(Picture Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=slavery+increase&espv=2&biw=1396&bih=781&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiHr_XT5_DRAhVCQiYKHSiiCzEQ_AUIBygC#imgrc=F0iI3XJb2qQ2aM:)

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Black Superheros

Vee Bullock 
AFAM 2100: The New Jim Crow
January 24, 2017
Professor Young


Still in the Process 

What a time to be alive and see black superheroes! Especially female characters, that is inspiring. This poster of the reformed version of Catwoman caught my attention initially with her facial expression. She has such a serious face as if she does not play games. Once I looked more at the picture and saw what she was actually looking at, she was breaking chains with Timberland books. That is a positive yet strong image that is being shown in light of Black History Month. By using Pan-African colors, it made the image realize what Catwoman is doing. She is demonstrating the act of breaking the barriers, hence the chains. What I thought was interesting is that only one of the clasps are broken. Maybe I am looking too deep into the picture, but personally I view that as African Americans are still bound since the days of Africa. Since she is breaking only one chain, the way she is moving looks as if she is going to break the other one. This represents that African Americans have to continue to fight until all the chains are off. The reason I chose to write about this power is because I love Timberland boots. In America, we usually see only people of color wear Timberland boots and sometimes the people that wear them are classified negatively. In this image however, the boots are being used by a female superhero trying to break chains. I think this image is powerful and could be used a positive symbol of confidence but also letting other people be aware of the fact that "the struggle" is not over.