James Brown: The End Of The Reconstruction Era

The creation of the emancipation proclamation and reconstruction period offered hope to those who were once slaves. Essentially, the end of this treatment led to the loss of a strong capital for plantation owners. Reconstruction became a mission for white southerners to redeem the south and the beginning of a new labor force (Jelks). Post emancipation gave ‘freed’ people false hope and made them fight with strength to make their imprint on the world. James Brown, the King of Soul, went through life experiencing criminalization, labor, self-help, religion, politics and fear similar to that of his ‘freed’ counterparts.
A prime source of labor during the early post emancipation era was sharecropping. Sharecropping was a system that allowed for

James Browns great-great uncle, Oscar Gaines, experienced the unlawful system of convict leasing when he was younger. He was sentenced to work for some sort of crime he did (McBride 44). James brown may have inherited his families long line of criminalization at a young age. James drive for money lead him to catch a case when he was 15 years old. He was caught for stealing car parts and selling them. James had been charged with four counts of breaking and entering, which could have gotten him eight-to-sixteen year in a juvenile prison near Toccoa, Georgia but he only served three years with ten years’ probation (McBride 64). He was just trying to survive another day as he always had. In 1988, James had a run in with the police after showing up to his Augusta office space with a hunting rifle. His initial intention was not to harm anyone and simply ask the insurance executives not to use his private bathroom (McBride 14). Get on up, the 2014 film about the Godfather of Soul, showcased this incident in a different light. James Brown was portrayed as a wild and crazy man who ran from the cops in the opening scene, but that was not quite the story (McBride 14). 1988 was a tough year for James; his band had parted ways, the IRS came after him twice, and he could no longer maintain musical career. James relied on drugs more now than he could have imagined. His usage of PCP, a hallucinogen,

Many sharecroppers tried to escape from their place of work because they wanted a better life for themselves, while others felt content with getting short-changed by the white man. This notion of self-help and self-improvement began in James’ family with his great-great-uncle, Oscar Gaines, when he escaped his duties as a young laborer in Savannah, GA. Oscar managed to find a job chopping cotton for a white man who was not bothered by his skin color (McBride 45). The story of old Oscar Gaines would surface for generations to come in the Gaines/Brown family as a story of courage and self-improvement. While James Brown’s father Joe did his best to take care of his son, he could not raise him all alone. Similar to most families that parted ways during the post emancipation era, Joe Brown looked to the strong women of his family to help care for brown (McBride 48). These family members ensured that he was well mannered. When he moved to Augusta to live with his Aunt honey, he had obtained an education from segregated schools up until the seventh or eighth grade, like most children who got to attend school (McBride