Michelle Obama: I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. Bill O’Reilly: Slaves that worked there were well fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government, which stopped hiring slave labor in 1802. If he used a weasel word like “some” to say slaves had relatively decent treatment, then I…
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself by Harriet Jacobs My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book accounts for Harriet Jacobs’ life as a slave, hiding for several years in the South, escaping to the North, and finally obtaining her freedom. She presents some letters documenting the tale. Given the…
Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup My rating: 3 of 5 stars An autobiography about a mixed race free man kidnapped into slavery hit a little too close to home. His experience being free made acclimating to the difficult masters more challenging. More amazing me is he did not break under the weight of…
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe My rating: 5 of 5 stars No idea why it took me so long to get around to reading this. It felt good to read something that portrayed slavery in the United States where the slaves were both treated as property and subhuman. Books like Gone With the Wind treat…
This started out as a comment to Adrian, but I it got so long it may as well be a post on its own…. The significance of racial labels is not in identifying the genetic makeup of individuals. The significance is in how the labels were used to enforce segregation long before the American Revolution.…
An Even Better Reason to Celebrate has a nice longer version of this quote from a NYT OpEd piece on tomorrow being the bicentennial for the ablution of slave trade to the United States. WE Americans live in a society awash in historical celebrations. The last few years have witnessed commemorations of the bicentennial of…
An Even Better Reason to Celebrate has a nice longer version of this quote from a NYT OpEd piece on tomorrow being the bicentennial for the ablution of slave trade to the United States. WE Americans live in a society awash in historical celebrations. The last few years have witnessed commemorations of the bicentennial of…