Blog #4 post 3 (conclusion)

While each leader in the civil rights movement strived to be equal to whites, it was a dangerous place to be because there were so many roads to get there. Booker Washington and Martin Luther wanted to win the country over through patience, hard work, and proving they deserved to be equal. On the other side sat W.E.B. Du Bois who was more forceful and openly opposed Washington while Luther supported his ways. Malcom X was a fearful leader whose followers learned the importance of self-image and how important black people are as individuals, despite what white leaders may say. Throughout each movement of these leaders, they had a common theme, which was to raise up a generation who is viewed as equals. However, with the mixed messages each was going off to the people of America, it is easy to see how the message was sometimes blurred. Through it all, African Americans were ultimately able to pull their forces together and break down the wall of cultural hegemony that they were facing. 

Blog #4 post 2- (thesis and outline)

Thesis: During the civil rights movement, there were two very different views in how the black community should break the walls of cultural hegemony. Looking through 21st century eyes, it is know that both methods, one of violence and one of peace, were effective while at the same time were counterproductive because instead of uniting, there was a lot of conflict between the leaders of the movements.

1. Peaceful protests- Washington and Luther
2. Pushy protests and violence- Malcom and Du Bois
3. How they counteracted one another
4. How they helped each other
5 How they overcame cultural hegemony... the effect of Martin Luther's death because he was peaceful  the success of Washington's school, the success Du Bois had in the law, and Malcom's confidence booster to the African American culture.

Blog #4- Post 1 (bibliography)

Secondary:
W. A. T. E. R., 17. 2013. "King was more than just a dreamer." New York Amsterdam News, January 24. 4-43. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed May 15, 2013).

James Davidson and Mark Lytle. After The Fact: The Art of Historical Detection. New York: Mc Graw Hill, 2010. 366-395. 

Cone, James. Martin and Malcom and America: A Dream or a Nightmare. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1997. 

Norrell, Robert J. 2009. "Reshaping the Image of Booker T. Washington." Chronicle Of Higher Education 55, no. 25: B5-B6. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed May 10, 2013).

Primary:

Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Norton and Company, 1999. 

Wachington, Booker. The Souls of Black Folk. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2007.

Blog #3-3 (topic chosen)

I decided to do a mix of different people during the civil rights period. I will compare and contrast the effects of violence and non violence protesting and which one was more effective or if both were unnecessary in the battle. In particular, I am going to write about Martin Luther King Jr.and Booker T. Washington on the non violence side, and Malcom X and W.E.B. DuBois on the violent and more forceful side.

Having taken African American History last semester, I know a lot about Washington and DuBois and how they contradicted one another. For primary sources I will use both DuBois's book The Souls of Black Folk, Washington's book Up from Slavery, Malcom X's autobiography, and Martin Luther's I Have A Dream speech. I will also use secondary sources that compare the tactics of each of these men and the influences they had on society and the knowledge I already know from the previous semester. 

Blog #3- 2

option 1- Martin Luther King Jr. was a very inspirational leader in the civil rights movement using non violent tactics. With his interesting start as a Baptist pastor in Montgomery, Alabama, King was born an enthusiastic leader who was right in the middle of the issue of racial segregation by coming from Alabama. One of the first start to King's inspirational life was the Montgomery Bus Boycott. He became the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association which was created during the boycott and he became a prominent leader of the boycott. Here King was arrested for helping start this protest. 

From here King continued to increase his influence on those around him and continued to become more and more involved. He believed in the power of peaceful protests by stating "Not one hair of one head of one person should be harmed." With the church to back him and his inspirational speeches, Martin Luther gained followers and support. 

It will be interesting looking at how he had an effect on the Greensboro sit-ins by students in North Carolina. I have a book that I am using another class that talks about the Greensboro sit-ins and what had caused them. 

For a primary souse, I want will use Martin Luther's speeches and sermons to prove what his message was. Also, I want to use the book "Souls of Black Folk" because this gives another perspective on the civil rights movement that talks of peaceful protests and the faults an good of it.  

option 2- For research about Upton Sinclair, I think it is most helpful to find books about that have exerts from The Jungle and then commentate on the exert from the book. I think this is the most helpful because then that gives me an idea of the political sides behind the writings of the book and what it would have meant to those in that time period. One book i have is "After the Fact" The Art of Historical Detection" which does this exact thing. It talks about The Jungle  not only helping to improve meat packaging companies, but many food places. U have also found many .edu sites about this topic. 

I think in writing on this i would have to focus on the outcomes this book had on the economy and political aspect of laws that were passed and how the society responded. 

option 3-  One thing I found while researching was the importance of the public opinion on this topic. I want to use newspaper clippings as well as cartoons that depict how the view on the railroad was different from one person to another. Also, I have looked up the history and the politics behind the railroad and what it means fr different people.

I also want to look at the benefits of having the railroad, the conflict it cause, and the disadvantages. I wold look at the effect big businesses had on the railroad companies and how it progressed the building of the railroad. 

Blog 3- proposal

I would be writing about the role of  Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement during the 1950's and 60's.
     My questions: How did He become involved? Who inspired him? How did people respond to his peaceful response? What was hid influence on the people as well as politicians and law makers? What did his death do to promote equality?
(http://www.biography.com/people/martin-luther-king-jr-9365086)

I would be writing about the role Upton Sinclair had with his book The Jungle and what it did to improve factories and work conditions during the early 1900's.
       My questions: How did the public respond to this novel? Was there other things before that were promoting the fixing of factories and this was the final string, or was this the first eye opener? What improvements were made after this novel was published?

I would be writing about the transcontinental railroad and the people who were involved to get that started during the 1860's.
       My Questions: How important was this railroad to the economy? Who opposed it and who was for it? Who laid the tracks? Was it controversial? How did the bill get passed to make this railroad?
(http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/themed_collections/subtopic2b.html)

Secondary and Primary

           The letter written by Charles White is a good source to look at the cultural biases of the time and a good source to look at the events of the Harpers Ferry raid.

From looking at the primary source and other historical information that backs up this information, I believe this source is one that accurately describes the situation at hand. Historians have a pretty good idea of how the raid was started, which was also present in the letter from Mr. White. It tells of the time they arrived, which was about eleven the night before to prepare for the actual attack. This man, like many others, was startled when the attack started. He spoke of being quickly open up by a friend who explained the attack had already started. By cross referring this with the secondary source, it seems that many people were still at home or just waking up when the raid started so were not completely aware of the situation.

            The secondary source talks some of different perspectives of people living at that time. First, you have the slave holder who thinks of blacks as property as well as the majority in the South. The secondary source talks of white northerners who also look at black people as a lower sort of people yet wanting slavery to be outlawed. What the primary source did not talk of was the long term effects the raid had on America and the abolitionist movement. In the chapter The Madness of John Brown, the authors speak of how this raid “was to the Civil War what the Boston Massacre had been to the American Revolution: an incendiary event. (James, 149)” This raid, although an unsuccessful immediate impact, the raid aroused passions, made people suspicious of the opinions of both the North and the South, and made differences between the abolitionist and pro

slavery people.

            I believe my interpretation of the primary source being a good source because it is backed up by secondary sources who talk about the events of the raid as well as immediate and long-term effects that incorporate cultural opinions. 

Secondary Source- John Brown

As I read the primary source of the letter sent form Charles White to his brother in-law, many speculations arose of the position he was writing the letter from. I wondered what Mr. White’s biases were against both the slave’s desire to escape and join Mr. Brown and his disgust for Mr. Brown. In the letter, Charles used strong words against John Brown such as “When the villains ran,” and “his [Brown’s] devilish design.” These strong opinions lead me to realize the biases the author has and take that into consideration when interpreting. My knowledge of this primary source before I read it was very limited. I knew of the John Brown Raid, but this was really my first introduction to a primary source.

            For my secondary source, I used a chapter in the book After The Fact: The Art of Historical Detection  by James Davidson and Mark Lytle. This chapter is titled The Madness of John Brown which indicates from the start that John Brown was possibly insane. In this chapter, the authors present many different reasons of why John Brown started this raid. The chapter raises this question: “Was John Brown a heroic martyr- a white man in a racist society willing to lay down his life on behalf of slaves? Or was he a madman whose taste for wanton violence propelled the nation toward avoidance tragedy (p.148)?”

            Reading this chapter, I found that John Brown’s men had been staying in a barn outside of Harpers Ferry for two months hiding out and planning some sort of raid. The group was made up of five black men and sixteen whites who includes three of Brown’s sons

. Brown’s plan was to capture Harpers Ferry and have surrounding countryside slaves to join the conquest and move down south freeing slaves along the way. As the primary source also said, the raid was not planned very well for the most part unsuccessful.

John Brown's last attempt to win the raid
while hiding in the engine house. 

            The attack began with two men cutting telephone lines and running through the town while others seized guns from the armory and hostages.  The morning was full of chaos as Brown and his men light the sky with gunshots and people scurrying around town to find protection. This, however, was short lived. By noon the militia who were present and armed farmers had the people of the raid cornered in an engine house. Thirty-six hours after the first shot on Harpers Ferry, John Brown’s raid to end slavery had ended.

Source: 

Davidson, James West, and Mark H. Lytle. "The Madness of John Brown." After the Fact: The Art of                 Historical Detection. 6th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 148-69. Print.

John Brown Raid

Author of letter- Charles White

        My primary source is a letter from a minister of a Presbyterian Church at Berryville, Virginia named Charles White. This letter was sent to his brother in-law John Felt several weeks after the raid of Harpers Ferry Virginia led by John Brown. It is believed this letter was just family update which contained a great detail of this raid.

        The author of the letter, Charles White, was in the heat of the raid so has a lot of good information about what happened. He explained that John Brown came to Harpers Ferry with a group of men while taken hostages of the city as well as slaves. After captured, the people found out that John Brown’s purpose was to rally people to free the slaves. Mr. White gives off the impression that the slaves were scared to go with John Brown but were forced with the treat of being killed. Mr. White explains he awoke in the morning and found that all the guns on his side of the town were in use of civilians trying to protect themselves. Most white town people thought  the slaves were willingly assisting John Brown, but White tells of a slave who ran away from Brown terrified and trying to find his way to his master. Mr. White claims to have saved a black man when a white civilian was going to shoot him for joining brown

 until White explained they had been forced.  

John Brown rallying up people form Virginia. 

        It is interesting to speculate at the bias Mr. White had against the slaves. He insists that most of the slaves did not want to join the raid and that they went straight back to the plantation because they liked their life as a slave. He even questions why a slave would not like his or her life and laughs at the idea that anyone of them would join Mr. Brown with a hope to be free. What he fails to realize is that even if slaves had willingly helped Brown, after he had been captured of course they would lie to keep from getting killed.  Charles White tells explains that the raid was mostly unsuccessful except in killing a few people and but other than that it seeded to not be a big worry in the eyes of Mr. White.  

       Overall though, I think this source is a reliable source of what happened during the raid from someone who took part in it as a civilian both trying to save the slaves and trying to end the Brown raid. Since this is

merely a letter to an in-law, he would have no reason to lie about situations or what happened, but it is surly soaked with a white man’s perspective.

Source: Moore, Rayburn S. "Charles White's Account of the Raid at Harpers Ferry." Charles White's Eyewitness Account. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2013.

Primary Source about John Brown and the Valley of the Shadow

For this blog series I am going to investigate the raid at Harper's Ferry. Primary sources I intend to use are eye witnesses of the event and what they recall about what occurred that day and the days after. There is also newspapers articles that will be helpful in attaining an accurate picture of what happened. To do this I will be using this website: http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/jbrown/. It ha many first hand accounts and other primary sources that will be helpful.

African Americans in colonial America

For African Americans in colonial America, life was brutal and unfair as whites gradually took advantage of these people and eventually enslaved a whole race of people.

Many people believe that slavery in America started all at once. This, however, is untrue. Slavery happened gradually- from one person to many, and an increase in oppressive laws, and the influence of slave colonies over others. In the beginning many blacks who came to America were treated as indentured servants. But, with the increase of number and the advantage that white landowners saw they were growing, slavery as America now knows it to have been came into existence. Slave trade led to a new economic system: one where the color of one's skin could determine whether he or she might live as a free citizen or be enslaved for life. (PBS)

 For most of the seventeenth century the lives of white indentured servants and enslaved blacks were similar. They worked together in the fields; they ate together and slept in the same part of a building (Shifflett). From the start of slavery, the slaves were at the mercy f their masters. Masters had the authority by law to punish them for anything and everything through abuse. Many masters provided slaves with the bare minimum of clothing and food which grew hatred toward the masters. (Shifflett)

Slaves being captured by a surrounding tribe.

As African presence continued to increase, so did the violence that the maters would use. Africans continued to be shipped because they would be captured in war, kidnapped, or even sold by other Africans and bought to traded from owner to owner. Once they got to America, southern masters expected their slaves to work from sunrise to sundown and sometimes into the night. Constant physical abuse was laid on slaves who messed up or were found taking a break during the work day. One thing that these slaves never lost hope in was God. They had a strong heritage in family ties and with worshiping their creator (Roark, 139,140). As Brian put it, “Even through the horrible torture the slaves endured, they never turned their backs on the God who created them."

Bibliography

PBS. "From Indentured Servitude to Racial Slavery." Africans in America. PBS, 1998. Web. 17 Feb. 2013.

Shifflett, Crandall. "Indentured Servants and the Pursuits of Happiness." Texts of Imagination and Empire. Virginia Tech, 2000. Web. 17 Feb. 2013.

Roark, James L. ., Michael P. Johnson, Patricia C. Cohen, Sarah Stage, and Susan M. Hartmann.  The American Promise. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2012. Print.

North, Middle, and Southern Colonies

              Each colony in America, whether it be the North, South or in between, had specific characteristics that defines solely that area while sharing many common denominators that unifies the colonies between one another.

Separation of North, Middle, and South colonies.

                Let’s first take a look at the Northern colonies and then make our way down the coast. The North Colonies include the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The people in the North came prepared to work, had strong family units which unified the people, and only had small quarrels with the Native people. The type of people who came to the north were separatists, which means they sought to withdraw from the church of England since they lost hope it would reform from its corrupt ways. (Roark, 94-95) These separatists moved to America with unison with a joint stock company where the company provided the capital and the Separatists provided their labor and their lives as they made the journey to the Americas. (Roark, 95) The North was mainly self-governed towns who made a living through the exports of fish, timber, and subsistence farming. One interesting state was the state of Rhode Island. This state, being founded by Roger Williams, was a state that did not require religious connections since he himself was kicked out of the church because his community could not tolerate how radical of a separatist he was.

                The Middle colonies included New York, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. These colonies were the most diverse ethnic group of people. People from all places found refuge in this quaker land. These people included the Dutch, Swedish, French, Germans, Jewish, and even peace with the Natives. Most of these early pioneers to the new world depended on fur trade and farming as a way of economic dependence. Because of the Quaker influence on the colony, which included the idea that there is equality for all, a single religion was not enforced, yet they still stayed true to a code of morals. Similar to the puritans, Quakers emphasized a relationship with Christ, but they believed that one could so individually through inner light. These colonies overall emphasized religious and cultural difference, which would be why slavery was not well accepted. (Shelton)

                Southern colonies included Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Georgia. The settlers who came here were people who were not expecting to work hard. This is where the use of other’s hard work came into play. Since the main economic advantage the South had was exports of rice, indigo, and tobacco, the southern colonies began full-fledged slavery. The import of people being imported as slaves were mainly from Africa and were granted no rights throughout their journey through the middle passage. By 1770, the Southern states had twice as many people than either other region because of the rapid growth of economics (Roark, 135).

                Overall, all New World colonies were considered new and exciting. According to Jacob, it gave people a “fresh start” and “religious freedom.” Professor Holden added that this new world gave “liberty, a freedom for people to own things and give people opportunities.” All three regions prospered in economics as agriculture as a main source of living. All colonies were traditionally grounded deeply in a religious background, but all regions saw a decline in the 18^th century. Each region was had specific characteristics, but one strong tie they all shared was their loyalty to England. England was their mother land, and it would be sometime before tension would begin to be out of control.

Bibliography 

Roark, James L. ., Michael P. Johnson, Patricia C. Cohen, Sarah Stage, and Susan M. Hartmann.  The American Promise. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2012. Print.

Shelton. "The Middle Colonies." The Middle Colonies. Radford University, n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2013.

Columbian Exchange

            Before 1492, “World History” could not really be discussed. At best, discussion could go as far as the ocean and contain information about different regions, but not from the whole world. From the start of  European expansion and exploration however,  it was inevitable for the new world and old worlds to clash at some point. When Christopher Columbus had his initial exploration to the New World, the clash began with full force. The Columbian Exchange opened light to many new opportunities in the trade of goods, people, and ideas that would transform the modern world of the Americas. However, with these positive trades also came a dangerous handful of negatives such as disease and the inhumane treatment of human lives. Overall, the inevitable clash of New and Old Worlds both hurt and helped while transforming and setting the stage for the future.

The diseases from the Europeans
 were detrimental to the native race.

            Disease is said to be the one factor that had the most effect on the lives of the New and Old worlds. It is estimated that over half, and some even project up to eighty percent, of the Native population was killed off  because of the “biological isolation and the limited intrusion of infectious diseases.” (Crouthamel) The Native Americans had never been introduces to diseases such as influenza, typhoid, measles, mumps and smallpox so that when every disease came at the same time, the Natives were defenseless. Diseases were spread at a high rate because of close quarters with one another, unsanitary conditions, and war that broke out between different groups of people.  The Native’s transaction of diseases to the Europeans was limited and mostly stopped at the spread of syphilis.   

          The more fruitful exchanges that went on during the Columbian exchange were the trading of food sources including both plant and animals and ideas of how best to product a harvest of these things.When the Europeans came to the Americas, the natives had a few animal servants such as dogs, camels, guinea pig, and a several kinds of fowl. However, when the Europeans came, they introduced horses, pigs, cattle, chickens, sheep, and goats. These animals meant a new way of transportation, new way to have labor opportunities, and a new food source. (Cory)  

This explains the exchange between New and Old Worlds.

          One main source of exchange that Europeans could not get enough of was tobacco. If the Europeans killed thousands with disease, the natives killed just as many Europeans from addiction to tobacco. Tobacco became a main source of economics, which created money and jobs for the Europeans who moved to the New World. (Roark)
          The Columbian Exchange was both positive and negative on both Worlds. In class, Julianna said, "People of both worlds learned to adapt to the culture that was being instilled on one another." This quote explains the start of America as we know it today. 

Bibliography

Cory, Malone, Sarah Gray, Sean Ross, and Katie Ryan. "Animals." The Colombian Exchange. Gettysburg College, n.d. Web. 15 Feb. 2013.

Crouthamel, Steven J. "Columbian Exchanges." Columbian Exchanges. Palomar College, 2003. Web. 16 Feb. 2013.

Roark, James L. ., Michael P. Johnson, Patricia C. Cohen, Sarah Stage, and Susan M. Hartmann. "Europeans Encounter The New World." The American Promise. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2012. 39-40. Print.