Michael Dennis
2/8/17
The New Jim Crow
Professor Young
Much
of the American history that I have learned throughout life has turned out to
be what some might call ‘Alternative Facts’. It was distorted in a way to hide
the ugly evil truth of what real American history is and how we’ve all ended up
in the places and positions in society we are in today. Before taking this
class most of my knowledge about the Civil War was from what I learned in high
school. Even so, the information that I received about the Civil War in high
school was very brief and did not go into much detail. For a while the only knowledge
that I had about the Civil War was that it was a war between the Northern
States (The Union) and the Southern (Confederate States). I was taught that
this war and fight solely about the Union wanting to end slavery while the
Southern Confederate States wanted to keep slavery going on. I was taught that
it was a long tough battle but the Union Northern States won and that slavery
was abolished and ended. With only having that knowledge I assumed that was the
end of slavery and that free slaves either went to the north where they’d be
safe from racism and harassment or some stayed in the South where they went
through Jim Crow laws and strong racism. This class has already exposed these
lies and has presented me with some truth.
I really enjoyed the two videos that were shown in the Prezi video that you emailed to us. I feel like the two videos just summed up exactly what led up to the Civil War and why it happened. For instance, when they talk about the real reason behind the Northern Union’s feud with the Confederate South. The invention of the Cotton Gin seems to be the first major key step that would lead to the Civil War. During a time when the Northern States were booming economically through industrialization and trade the Southern States mostly consisted of poor white farmers who relied heavily on agriculture as the major source of income. Plantations owners dominated the South economically, politically, and socially. The invention of the Cotton Gin allowed for slaves to be able to clean up to 50 pounds of cotton a day, turning cotton from a luxury into a cheap fabric overnight. Having slaves to do all of this free labor allowed for the Southern economy to sky rocket, making most Southerners committed to slavery while the North became envious of the South’s economic boom due to the free work of slaves. Even when the Civil War ended and slavery was legally abolished, the 13th amendment loophole would terrorize generation of African Americans and lead us to the economic and social positions we are in today There are a lot more details that I could include into what I learned about the Civil War and what happened afterwards from taking this class but I’m already exceeding the limit so I’ll just end it off here.
I really enjoyed the two videos that were shown in the Prezi video that you emailed to us. I feel like the two videos just summed up exactly what led up to the Civil War and why it happened. For instance, when they talk about the real reason behind the Northern Union’s feud with the Confederate South. The invention of the Cotton Gin seems to be the first major key step that would lead to the Civil War. During a time when the Northern States were booming economically through industrialization and trade the Southern States mostly consisted of poor white farmers who relied heavily on agriculture as the major source of income. Plantations owners dominated the South economically, politically, and socially. The invention of the Cotton Gin allowed for slaves to be able to clean up to 50 pounds of cotton a day, turning cotton from a luxury into a cheap fabric overnight. Having slaves to do all of this free labor allowed for the Southern economy to sky rocket, making most Southerners committed to slavery while the North became envious of the South’s economic boom due to the free work of slaves. Even when the Civil War ended and slavery was legally abolished, the 13th amendment loophole would terrorize generation of African Americans and lead us to the economic and social positions we are in today There are a lot more details that I could include into what I learned about the Civil War and what happened afterwards from taking this class but I’m already exceeding the limit so I’ll just end it off here.
