Reconstruction Video PBS

 Reconstruction: America After The Civil War Reflection

It's easy to see racism as an idea of the past, and in many ways it is. Truthfully, right now is the best time its ever been to be not white in the United States. We no longer have institutions like slavery and segregation. This does not mean that the situation is perfect however, far from it. The rampant racism prevalent in the reconstruction era still has echoes that can be seen today. The PBS documentary, "Reconstruction: America After The Civil War," gives an in depth look on this. The film starts with a stark reminder of the racism still prevalent today: the 2015 Charleston church shooting. This attack was deliberately targeted towards African American individuals. This hatred is, unfortunately, deep rooted in American Culture.

The meat of the documentary takes place in the decades following the end of the civil war, otherwise known as the reconstruction era. It paints a promising picture for the future of African Americans in the United States, with newly freed slaves getting right to work rebuilding their separated family and participating in society by doing such things as building homes and starting businesses. Unfortunately, this newfound progress would quickly slow, as Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and his vice president, Andrew Johnson, assumed the position of president. Johnson actively stood in the way of African American progress, devaluing the cause.

African Americans had to fight tooth and nail to achieve basic human rights, and even then those newfound rights were constantly being undermined. A supreme court decision could quickly erase years of progress, as happened with the numerous fourteenth amendment decisions. Reconstruction was the start of black culture in the United States, and this documentary describes how this era shaped the culture all the way up to today. But on the other side of the coin, racist and backwards ideas can be passed down from generation to generation. Racism is no longer socially acceptable but it still very much exists because of this generational trickle and we unfortunately saw it in full effect in the 2015 church shooting. This documentary shows how important the reconstruction era was, even how it continues to influence modern society.

Sources:

https://www.scetv.org/stories/2019/reconstruction-america-after-civil-war-premieres-tuesdays-april-9-16-2019-pbs

https://journalofthecivilwarera.org/2019/04/facing-the-false-picture-of-facts-episodes-1-and-2-of-reconstruction-america-after-the-civil-war/#:~:text=Episode%20one%20tells%20the%20story,attempting%20to%20curb%20racial%20violence.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/charleston-ame-church-shooting

Images:

https://d1qbemlbhjecig.cloudfront.net/prod/filer_public/reconstruction-bento-test-pbs/dcd831e71c_Reconstruction-title-cropped.jpg

Gone With The Wind Reflection

Gone With The Wind Reflection

Note: This is a reflection on the first half of Gone With The Wind, as we didn't watch the second half.

Gone With The Wind is a movie that hasn't been treated well by time. In recent times, the 1939 film has been called to be removed from streaming services due to its depiction of certain topics. For one, the movie underplays the issue of slavery. It depicts slaves as more of house maids than anything. Mammy, for instance, is depicted more as a servant and mentor to Scarlett than a slave. Prissy is depicted as a crybaby who doesn't do what she's supposed to and goes relatively unpunished. There's nothing inherently wrong with these depictions, because in truth it is how some slaves were treated at the time. The problem with these depictions is this is how slavery as a whole is depicted in the move. It conveniently glosses over the whipping, long hot days of hard labor, unsanitary and overcrowded living spaces, etc. 

The film also romanticizes the confederacy. The most obvious way it does this, as mentioned previously, is by downplaying slavery, the entire reason the civil war was fought. But even looking past that, it neglects to mention that slavery is the reason this war is being fought at all, which reinforces the harmful idea that it was not being fought for that reason. Confederates are depicted in a completely sympathetic light while northerners are just the enemy. We rarely see them, only what they left in their wake, being burned villages and wounded/killed soldiers. 

I do like how this movie gives us a glimpse into the southern perspective of the war, and It's good to have that, but I wish the movie actually acknowledged what was really going on. It's historically accurate to depict the confederacy as an area that believed it was fighting for a good cause, how the characters think about the war is accurate. This does not mean the movie has to treat the war this way however, I believe the movie could've had much more impactful messages if it showed the true sinister nature behind the war, and how the characters were ignorant to it. If someone who wasn't knowledgeable in U.S. history were to watch this movie, they could easily see the south as the good guys and the north as the bad guys. That's where this movie faulters in its historical accuracy.

To be completely honest, I did not enjoy this movie that much. What I mentioned previously is an echo of my overall feelings for this movie: it's outdated. I can look at a work of art from its time, but even in 1939 it was widely accepted that the confederacy was not good. Even ignoring all of that, just looking at it as a movie and nothing else, I'm still not a huge fan. I'll admit this isn't the movies fault, but a lot of the plot points felt cliche to me. I'm sure at the time these were pretty revolutionary ideas but nowadays, I've seen this type of story again and again. I also found a lot of the characters to be kind of unlikeable. I am glad I watched this movie, and I do appreciate it from a historical perspective, especially looking at the civil war from a different perspective, but truthfully I just couldn't connect with it that much.

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gone-with-the-Wind-film-by-Fleming

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/how-gone-wind-took-nation-storm-feeding-its-southern-sensibilities-180953617/

https://time.com/5852362/gone-with-the-wind-film-history/

https://movieweb.com/why-gone-with-the-wind-still-important/

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/movies/gone-with-the-wind-controversy.html?smid=url-share

images:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYjUyZWZkM2UtMzYxYy00ZmQ3LWFmZTQtOGE2YjBkNjA3YWZlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzkwMjQ5NzM@._V1_.jpg

https://globalnews.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/gwtw2.jpg?quality=85&strip=all

https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Gone-With-the-Wind.jpg

Mock Trial + EOTO Reaction

 Mock Trial Reaction

The mock trial was on State v Mann. John Mann shot a slave he rented after she tried to run away due to John abusing her. John was found guilty of assault and battery and was fined five dollars (cwnc.omeka). Adjusted for inflation thats $166.86 in today's money (officialdata.org). Obviously from today's standards we can see this as the gross miscarriage of justice that it is, and our good pal John Mann agrees with us, so he appealed the case to the supreme court. Of course we would wish that John Mann faced jail time while he was just trying to appeal the fine. That's ultimately what this mock trial is about, and both sides had arguments that I found very interesting.

On the state side, seeking to uphold the five dollar fine, the economic and wrong side of history arguments were the most interesting to me. In debates regarding slavery at the time, economic factors were most commonly used as a reason to uphold the institution, but in this case it was used against the institution in a really unique way. The state argued that if slaves are so important to the economy, why are we shooting them and treating them badly? that will just cause productivity to go down. This is a really interesting twist on the economic argument that is very strong. The wrong side of history argument was about how many other countries at the time had already abolished slavery. Many other countries already knew slavery was wrong, so we can't just give them the benefit of time. The U.S. was falling behind other countries and needed to progress, I really liked this argument.

On John Mann's side, arguing to give Mann his five dollars back there were a few arguments that stood out to me. One argument was that if Lydia, the slave, ran away, she could've become dangerous. John was simply protecting society by shooting her. Obviously this is pretty racist and doesn't have much basis, but for an argument of the time it worked really well. This really was what people believed at the time, so I think it captured the feelings of the era well. Another argument I found interesting was that Lydia was committing the crime of running away, why should John Mann be punished for holding her accountable? This was a really interesting way to put it and this argument stuck with me.

EOTO Reaction

The EOTO had two parts: Events that advanced slavery, and The Founding Era (De Jure Slavery).

For events that advanced slavery there were several new things that I learned. From the Missouri compromise, I learned that part of the reason congress compromised it was because they didn't want to take an official stance on slavery. Goes to show really how divisive the issue was, also reminds me of modern similarly spineless politicians. Another interesting thing I learned was the during the election of 1860, Lincoln wasn't included in the ballots of ten southern states, but he still won. I couldn't possibly imagine that happening today, multiple states just not including a major candidate on their ballot. It's shocking how bad the political landscape got at this time.

For De Jure Slavery, there was also a few new things I learned. One thing that shocked me is how many slaves were freed by the underground railroad. I didn't know how big it was but apparently tens of thousands of slaves were freed by it. Another interesting fact I learned was that part of the reason Lincoln won, was that the democratic party was split between two candidates. Lastly, I learned about the American Anti-Slavery Society. I'd actually never been taught of this before, but it was the largest abolitionist organization in the United States and featured such names as William Lloyd Garrison, Arthur Tappan, and Frederick Douglass. Agents of the organization would travel the country and disturb pro slavery movements. I think this is really cool, I wish I learned about it earlier.

Sources:

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/underground-railroad/

Images Cited:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.bunkhistory.org/derivatives/rectangle_large/images/2019-09/$2y$10$GQH0RGQAcNFWXK2UUzCu9OTQLA1C0AXNEkAmWPy.eDEzi3OAH2W/SCOTUS.AP_88092711770.jpg

https://nmaahc.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/max_1300x1300/public/2022-12/2012_160_6_001.jpg?itok=-mYgn_x-

State v Mann

State v Mann Post

I was part of the State v Mann mock trial and I was assigned to defend John Mann and to revoke his fine. Among my group, I was doing the religious argument, here was my piece I read from during the mock trial:

According to the word of god, John Mann was justified in what he did. John Mann’s punishments against Lydia were are justified according to Exodus 21:20-21: “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies directly as a result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.” John whipped Lydia as punishment and Lydia attempted to run away as a result, this is not allowed by the Bible according to Colossians 3:22: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.” From these two bible verses we know that John Mann was justified in his actions to beat Lydia and she was not justified to run away.

Because John shot Lydia, one might attempt to argue that John should be punished according to Exodus 21:20 since she couldn’t have recovered after a day or two. However, Lydia’s fate is unknown so we cannot be certain if she actually did survive or not. It is completely possible that she did survive by being nurtured back to health by fugitive slaves in the surrounding swampland. Because of this fact, we cannot say for a fact if Lydia did die at John Mann’s hand. In order to give John Mann a fair trial in accordance with the due process clause of the fifth amendment, we cannot prosecute him because we cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did anything wrong.

Sources:

https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/state-v-mann/

https://www.aaihs.org/state-v-mann-lydias-journey/

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fifth_amendment#:~:text=The%20Fifth%20Amendment%20of%20the,public%20danger%3B%20nor%20shall%20any

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/due-process.asp#:~:text=Due%20process%20is%20a%20requirement,both%20civil%20and%20criminal%20matters.

Bible verses:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2021%3A20-21&version=NIV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians%203%3A22&version=NIV

Obviously I don't really agree with what I wrote here. For one its disgusting to suggest that Lydia is somehow in the wrong for this, and John was completely justified. Unfortunately this is something that could be argued at the time and people could actually agree with it instead of seeing it for the obvious morally horrible argument that it is, and ultimately that's what I was going for, that's what I had to go for as I was assigned to be on John Mann's side. It is interesting how the bible seems to have two specific verses that fit perfectly with this case, I specifically remembered them from the bible team challenge. 

Overall I'm happy with the argument I made from a historical context, I think it's accurate to the time. One big mistake I made though was that my argument included some misinformation: 

"However, Lydia’s fate is unknown so we cannot be certain if she actually did survive or not. It is completely possible that she did survive by being nurtured back to health by fugitive slaves in the surrounding swampland."  

I got it from this quote: 

"We don’t know how badly she was wounded. (The guardianship account for 1829 shows no medical expense.) Perhaps she found cover in the nearby swamps, where maroons–fugitive slaves who had long populated that uninhabitable land–would have helped her evade capture." (aaihs.org)

We actually do know that she didn't die, thanks to Mr. Smith for informing me of that. This happened for two reasons: One and most obviously is that I only used one source for this information, I should've used multiple sources to ensure my information was accurate. Two is that I misinterpreted the quote from the website. I took "We don't know how badly she was wounded," as we didn't know if she died or not, which was a hasty generalization on my part. Going forward I need to be more aware of misinformation so I can avoid it. I'll be sure to read my sources carefully and confirm with multiple sources next time.

Images cited:

https://blog.newspapers.library.in.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/nypl.digitalcollections.510d47da-75ac-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99.001.w.jpg

https://www.aamc.org/sites/default/files/misinformation-1413885459.jpg

Town Hall Meeting Reaction

Interesting People I Learned About (Pro Slavery)

The town hall meeting shined light upon a lot of interesting people in the pre civil war era that I had not heard of before. Among the pro slavery speakers, there we're many that stood out to me. To support an institution like slavery you'd have to have some pretty rigid and specific ideas to justify it, and this was the case for many of the pro slavery speakers. Many of them shared common characteristics, they were mostly white supremacists, they were mostly wealthy people, and of course all of them were white. There were a few that stood out to me quite well, such as Preston Brooks, a congressman who hit another congressman over the head with a cane during a debate about slavery. It really goes to show how divided the country was at the time. The most unique of the pro slavery speakers was Abraham Lincoln. Obviously today we know Lincoln was the one who would free the slaves, but before that his view on slavery was that of indifference. This was the most unique argument to me because of how apathetic it was, while the other pro slavery arguments were fiercely in support of slavery, Lincoln's argument didn't believe in the issue that strongly and was more concerned with keep it in place only to impede further division in the country. The last pro slavery speaker who really stood out to me was Jefferson Davis. He was the first and only president of the confederacy and what stood out about him was that he believed in treated his slaves "well." I put well in quotes because you can only treat a slave so well, forcing someone to do intense physical labor against their will and without compensation will never be treating them well, but Davis treated his slaves less bad than other brutal slave owners. He made an effort to avoid corporal punishment and treat his slaves with respect and like "humans." (Again enslaving someone isn't treating them like a human but I digress) I found it really interesting that someone with such deep ties to the confederacy was so relatively courteous to his slaves.

Interesting People I Learned About (Anti Slavery)

The pool of anti slavery speakers was much more diverse than that of the pro slavery group. Each person's reasoning for being against slavery was different and they came from different backgrounds and taken different paths in life. The first set of the anti slavery speakers that stood out to me where the former slaves. Nat Turner, Henry Highland Garnet, Sojourner Truth and of course Frederick Douglass are a few examples. I find the perspective of these people to be the most interesting and ultimately the most important. I couldn't imagine what it was like to be a slave, and these people actually lived through it. It's inspiring what these people were able to do despite such a serious setback in life. Frederick Douglass was able to teach himself how to read and become an extremely prominent figure despite many years of his life being wasted to slavery. Unfortunately I know that with every one of these success stories, there was a million other slaves who weren't so fortunate. I wonder what brilliant minds or ideas we lost to the people who could've had them being enslaved. Another anti slavery speaker I found really interesting was the Grimke sisters. What stood out to me is that unlike other abolitionists, the Grimke sisters were actually born into a slave owning family, and they were able to see how horrible it was first hand. I'd imagine many others in the situation would go along with slavery because their parent would ingrain it in their head that it was okay, which is what makes the Grimke sisters' story even more powerful, that they were able to break past that. 

Image used: https://images-cdn.bridgemanimages.com/api/1.0/image/600wm.XXX.20806620.7055475/2657623.jpg

The Frederick Douglass Game: John Brown

Here is the script for my town hall speech. My person is John Brown.

John Brown Town Hall Meeting Speech

Hey everyone, I’m sure you all know of me because of recent events. I’m John Brown, fifty-nine

years old, born in Connecticut in eighteen hundred. Now, even though the government has sentenced me to die in a month's time, I was still allowed to come here today to speak on slavery. I look here in this crowd and what lies before my eyes is a group of cowards. You slave owners have no morals, you have no god. And those words that just came out of my mouth will do nothing to change that. Nothing anyone can say will change how you feel. I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. Now, these cowards in the crowd here, I know who they are. Very simply they are the ones who refuse to look back at me as I look out at them. They fear this face because it is the face of a man who isn’t afraid to do what is necessary. One month ago on the 16th of October, I, and twenty one of my men, successfully captured the U.S. rifle factory at Harpers Ferry Virginia. I was going to provide slaves with the weaponry they needed to rise up against their so-called “masters.” I managed to capture a few slave owners, and bring an end to a few others. But if this plan had gone as I had hoped, I would not be on death row and set to die in a month’s time. This thought of slaves rising up, it scared the cowards of this audience more than anything else, and the local army was called before any real progress could be made. Had I so interfered on behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of their friends, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, every man in this crowd would have deemed it worthy of reward, not punishment. Now some of you cowards may see my imminent death as a relief, relief that a man who is like me, who is not afraid, is no longer out there. That is  not the case. This is far from the end, my death is only the beginning. Very soon the people will realize that you cowards don’t listen to reason, you don’t listen to god, you only listen to blood. There are more people out there like me who will do what is necessary for the right of the people to be free. I was able to amass an army of twenty one men to raid harpers ferry, it would be foolish to think there aren’t more than that. So cowards, be afraid. Because justice is coming. And if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments-I submit: so let it be done.

Final Notes:

I think John Brown is a really interesting figure of the era. It is very easy to agree with his cause, but a lot harder to agree with his methods. He used violence and terror to send his message, but ultimately he was right. I used one of his quotes and looking back we can see it as almost prophetic: "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood." A year and a half later, the civil war would begin. John Brown's actions are hard to take a moral stance on, because ninety nine percent of the time, we like to say violence isn't the answer. But in this case, John Brown was right about violence being necessary to end the institution of slavery. His methods went against the American ideal of peaceful protest, but he was fighting for the ultimate American ideal: freedom. He fought harder and more passionately than most anyone else at the time, and many northerners saw him as a hero for this.

Other quotes I used:

"Had I so interfered on behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of their friends, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, every man in this court would have deemed it worthy of reward, not punishment." (I changed court to crowd in my speech so it fit the setting)

"And if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments-I submit: so let it be done."

Sources:

https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2011/spring/brown.html

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/john-brown

https://www.nps.gov/people/john-brown.htm

http://www.nellaware.com/blog/john-brown-quotes.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CI%20have%20only%20a%20short,slave.%E2%80%9D%20%E2%80%94%20John%20Brown.

https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdfs/05508.051_FPS.pdf

https://mrnussbaum.com/uploads/activities/images/brown.jpg

Comm3390 Supreme Court - Reflection

 Comm3390 Supreme Court - Reflection

What did I learn about the supreme court that I didn't already know? From the set of two videos I learned about how the oral argument process actually works. A lawyer comes up before the court and argues their opinion to all nine justices at the same time. I also learned that to the justices the oral argumentation process is almost like a conversation between themselves, where they'll sometimes use their questioning as a way to communicate with each other. I found that very interesting.

What is the most important takeaway point about the supreme court? To me the most important takeaway was how important the opinion is. I've always thought of supreme court decisions as a binary "yay" or "nay," in terms of how a precedent is set, but actually its much more complex than that. A large amount of the precedent setting of a supreme court case comes from the written opinion at the end, because that opinion is now the interpretation of the law. If someone wants to make an argument using a supreme court case precedent, how they use that will be based off of the opinion.

What is the most surprising thing I learned? The most surprising thing I learned was how much work goes into writing the opinion. I've always thought of the opinion as more of an afterthought or just a justification/explanation, but it's actually the most time consuming part of being a supreme court justice. These opinions can be up to eighty pages long, that is really surprising to me that they have that much to say about a case.

How did the video change how I view the supreme court? I've always viewed supreme court justices as busy, since they have to be constantly reviewing cases to determine which ones they actually want to take, but it goes so much further than I thought. On top of that they also have to write opinions, which can take weeks, make oral arguments, and have the discussions afterwards. I wonder how many hours a week they work and when they get time off.