400 Years of African Slavery in America

[Bootstrap]

Here is a quote from the Declaration of Independence of July 4th, 1776:

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.

Congress deleted this from Jefferson's original before signing it on August 2nd. You can see a comparison of the drafts and the original here.

It's easy to produce quote after quote to show that the Founding Fathers knew slavery was wrong - and the original draft of the Declaration of Independence clearly indicates that they understood that the freedom of slaves was closely related to the kind of freedom they were talking about in the other founding documents.

[Bootstrap]

Again, I'm not dismissing to downplaying the harm that Wilson, Sanger and others caused, but I seem them more as a continuation of the disenfranchisement of African-Americans rather than some sort of new turn or change from the direction the United States was already moving in. In 1903, W.E.B DuBois prophetically wrote in The Souls of Black Folk that the "problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." He wrote this almost a decade before Wilson was elected into office.

If black people had equal rights and equal status in the time of Wilson and Sanger, I doubt that they would have gotten away with their theories.

Let's not play favorites in picking our villains. A whole lot of conservatives and a whole lot of liberals were quite racist back then. And yes, there is a clear bridge from treating people the way we treated slaves in America to treating people the way Nazis treated Jews in Germany.

[Josh]

Like it or not, ending slavery was a partisan issue. That’s why the Republican Party was founded.

Likewise, the postwar South has serious racism that was entirely partisan - promoted by the Democratic Party.

Most of the proponents of abject segregation, eugenics, and so on (which was fashionable in the 20th century just like Pride parades and being “woke” are fashionable now) was the province of liberal-progressives.

[Robert]

I don't understand why 19th and early 20th Century racism has to be turned into a partisan issue.

I think the idea that there had been all kinds of healing and progress prior to Wilson is flawed.

Again, I'm not dismissing to downplaying the harm that Wilson, Sanger and others caused, but I seem them more as a continuation of the disenfranchisement of African-Americans rather than some sort of new turn or change from the direction the United States was already moving in. In 1903, W.E.B DuBois prophetically wrote in The Souls of Black Folk that the "problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." He wrote this almost a decade before Wilson was elected into office.

I made no partisan reference. I stated that I feel race relations and the movement to equality was set back. I did not say everything was great. I grew up in the south and know the deep seeded racism that existed there.

I do think that progress made in equality was damaged by the Eugenics movement of the early 1900's. There was not the struggle in the north as much prior to Eugenics. Some states elected African American congressman and senators. Most were in state houses, but a few in federal positions. I would agree that there was not total equality, but what progress that was made was nulified.

[Bootstrap]

The answer is chosing to be a slave of Christ and loving as He loves us. Our mission is to show the way out of the abuses of darkness into the freedom and blessings of obedience to our loving Master.

Because I agree with that, I picked a new avatar as we started discussing slavery.

But I also think that someone who is a slave of Christ will care a lot about the suffering of slaves in unjust systems.

[Bootstrap]

Several people have effectively been saying, "no, slavery didn't make a difference, the real problems of racism came in some later era".

Personally, I think each era is the starting point for the next, and each of these eras has contributed to racism. I started new threads for two of these:

• Racism, Jim Crow, Reconstruction, and The Great Compromise
• Racism and the Eugenics Movement

I think it's very worthwhile to look at what contributed to racism in each of these times. Fighting about which is most important is a little like fighting over which age was most critical for my daughter to grow into an adult. Each age built on the one before.

[Robert]

Several people have effectively been saying, "no, slavery didn't make a difference, the real problems of racism came in some later era".

I see no one on this board saying this. I see you projecting what was said instead of staying with what was said.

[Bootstrap]

Several people have effectively been saying, "no, slavery didn't make a difference, the real problems of racism came in some later era".

I see no one on this board saying this. I see you projecting what was said instead of staying with what was said.

OK, I could be wrong. At any rate, I personally find it a lot easier to look at different eras of history separately. I would have a hard time discussing the American Revolution, Civil War, and Vietnam in one thread. I would find it a lot easier to follow this thread if it were about the period of slavery in America.

[Bootstrap]

Here is a very useful timeline that shows how slavery was established in the American colonies.

Enslavement Timeline 1619-1696: How Slavery Was Established in the American Colonies

Historian Frances Latimer argues that enslavement "happened one law at a time, one person at a time." As the American colonies grew throughout the 17th Century, human bondage transformed from indentured servitude to a life of enslavement.

... and from indentured servitude of both whites and blacks to lifetime enslavement of blacks only. See the timeline for a simple list of events and dates, without commentary.

[Robert]

OK, I could be wrong. At any rate, I personally find it a lot easier to look at different eras of history separately. I would have a hard time discussing the American Revolution, Civil War, and Vietnam in one thread. I would find it a lot easier to follow this thread if it were about the period of slavery in America.

Then we need to make a History section instead of a current events section. It suggests we view it and reflect how it affects us currently.