Why I Chose This Presentation
Critical to understanding key elements of Beloved
Understand how and why a mother actually may be driven to act as Sethe did
Sethe acted out of love
Keeping her children from things she had seen/known
Slavery In America
The earliest African arrivals were viewed in the same way as indentured servants .
This similarity did not long continue. By the latter half of the 17th century, clear differences existed in the treatment of black and white servants.
A 1662 Virginia law assumed Africans would remain servants for life.
By 1740 the slavery system in colonial America was fully developed.
The slavery system was maintained in the United States until 1865.
Affects of Slavery
Widespread anti-black attitudes nurtured by slavery continued thereafter.
Created a huge socio-economic gap that has yet to be closed.
Also accounts for the disparities in health care, education attainment, and emotional well being experienced by African Americans.
Scars of a whipped slave (April 2, 1863, Baton Rou...
English: Whole map of the underground railroad. Ne...
An April 24, 1851 poster warning colored people in...Left deep emotional and spiritual scares.
Black People Resisted
They resisted the practice of slavery and it's trade in slaves from it's inception to it's end.
For their freedom they killed and were killed. They poisoned and committed infanticide and suicide.
Thoughts of a Former Slave
"If I thought, had any idea, that I'd ever be a slave again, I'd take a gun an' jus' end it all right away. Because you're nothing but a dog. You're not a thing but a dog"~Fountain Hughes
Former Slave
The Underground Rail Road
One of the most curious characteristics of the Underground Railroad was its lack of formal organization.
Some trips took as much as a year.
No one knows exactly when it started, but there were isolated cases of help given to runaways as early as the 1700s
By the early 19th century, there were organized flights...