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Module 3: Part 3.I Black History & Abolitionism (20th cent), Further…

- - - - despite these ideals (freedom, independence), slavery continued to exist, the ideals were for whites only
      - disillusion, tension and disappointment for African Americans
    - - Brought an end to slavery proper, the Emancipation proclamation constituted the formal end of slavery as a legal phenomenon, but still racism, fewer and lesser opportunities and segragation (new phase of racism)
- - - - Redirects the intention from the 4th July 1776 -> Arrival of the first enslaved Africans 1619
        
        The celebration of America's birth in 1776 coes not pay sufficient attention to the system of slavery and its impacts
        
        slaves were considered to be "objects"
        
        Slaves were advertised and traded like objects
        
        health and capability of exploitation for work was relevant
        
        slave auctions..
        
        slaves were tortured, had to suffer physically (and mentally)
        
        slave cabins/quarters
        
        only a minority were household slaves and "city slaves"
        
        daily lives of slaves were regulated by slavery codes
- - - - songs for different situations (the owner is here, watch out or the owner is away, you could try to escape today)
- - - - transport from Africa to America (buffalo soldier)
  - - - captured in Africa and sold into slavery
      - Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
        
        first volume published by an African American Individual
        
        London 1773, Philadelphia 1786
      - was permitted to educate herself by her Christian owners
        
        gave her a more positive point of view of white people
        
        despite the racist reactions she received when her plan of publishing poetry became known
      - She studied 3 sources: Bible, Latin and Greek and neoclassical English writers
      - Corpus of 36 poems have been preserved
      - Her form is neoclassical and strictly conventional
        
        she has been accused of nearly imitating Eurocentric conventions
      - perspectives and concerns
        
        she focuses on an African American experience > race
        
        woman > gender
        
        American > colonial/postcolonial/national
        
        discusses the perspective of a self-conscious artist/her own role as a poet -> metaliterary or politological perspective
      - On being brought from Africa to America
        
        Christian in substance and outlook
        
        thankfulness that she is in America where she became a Christian and got to know god
        
        on the other hand, a slight but present discussion of the Situation of African Americans is ingrained.
        
        "She was forcefully, against her will, brought to America from Africa"
        
        She shows resistance and issues a warning
        
        Ambivalence
        
        Untertones
        
        Finding a voice
        
        Bicultural/two traditions
        
        benighted vs knighted in the voice/ a strong soul/person
        
        die = color vs dying
- - - - David Walker, An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1829)
      - H.B. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)
    - - Sojourner Truth
      - Frederick Douglass
        
        What to the slave is the forth of July?
        
        for the slave -> the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim
        
        no nation on earth with same cruelty and bloody practices as the united states..
        
        the slave is not included in the independence
        
        The freedom that brought life and healing to the Whites, brought stripes and death to the slave.
        
        a protest/movement/the abolitionist movement is needed
        
        The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed, the conscience of the nation must be roused
        
        Finally expression of hope that slavery will end
      - Folk Poetry, Spirituals, Secular Songs, Folktales
    - - Woman that killed her children because she did not want them to be enslaved and suffer for years.
- - - - show cruelties of slavery, fuel abolitionist movement
    - - it was dangerous to voice abolitionist perspectives
  - - - auction scenes, sale of children, destruction of families
      - physical punishment
      - sexual exploitation and oppression
    - - victimization of the protagonist by evil forces
      - bipolar structures and strategies
        
        "good vs bad"
      - emotional rhetoric strategies, stur the reader into action for the immediate abolition of slavery
    - - fellow African Americans that were encouraged to believe that they deserved to be free
      - White middle class readers, esp. women who were to be enraged and stired into action
  - - - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845)
        
        translated into German and has also gotten popular in Germany
        
        follows typical pattern of slave narratives
        
        specific:
        
        his surge for freedom and his ability to gain freedom is explicitly linked to the acquisition of education
        
        His ability to learn how to read/write
        
        tricking his white owners/children to teach him how to read/write
    - - Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker
      - Behind the scenes: thirty years a slave and four years in the White House (1868)
      - experienced all kinds of horrifying aspects of slavery
        
        rape, physical violence, being separated from her family ..
        
        ultimately she managed to buy her own freedom
        
        she got married, her marriage wasn't happy -> she got separated
      - she was a successful dressmaker who had wealthy and famous white clients
        
        Family of Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln
        
        She became close to Mary Todd. Lincoln, who had gotten dresses on credit while her husband was still alive
        
        she couldn't pay her bills anymore as her husband died
        
        through these circumstances Elizabeth Keckley became poorer and poorer
        
        Mary Lincoln was mortified that the book of Keckley would reveal personal information, also about her
        
        Keckley remained poor because Mary Lincoln bought up most of the books so it wouldn't reach a larger public
        
        Elizabeth lost her dressmaker business
        
        in the African American Community she still was a leading figure and respected (activist for Black rights etc.), charity, help, community support, teached at university..
    - - Romance in the 19th century: Life of incredible adventures and extraordinary experiences
      - reconstruction (period after civil war)
        
        promise of equal rights
        
        African Americans looked back at slavery through eyes that search for the positive elements from the past that would ensure to direct a more positive future
      - literary romanticism, emphasis on authenticity, foreshadowing of literary realism
      - manipulative character of slavery
        
        she thinks that she is ok in slavery, does not realize that she deserves to be free.
      - Positive: she learns self-reliance
      - Negative: She is punished physically because she is not able to take care of a baby at four years old
      - At age 18, she has learned that she is not free, the physical burden is extended by the emotional burden of knowing that she is being treated like an object
        
        She begins to fight back later, not accepting anymore that she can be physically punished, she begins to gain pride
        
        She wins over Mr. Bingham, one of her punishers, by making him feel so sorry for her that he says: It would be a sin to punish her any longer and he stopped punishing slaves physically from this day onward.
        
        she managed to buy her own freedom, she had a document then, but it also documents the perversion of slavery that a human being needs a document to prove that she/he is free.