Civil War And Reconstruction Essay Example for Free

Civil War And Reconstruction Essay The Civil War is the most widely written about event in American history and Reconstruction is the most mis-understood and least appreciated subject within this wider issue. Most people would prefer to escape into the heroic exploits of the battles that were fought than deal with the difficult social problems that the former enslaved population had to deal with. I am offering this essay since I believe that the African-Americans have been done a great disservice by the Nation. As a people they were forcibly brought to this land, they were enslaved in an illegal and immoral system, and then they were abandoned by that same Nation ostensibly after having their freedom returned. What happened to them was not fair and there is a debt due to them. I hope to show in this paper some of the offenses that I find glaring. What was Reconstruction supposed to accomplish? Was it supposed to provide a new economic start for the freed peoples? Was it supposed to rebuild and reorder the state governments that had seceded? Was it supposed to prosecute and imprison former Confederate officials? These questions were never fully answered, and for the most part they were never even adequately addressed. Liberals and African-Americans are more sensitive to the burden of the unfulfilled promise of Emancipation and Reconstruction, while so-called â€Å"realists† and conservatives proclaim that too much help has already been given (think: â€Å"Affirmative Action†). The truth though, does not lie neatly in the middle between these extremes. Horrific treatment was an unpleasant fact for the enslaved peoples, and they were denied an equal opportunity to enter fully the American body politic. To make matters worse this bitter cup of â€Å"denied citizenship† is still too often a fact today. Recently, the folk singer Bob Dylan (Rolling Stone, Sept. 2012) has said â€Å"†¦the country will never be able to rid itself of the shame of being founded on the backs of slaves. † I would like to rehearse some of the story of Slavery, some critical events in the war and afterwards, and to offer a reasonable suggestion for Restitution. The introduction of African Slavery to these shores was an unplanned event although the Spanish and the Portuguese had been involved with this trade for almost 100 years in this hemisphere before it appeared here. These are some of the highlights of that practice here: The first African slaves were 19 people, who in 1619 were captured by Dutch sailors from Spanish slave traders. Subsequently they were sold to the colonists at Jamestown for food. Initially, these people worked as indentured servants but they ultimately gained their freedom after completing a â€Å"work contract† for the colonists. The phrase â€Å"indentured servant† is misleading in this case since its modern usage means someone who works for a fixed period and is then manumitted. This was not the arrangement that was applied to the African captives who arrived later than these initial individuals did, since the practice gradually evolved to treat the adults as well as the children of the female slaves as also enslaved people (partus sequitur ventrum) 2.  Another misleading statement is that the term â€Å"servant† was widely used in the South, even past 1865, to refer to African people who were actually enslaved. Therefore, not much credence should be put into the seemingly benign phrase of â€Å"servant†3 when applied to these unfortunate human beings. The cost of this labor was attractive to the colonists since by 1638 an enslaved African laborer could be purchased for $27 while a European indentured servant cost a planter $255 for one year’s work. 4 The economic appeal of enslaved African laborers became the norm and quickly spread throughout the colonies.  After twenty years, ordinances legitimizing enslavement were commonplace in almost every colony and the practice had morphed into bondage for life, or more properly, chattel slavery. 5 These practices were immoral; they had no place in a respectable society. The pernicious tendency to view the Africans through the white supremacist lens quickly became dominant and was a concomitant of this chattel slavery. This was punctuated by the knowledge that Europeans were never enslaved while most enslaved people were Africans. The skin color of the enslaved became a facile marker that fit in well with the culturally supremacist view of the European colonists. In this section I try to show how the African Slave System, after gaining a foothold went on to become the most important part of the economy of the new Nation: As the profitability of the colonists’ agricultural enterprises quickly rose, it was essential to procure a sufficient number of workers since labor shortages were a constant headache. 7 Enslavement of the Indigenous Peoples had become steadily more problematic and by the 1750’s this practice had ceased altogether. European workers were both expensive and tended to leave their employers to start plantations of their own, or to return home. Therefore, a more reliable source of economically viable labor became a necessity, and that baleful need coincided with the rise of the Trans- Atlantic Slave Trade from Africa. This phenomenon was heaviest during the 16th through the 19th centuries,9 when an estimated 11 million captives from Africa were ultimately landed at Western Hemispheric destinations out of 15 million who had been loaded onto these horror-filled ships. 0 The differences in these numbers were human beings who had died en route through miserable treatment meted out by the slave traders. The attrition rate during these voyages was a startling 0. 36 persons for every person who disembarked in the New World. We should not forget these stark truths. About 650,000 ~ 720,000 apprehended persons of the numbers shown above,11 it is thought, were brought into what was to become the United States. Employing the attrition rate noted before we can estimate that about 245,000 people were lost from the aggregate number of cap tives bound for these shores. Given the losses in the war that was to come it’s almost as though the Divine Being had decided to punish this country for these sins at a rate of three-to-one. By 1860, the survivors had increased through natural growth to more than 4. 000,000 enslaved and freed peoples12 and were primarily located in the states that were to become part of the Confederacy (76% there and another 18% in the Border States13). What fueled this enormous increase in the numbers of the enslaved was that starting in the 1790’s the revolution of the cotton gin and the corresponding leap in cotton exports demanded an exponential rise in subservient labor. So what had started as a straightforward small-scale agricultural experiment, primarily growing foodstuffs, had metastasized into an industrial system practically keeping the Nation afloat with its lucrative revenues. Before the war began the cotton trade – or more realistically â€Å"King Cotton† – constituted 2/3 rds of the wealth of the Nation. 14 What motivated these slaveholders to import and retain so many African Laborers besides the economics? Evidently the lure of being a member of an aristocratic leisured-class was appealing. Most of the apologists for these slaveholders had classical education, and they employed arguments from Greek and Roman Antiquity, which portrayed slavery as a prominent component of the civilizing mission they were engaged in. Their lower income regional compatriots, although not slave owners themselves, were eager to emulate this conduct, which they viewed as valuable and status-filled. The Southern way of life was born: it was profitable for the elite; it was an identity vehicle for the lower classes; but it was hellish for the enslaved. Further, it was built upon the most cruel and involuntary system imaginable which had as a mainstay the dissolution of the Africans’ families both here and in their original homelands. The American governmental establishment – at all levels -bears the greatest guilt for this outrageous affront. It is important to recall that these slave traders and slaveholders were in many cases prominent members of the various governments that acceded to or promoted this horrific conduct. The enslaved people, it should be remembered, did not voluntarily agree to be forcibly dragged to these shores. Despite the claims made by the â€Å"Slavocracy† that they were performing a civilizing mission by maintaining this obscene practice, the only positive good was that the lives of the slaveholders was being enhanced! EXASPERATION After Slavery had become such an integral component of the Nation, regional differences in the attitudes towards that infernal system began to be felt all around. Exasperation was the order of the day but the African enslaved people were suffering the most: There were three sets of players in this tragedy: the Northern Whites; the Southern Whites (slaveholders and on-slave holders); and the enslaved Africans. It is unequivocally true that the enslaved peoples did not create nor did they benefit from this monstrous catastrophe. The other groups however, either benefited in a direct way or thought their social status was improved through the bacillus of racism. Exasperation however, was shared by all to some degree. The Northerners became progressively m ore dissatisfied with their impotence following the Revolution while the Southerners were increasingly anxious that the North was lining up new Free Soil states that would nullify their voting majorities in Congress. The enslaved though, were in anguish since everything that people could cherish was systematically being denied to them after they had been wrenched away from their homes. The enslaved increasingly attempted to build an alternate life, sub-rosa as it were, by fleeing their masters or by engaging in sabotage or willful incoherence. 15 They also constructed a parallel universe of their own by founding separate places of worship (the Whites did not allow the enslaved to be an equal part of their devotional services) and their own systems of less-than-formal education. t was during this period that it could be said that a new genus was born – the â€Å"African –American†. What they did not have was any significant power over their futures except as ad hoc combinations that could be assembled, when conditions permitted. They expressed this through manifestations such as the Underground Railroad16 (which saw 6,000~ 30,000 African-American flee; figures are imprecise), various slave rebellions (some bloody), and a general unwillingness to be smothered by enslavement (conduct just short of insurrection). Another group, though small in numbers, was the Free Blacks. These people became the vanguard of the African-American middle and professional classes that successfully operated between the seams of the larger society. The actions of this sub-group were able to relieve some of the pressures that had built up in the larger body of enslaved African-Americans and help to point the way for a more prosperous life for all.

Nazi Propaganda Essay -- World War II WWII

Nazi Propaganda "Propaganda attempts to force a doctrine on the whole people... Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and makes them ripe for the victory of this idea." These words of Adolf Hitler are taken from his book Mien Kampf (My Struggle) published in 1926. Propaganda was an elaborate and essential tool used extensively by Hitler and the Nazi's during their terrorizing reign of Germany and throughout Europe. Not only was it used to promote and endorse the party and its leader's extreme anti-Semitic values, but also to mask the horrifying truths of what was to become known as the Holocaust. Anti-Jewish measures and programs have taken place numerous times throughout history, but never to the extent and successfulness attained by the Third Reich. A clear reason for this level of success can be attributed significantly to the abundant amounts of misinformation released by the Nazis prior to and during World War II. The degree of importance these public-swaying devices were to Hitler became particularly evident when he created the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, announcing a man by the name of Joseph Goebbels as the head. This was a section of his fascist regime devoted solely to spreading lies. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's websites describes, "The Ministry's aim was to ensure that the Nazi's message was successfully communicated through art, music, theater, films, books, radio, education and press." The measures that were taken to spread these hateful ideas and values are quite astonishing. Anti-Jewish books were even brought into classrooms, one famously called "Der Gifpiltz" meaning "The Poisonous Mushroom." The book contained differe... ...nd heartbreaking. While, fortunately their complete goal was never reached, it is alarming and shocking how successful and influential these campaigns were. Hitler's fervent hate of the Jews and passion for power mixed with intelligence and great oratory skills illustrates the power of persuasion and authority of propaganda in modern societies. Ultimately, the massive use of videotaped lies and printed fabrication non-directly aided in killing an estimated 6 million Jewish persons during World War II. Works Cited Giesen, Rolf. Nazi Propoganda Films: A History and Filmography. McFarland and Company, 2003. Hiemer, Ernst. The Poisonous Mushroom. Der Stà ¼rmer-Nurnberg, 1938. Powell, Lawrence N. Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust and David Duke's Louisiana. The University of North Carolina Press, 2000. www.holocaust-history.org www.ushmm.org

Islam and Ramadan Essay

Ramadan in Britain during the early Eighties, when I was growing up, was very different from the way it is now. There was no awareness of the rotating month of fasting in the Islamic calendar, no flexibility to working hours, no facility for prayer in offices and no calls for prayer on television. For one month every year, my family and I would undertake this annual Islamic duty furtively, tip-toeing around for the pre-dawn meal for fear of waking up the neighbours with the kitchen clatter, and reluctant to talk about the practice for fear of censure or mockery. Four decades on, Ramadan is marked far more openly in Britain. Some employers are offering flexi-time to those Muslims who, from this week, will undertake a daily fast for 30 consecutive days that will involve around 19 hours of abstention from all food and drink – from sunrise to sunset. Some firms are allowing Muslims to begin their working day later, so they can catch up on sleep after waking up at 3am to eat, and to end their shifts earlier, so that they are not working when they are physically weakened. The Eid festival that marks the end of Ramadan is also increasingly celebrated in public venues around the country, including Trafalgar Square in London. Channel 4 announced last week that it would broadcast one out of five â€Å"calls for prayer† during the month-long fasting period. The channel called it a deliberately â€Å"provocative† act that would, it hoped, challenge prejudices that link Islam to extremism. It is not just Ramadan that has received a PR boost in recent times but fasting itself. In the early days of fasting – at school and then at university – I was often warned by well-wishers of the danger I might be putting my body under and that abstaining from eating and drinking water for long hours could do me harm. Now, fasting seems to have been reinvented as the ancients saw it – a way of giving the body a rest, cleansing both physically and spiritually, and a way of sharpening our collective sense of self-restraint. These objectives are being resurrected in our obesity-riddled Western world, with its binge culture, its childhood obesity and its addictions to food. Dr Michael Mosley’s Horizon investigation in 2012, which studied the effects of intermittent fasting, and in which he fasted two days out of every week (living on 600 calories during his fasting days) spawned the popularity of the 5:2 diet. Dr Mosley presented medical evidence for the life-extending and life-improving benefits of fasting on the human body, though this is still contentious territory in the scientific and nutritional community. Even grander claims came from American scientists last year who said that fasting for regular periods could help protect the brain against degenerative illness. Researchers at the National Institute on Ageing in Baltimore found evidence that a severe reduction of calorie intake for one or two days a week could protect the brain from the most detrimental effects of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Aside from the health benefits, there are ethical reasons for fasting, too, even for the most irreligious amongst us. Steven Poole, in his book, You Aren’t What You Eat: Fed Up With Gastroculture, argues compellingly against the recent explosion of â€Å"foodie culture† in Britain, in which food has become a self-indulgent, status-bound and profligate middle-class pastime. Celebrity chefs are now worshipped, he says, and people post pictures of their meals on Facebook. â€Å"Western civilisation is eating itself stupid,† Poole writes. â€Å"The literary and visual rhetoric of food in our culture has become decoupled from any reasonable concern for nutrition or environment.† It is naà ¯ve to think that a few hours of abstinence will harm the majority of the overweight population in the West, though of course, those with certain ailments such as heart conditions or diabetes should avoid fasting on medical grounds (and are exempt from the obligation of Ramadan). After all, hundreds of thousands of people across the world have access to only one meal at best, and limited water, yet they live on. Mohammed Shafiq, founding member of the Ramadhan Foundation, believes that the persistent hunger and weakness of religious fasting may slow us down but it also increases our compassion for those who have been weakened physically in some way. â€Å"During Ramadan, you understand how someone feels when they live in a place with no food or water.† In this sense, there are gains to be made for the soul and its expanded capacity for empathy. Fasting leads us to think about our bodies, their dependencies and their frailties, as well as those of our fellow men and women. And that’s not a bad thing.

Developing a Research Project and a Brief Study on Obesity

Have you had to do a research project before? If so, what was the most difficult part of the project? What do you think could be done to make this difficulty a little easier for this project? I have completed several research projects and I find that developing the thesis statement is the most difficult part of the process. The thesis is the over-arching viewpoint of the research and states the writers position for the project (Hardy Ramjeet, 2005). It can be an analysis of issues and facts surrounding a topic or an argument for or against a particular subject or idea. Without a concise thesis statement, the project lacks direction. It can easily end up a general reporting of descriptions and details with no clear direction. The thesis provides the framework for the project guiding it towards a definitive conclusion. I find that the best strategy for coordinating an overall theme for a research project is to first consider the objective. In order to do this, it is best to first collect and organize evidence, see what literature and information is available on the topic and consider possible connections between ideas (i.e., divergences and similarities). This preliminary thought process and planning is the best way to develop a main idea that can actually be supported with evidence. Once I know whether my goal will be to argue a point, explain a concept or analyze data, I can then organize my supporting information to build the body of my project. By simply stating aShow MoreRelatedBusiness Proposal From Unite Against Obesity: A Nonprofit Organization for Prevention of Pediatric Obesity1705 Words   |  7 PagesAgainst Obesity: A Nonprofit Organization for Prevention of Pediatric Obesity. A Proposal 2. Letter/Memo of Transmittal MEMORANDUM To: Recipients name and title From: Unite Against Obesity Date: Date you turn in your report Subject: Report name The childhood obesity issue has become so prominent that First Lady Obama has adopted childhood obesity as her pet project and has sworn to end it within a generation (USA Today. (2/9/2010). To that end and to assist her, Unite against Obesity, recognizingRead MoreCommunity Health Improvement Pl Desoto County1677 Words   |  7 PagesHealth Improvement Plan DeSoto County John J. Merrill State College of Florida Community Health Improvement Plan, DeSoto County The data has shown that there is an ongoing problem with obesity in DeSoto County and many counties in Florida. The State of Obesity, reports that Florida s adult obesity rate is 26.4 percent, up from 20.7 percent in 2004 and from 11.4 percent in 1990(Florida, 2014). In 2011 for DeSoto County, the percentage of obese females was in the worst 25% of all countiesRead MoreBenefits Of Regular Physical Activity2271 Words   |  10 PagesVillanova University HRD8213 – Benefits 1. Research the benefits of regular physical activity as a tool to reduce health care costs. Physical activity helps reduce stress, also promotes healthy lifestyle. Healthier employees are more productive Healthy employees will use less sick time Healthy workforce will help to reduce health care costs in the long term Also promotes mental health care Abstract There is significant research that shows a direct correlation between the rising costsRead MoreSystems Thinking2590 Words   |  11 PagesWhy is systems thinking critical in developing solutions to sustainability challenges? Systems thinking is a method of thinking that looks at the interconnectedness between different elements rather than a linear cause and effect approach and sees patterns of change rather than fixed â€Å"snapshots†. In essence it is a view on the â€Å"whole picture† (Anderson, R 1994). Peter Senge and Andres Edwards expressed the importance of system thinking in that it is necessary for â€Å"understanding the dynamic complexityRead MoreFactors Affecting The Role Of A Nurse And The Care3810 Words   |  16 Pagesout that healthcare now places a lot of stress on prevention. This project will concentrate on diabetes type 2 because of prevention through lifestyle choices. Influence on the Role of Nurse and Healthcare It’s vital that nurses and other healthcare workers are educated on diabetes. An example of how diabetes influences the role of a nurse and the care given can be seen with something as simple as wound care. A study published in the International Journal of Vascular Medicine describesRead MoreAn Exploratory Research Of Attitudes Towards Consumption Of Milk Essay1928 Words   |  8 PagesEXECUTIVE SUMMARY The project does an exploratory research of attitudes towards consumption of milk. The research is mainly focussed on an advertisement by Cooperative Milk Organizations in India themed to promote consumption of milk in different situations by every age group and more often. The Exploratory research finds out the consumer attitude, analyses how the four different properties of attitude are used to influence attitudes of consumers towards milk, the ethical issues exist while promotingRead MoreWhy African Americans Living For Low Ses Communities Are At High Risks Of Cvd3778 Words   |  16 Pages Abstract The objective of this qualitative research paper is to explore articles that provide evidence in answering why African Americans living in low SES communities are at high risks of CVD. The articles used in this paper suggest that there are multiple risk factors that influence the health behavior of African Americans living in low-income communities. In addition the articles social determinants of health, such as access to quality health care services, access to quality educationRead MoreThe Community Guide, American Association, And American Heart Association3701 Words   |  15 Pagesservices which public health professionals may use in a variety of ways to perform their job more effectively. Our focus areas include the Community Guide, American Diabetes Association, and American Heart Association. For each area we will include a brief discussion summarizing the areas, their values in the field, relevant theories the area encompasses, and how each might be applied in the professi on. While the topics of each area may differ, we hope you will gain a better understand for each andRead MoreNeeds Assessment for Worksite Health Promotion Program4733 Words   |  19 PagesMost office employees or key personnel work from 8a to 5p. Unfortunately Mississippi is known as the fattest state; with 7 out of 10 adults being either overweight or obese. Roughly 1 in 3 adult Americans are obese and ground zero for America’s obesity battle is in Mississippi (Elliot, 2011). Being overweight contributes to multiple health problems such as hyperlipidemia, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and much more. Corinth is a small town but is considered a metropolis to surroundingRead Moreresearch on clinical psych6780 Words   |  28 Pages A lot of the behaviour that worries us in later childhood, such as aggression, hyperactivity, obesity, depression and poor school performance, has already been shaped by children’s experiences in babyhood. For those of you who have not studied the scientific literature, this might seem a bit far-fetched. I was rather amazed at just how significant babyhood is, when I first undertook the research for my book Why Love Matters . Just to take one recent example, the World Health Organisation