...Autobiography of John P. Parker, Former Slave And Conductor on the Underground Railroad. When we think of the conductors of the Underground Railroad many think of Harriet Tubman and her only, but if we study history carefully we will find out that she is not the only conductor worth mentioning. John P. Parker has to be one of the most underappreciated figures not only in African American history but American history in general. If everyone was aware of this true American hero’s story, without question he would be a household name. The autobiography of John P. Parker is very well written and will have any reader on the edge of their seat throughout the entire book. The accounts of his experiences both as a slave and as a conductor of the Underground Railroad are extremely descriptive and would make any reader feel like they were right there with Mr. Parker feeling his pain, anger, pride, bravery, and even his humor. Although there are many themes that you can find in this book, we are going to focus on his bravery, cleverness, and freedom as the three themes to discuss. The first theme we are going to discuss is freedom. John Parker’s life includes many experiences that would influence his love and aspiration for freedom. At the young age of eight years old, he was sold and forced to walk from Norfolk, Virginia to Richmond, Virginia chained to an old man who would be whipped to death. “This experience set him on fire with hatred and desire to gain his freedom” (p.20). John Parker...
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...experiences during his time held captive as a slave. When taught about slavery, students can grasp, understand and feel how slaves felt back during the 1800s. Slaves were brutally beaten and worked from dusk till dawn. Slave masters had no mercy on their slaves; they would beat them till they were close to death. This is in fact true, what students are taught gives only one perspective of how slaves were treated. Because of this perspective that was planted in their minds, students begin to feel sorry and grateful that they were not born during that era. But one cannot just base their thoughts on just one thing; the whole picture must be seen in order to understand. Born and raised as a free man, Solomon Northup was framed, robbed of his free papers, and was sold into slavery. When Northup was taken into slavery, his first master, William Ford, was a kind master. He spoke only good things and encouraged his slaves to do better. Ford was rare; there were not many masters like him. Ford was kind to his slaves; he never beat them with a whip or humiliated them in front of their peers. This is changes the readers’ views of what slavery were like during this time. There may have been many slave masters who were brutal to their slaves, but slave masters like Ford changes that perspective then the reader begins to see that not all slave masters that they thought of were cruel. Northup’s second master, John M. Tibeats, was the stereotypical master who...
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...John Hammond History 2010 Dr. Keith Krawczynski November 14, 2012 During the 19th century America was becoming a rapidly fast growing country, industrially and economically. It seemed as though things were on the right track, but there was a growing concern, regarding slavery, that had people questioning the southern region’s integrity and moral values. After all the years of slavery propaganda from the large planters more people started to realize that slavery was not a good thing after all. The planters argued that slavery was good for the African Americans because it gave them a chance to become more civilized, but people were beginning to think differently. Many people did not know what was actually happening on slave plantations. Novelists began publishing articles and books that described what they were seeing so that other people could get a sense of how the African Americans were really being treated. After slavery ended former slaves began telling their stories, and evidence was collected to validate what actually happened. The slaves wanted to let people know that their lives were not as simple as some people perceived it to be because being physically punished, abused, and owned by another human is far short of living a trouble free life. Some of the slaves did not mind being punished as long as they were given food, but others would have rather been poor than to be abused by their owners. Owners and non-slave owners wanted to instill fear in the eyes...
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...A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO THE SIGNET CLASSIC EDITION OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON’S UP FROM SLAVERY By VIRGINIA L. SHEPHARD, Ph.D., Florida State University S E R I E S E D I T O R S : W. GEIGER ELLIS, ED.D., ARTHEA J. S. REED, PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, EMERITUS and UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, RETIRED A Teacher’s Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery 2 INTRODUCTION Booker T. Washington’s commanding presence and oratory deeply moved his contemporaries. His writings continue to influence readers today. Although Washington claimed his autobiography was “a simple, straightforward story, with no attempt at embellishment,” readers for nearly a century have found it richly rewarding. Today, Up From Slavery appeals to a wide audience from early adolescence through adulthood. More important, however, is the inspiration his story of hard work and positive goals gives to all readers. His life is an example providing hope to all. The complexity and contradictions of his life make his autobiography intellectually intriguing for advanced readers. To some he was known as the Sage of Tuskegee or the Black Moses. One of his prominent biographers, Louis R. Harlan, called him the “Wizard of the Tuskegee Machine.” Others acknowledged him to be a complicated person and public figure. Students of American social and political history have come to see that Washington lived a double life. Publicly he appeased the white establishment...
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...The writers of the book Stolen Into Slavery: The True Story of Solomon Northup, Free Black Man, are not new to the world of writing. On the contrary, they are veteran authors who have researched and written numerous books. Judith and Dennis Fradin recognized that investigating and writing about the fascinating life of Solomon Northup would result in an inspiring book. Before the beginning of the Civil War Solomon Northup lived as a free black man in New York State with his wife and three children, which makes his narrative of being kidnapped and enslaved all the more incomprehensible. Solomon was an educated black man; therefore he was able to compile a narrative of his years as being a stolen “free” black man on the Louisiana cotton and sugar cane plantations. After Solomon was rescued from a Louisiana plantation and reunited with his family, he published his autobiography entitled, 12 Years a Slave. This autobiography led to the creation of a movie by the same name as well as a book for which this summary was written. What an individual remembers and what actually occurred can at times be hard to prove, yet the Fradins were able to verify many of Solomon’s accounts by acquiring actual bills of sale and court records. Any author can write about facts, but with the help of Solomon’s memoirs the Fradins were able to produce a...
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...Rape During The Antebellum Period The first African slaves arrived in Virginia, North America in 1619. As the plantations of the antebellum south flourished, the African slave trade gained momentum. Between the 16 and 19th centuries, America had an estimated 12 million African slaves (Slavery in the United States, Junius P. Rodriguez ). Enslavement of the African Americans formally commenced in the 1630s and 1640s. By 1740, colonial America had a fully developed slavery system in place, granting slave owners an absolute and tyrannical life-and-death authority over their slaves or 'chattels' and their children (Slavery in the United States, Junius P. Rodriguez ). Stripped of any identity or rights, enslaved black men and women were considered legal non-persons, except in the event of a crime committed. Documents and research on the slave era in the antebellum south are awash with horror stories of the brutal and inhuman treatment of slaves, particularly women (Slavery in the United States, Junius P. Rodriguez). Considered 'properties' by their masters, enslaved black women endured physical and emotional abuse, torture, and sometimes even death. By the 1800s, slavery had percolated down mainly to the antebellum south. While a majority of enslaved men and women were designated as 'field servants' performing duties outside the house, a smaller percentage, particularly women were employed as domestics or 'house servants', mammies and surrogate mothers. In the absence of any security...
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...sweltering residents had sought refuge from the sun and heat inside their homes or offices. Around 1:10 P.M. the scream of “Fire” reverberated through the streets of downtown followed by the rush of half-clothed citizens rushing to see smoke in a two-story building on Commerce Street. Fire swept north to consume a warehouse and then to the Dallas Herald office-quickly engulfing Dallas’ entire business section.[1] Extensive media coverage of the July 1860 fires in Dallas potentially incited a heightened fear of slave revolts throughout Texas and promoted the formation of vigilante groups. Newspapers served as a medium to spread fear, rumors, and ultimately, panic and violence among white Texans. Yellow Journalism presented exaggerated headlines and stories that linked natural disasters and catastrophes to current fears of the day. The nation was undergoing a sectional split over the issue of slavery and white southerners were on the alert for potential slave plots and uprisings that were spurred by northern abolitionists and Unionists. The Dallas fires were just the sort of sensationalism that could garner increased support of anti-Union constituents and promote the Democratic Party agenda. Letters about the fires written by the Dallas Herald’s editor, Charles R. Pryor, originally published in the Dallas Herald, Houston’s Weekly Telegraph, Marshall’s Texas Republican, and Austin’s Texas State Gazette, were reprinted with additional commentaries and spread...
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...Biographical Essay John Wesley Bishop Richard Allen by David Walter History of Christianity Course TH 605. NA Dr. Louis DeCaro November 7, 2012 Church history is intertwined with many historical dates, events, and personalities. Two extraordinary influential personalities that shaped the landscape of early church history are John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Episcopal Church and Bishop Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. The organizational skills and leadership of John Wesley and Richard Allen is the foundation for the permanence of the Methodist denomination. John Wesley was an Anglican minister and Christian theologian. Wesley is recognized as the founding father of the Methodist faith. His conversion to Methodism occurred while attending an outdoor evangelism service conducted by George Whitfield. Wesley, an 18th Century preacher, held to Arminianism which was the prevailing faith of the Church of England. Wesley persuaded others to experience a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The traditions of Wesley, known as Wesleyanism, gave beginnings to many powerful church movements: Methodist, Holiness, Pentecostalism, Charismatic, and Neo-charismatic. Wesley stressing evangelism purified Arminianism and the doctrine of justified by faith was reformed. John Wesley was born June 28, 1703 in Epworth, Linconshire, England. He was the fifteenth child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley. As the custom of that day, his...
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...Hurston wrote her stories about human experiences. In her stories people experience love, hate, forgiveness and betrayal. Her stories also tell of people’s relationships and feelings. Also, she provides her readers on discrimination and racial inequality which were popular at her time. She wrote about these issues from her own experience and her own feelings. “Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the grand-daughter of slaves” (Hurston 762). Besides, some of her stories had happy ending where characters achieved their entire goals and found their way to joy. However, death sometimes takes place in her stories. It is bringing some changes into the characters’ lives. “The Gilded Six-Bits,” “Sweat” and “Magnolia Flower” explores relationships between men and women through racial inequality in Hurston’s time. In “The Gilded Six- Bits”, the author looks at Joe and Missie May’s relationships through race. At that time black people were discriminated against by white people. Majority of the black people were unequal in society. In some parts of the country they didn’t have the right to vote. Langston Hughes says “ In Mississippi the state spends nine times as much for the education of each white child as it does to educate a Negro child, yet the Negro population equals the white, and the wealth of the state is based on the labor of Negroes in the sun of the cotton fields” (Hughes 768). From the beginning of the story, Zora Neale Hurston writes about a place where the...
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...Imagine hanging out, laughing with your closet friends and family one day then the next day you’re forced to have intercourse with a stranger not knowing where you are, overdosed on drugs not remembering taking and even confused on who are. Not seeing your friends or family for days, weeks, even months forced to do things you would have never done but not having a choice. More than millions of people men, women, even little kids are trafficked all around the world from being slaves in factories, to being forced to have intercourse with strangers they find on the street, and even extracting organs from one person and sending them off for someone else to use that really “needs” them. Human trafficking has been one of the biggest and most rapidly growing crimes in the United States today. One of the most commonly and well known trafficking is sexual exploitation of women and young women is the sexual abuse of the people through exchange of sex or sexual acts for drugs, food, shelter, protection and/or money. It also includes creating pornography and sexual websites. Sometimes it’s the people doing the prostitution or selling themselves for money making their own decision. They feel like there’s no other way to get money or get through life so they sell themselves in order to get their basic needs but other times there’s a third person involved making them have intercourse with other people to gain money or drugs. In either/or situation it is still illegal. Another type of trafficking...
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...Northup Table of Contents SYNOPSIS......................................................................................................................................3 ABOUT THE AUTHOR...............................................................................................................3 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY GUIDE............................................................................3 MEETING COMMON CORE STANDARDS.............................................................3 THE SLAVE NARRATIVE GENRE...............................................................................3 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW..........................................................................................................4 DURING READING.....................................................................................................................6 SYNTHESIZING DISCUSSION QUESTIONS.......................................................................9 ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES.......................................................................................................9 ACTIVITIES FOR USING THE FILM ADAPTATION........................................................ 11 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES................................................................................................... 13 ABOUT THE AUTHORS OF THIS GUIDE.......................................................................... 13 Also available in a black-spine Penguin Classics edition Copyright...
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...memory against those who viewed him as a murderer or insane man| |2.|Thoreau is horrified by the violent methods Brown used, arguing that violence will turn many Americans who oppose the extension of slavery against the abolitionists| |3.|Thoreau argues that Brown should not be put to death as this would cause sectional strife and lead to a civil war| |4.|Thoreau is one of many abolitionists who plea for Brown's life to be saved| 3 points Question 2 1. Which of the following best summarizes the letters John Brown wrote to his family while in prison? |1.|Brown is very hopeful that his wife and remaining children will come visit him| |2.|Brown calls upon his sons to continue his work. Although he speaks in very vague terms, it is clear that he hopes they will launch another slave uprising so that his death will not be in vain| |3.|Brown is upset at the fact that some of his children are ashamed to be sons and daughters of the man who planed the raid at Harper's Ferry| |4.|Brown does not write any letters to his family members while in prison, a fact John Earle makes plain in his introduction| |5.|Brown is upbeat and speaks in mostly religious terms about how there is no need to grieve for their father| Question 3 1. Which of the following is TRUE regarding John Brown's Provisional Constitution for the Appalachian government he hoped to establish? |1.|The new Constitution established executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government similar to the...
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...The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search "The Innocent Man" redirects here. For a South Korean television series, see The Innocent Man (TV series). The Innocent Man | | Author(s) | John Grisham | Country | United States | Publisher | Doubleday | Publication date | October 10, 2006 | Pages | 368 | ISBN | 978-0-385-51723-2 | OCLC Number | 70251230 | The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006) is a nonfiction book written by John Grisham, and his first outside the legal fiction genre. The book tells the story of Ronald 'Ron' Keith Williamson of Ada, Oklahoma, a former minor league baseball player who was wrongly convicted in 1988 for the rape and murder of Debra Sue Carter in Ada and was sentenced to death. After serving 11 years on death row, he was exonerated by DNA evidence and other material introduced by the Innocence Project and was released in 1999. Contents * 1 Synopsis * 2 Book edition * 3 References * 4 External links | Synopsis Ron Williamson has returned to his hometown of Ada, Oklahoma after multiple failed attempts to play for various minor league baseball teams, including the Fort Lauderdale Yankees and two farm teams owned by the Oakland A's. An elbow injury inhibited his chances to progress. His big dreams were not enough to overcome the odds (less than 10 percent) of making it to a big league game. His failures lead to, or aggravate...
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...people who gave her the lifelong nickname of Minty, that as true to any family nickname lasted even when she renamed herself Harriet Tubman well into her adult years. Her only known ancestor was her maternal grandmother, Modesty. Although Benjamin was free at the time of Araminta's birth, she was born into slavery as at the time if the child's mother was enslaved, so were they. As Araminta grew up and became a useful slave, she was split up from her mother by her enslaver Edward Brodess. She was sent to a farm in Bucktown, Maryland with all of her siblings, another farm owned by Edward Brodess (Dawson). "When Harriet was five years old, she was rented out as a nursemaid where she was whipped when the baby cried, leaving her with permanent emotional and physical...
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...Writer The following were the persons, things, places and events that influenced Mark Twain. -his connection to the mississippi river as a boy and the fact that he became a riberboat pilot -time spent traveling the world -the nice life he led shortly after he married -tragedies in his family -financial problems -problems he saw in the south during reconstruction Hannibal inspired several of Mark Twain's fictional locales, including "St. Petersburg" in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. These imaginary river towns are complex places: sunlit and exuberant on the one hand, but also vipers' nests of cruelty, poverty, drunkenness, loneliness, and life-crushing boredom. All of that had been a part of Sam Clemens' boyhood experience. The story is set in the town of "St...
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