ipl-logo

Summary Of The Hanging Of Black Man's Encounter With Liberty

587 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Concequences of civil disobedience

White supremacists dominate the media today in both violent protests and accusatory remarks against the African American race. Racism regarding people of African descent has existed in this nation since it first began. Though we no longer enslave Africans or force African Americans into separate establishments in society apart from whites, racism is still a serious issue in this great nation that prides itself on being free and equal. In The Hanging of Thomas Jeremiah A Free Black Man’s Encounter with Liberty by J. William Harris, this theme of the white man and his contradictions regarding the law and social morals surrounding racism is ever present. In the case of Thomas Jeremiah, a free black man who owns property and slaves of his own is convicted of the crime of conspiring to begin a slave revolt against Charlestown …show more content…

Police brutality against African Americans is common on social media and many officers believed to have committed these acts walk freely with as little as a slap on the wrist so to speak. Thomas Jeremiah, was by general definition of what makes a great Englishman, on equal standings with a white man. He owned property, practiced Christian faith, and was a free man with a great reputation among white and black men alike. Yet, due to the pigmentation in his skin, any court trials in which he was convicted of a crime, he would be tried as a slave and therefore receive the most radical of punishments. The right to a trial by jury is also an American liberty this nation prides itself in. Many argued in Jeremiah’s time that rights such as the trial by jury fell to all men, black or white, while others adamantly refused that black men were considered worthy. These were only a few of the contradictions made by white men in which rights and laws were put in place, but the opposite was silently applied to the black

Show More
Related
196 Words | 1 Pages

Fredrick Douglass, a free slave, wrote an article about a conflict in Boston involving a runaway slave and a kidnapper. The kidnapper attempted to return the runaway slave to his master; during a scuffle, the kidnapper was killed. Douglass penned that if society has the right to preserve itself even at the expense of the life of an aggressor then it was acceptable to kill the kidnapper. Society does have the right to preserve itself even at the expense of an aggressor’s life; therefore, it was acceptable to kill the kidnapper. In Douglass’s article, his argument is formatted to suggest two premises and a conclusion that are both correct and uncontested.

Read More
753 Words | 4 Pages

Although he hadn’t done so, there was no grant for leniency or release in his imprisonment; as his cellmate told him, “‘Don’t matter if you was or was’t All they gotta do is say you was’” (158). With the way this is mentioned in the book, the problem that most readily comes to mind is in regards to innocence. H had been jailed with no proof and no chance of discharge (bar a ten-dollar fine he was incapable of producing), worsened still by the fact that he was completely innocent of the crime he was accused of in the first place. It prompts the question of how frequently the convicted were innocent, or unfairly, disproportionately tried, but the greater issue lies in the use of the criminal justice system as a means to disproportionately target black people, both innocent and guilty, as a form of legal slave labor after slavery had been

Read More
737 Words | 3 Pages

The abolition of slavery for enslaved Africans meant freedom, but for white, farm-owning Southerners, it meant that their businesses would deplete without their workers. To tackle this, Black people were incarcerated over minute mistakes that were technically “illegal” such as loitering or simply being suspicious. This documentary does not hold back when demonstrating that the Ku Klux Klan, one of the lead white supremacist groups of rural America, committed heinous atrocities against Black people. The KKK’s glorification in the media led to the surpassing of hate crimes, especially in the South. 13th includes images of hangings, lynchings, and real KKK groups from this era in American history to set the background for how mass incarceration started at the roots of racism.

Read More
1160 Words | 5 Pages

As a former slave and victim of continuous legalized discrimination, Douglass proceeds to label his selection to address the nation on Independence Day as inhuman mockery. Furthermore, Douglass declares that he cannot express felicity when the shrilling wails of his people, those bound by society’s chains, penetrate his consciousness, yet remain clouded beneath the explosion of fireworks to others. Likewise, the following paragraph of the speech defends those who society quiets, shaming the black character of America. Following the first of many indignant remarks, Douglass exercises an appeal to logic, presenting to the audience the absurd ratio of black to white men in America that face the punishment of death for crimes committed. Continuing the circular arrangement of his speech, an appeal to ethics appears through his references to the Constitution, the Bible, and God, implying that slaves, too, worship the Christian God, and thus being called upon to prove their manhood stands unreasonable.

Read More
873 Words | 4 Pages

Both King and Douglass were advocating for the same thing: their constitutional sanction of freedom. Both men, in their respective letters touch upon parallel thoughts and beliefs that revolve around the much bigger topic of racial inequality and discrimination. Both men were discriminated against and they talk about their experiences and plight in their very distinctive yet special styles. Born in the year 1817, in an era of open and unashamed slave trade, Frederick Douglass’s story begins as a serf to Mrs. Hugh in the city of Maryland.

Read More
1278 Words | 6 Pages

Many people in America take their freedoms for granted and fail to realize that some people don’t share those freedoms. Fredrick Douglass intended to remind Americans that the Fourth of July is not a day of celebration for African Americans, but a day of mourning. Douglass uses varied syntax, rhetorical questions, and appeals to emotions and logic to prove that slaves are human and that their manhood should be recognized, and to show the irony behind asking a slave to speak at a celebration of independence. Douglass uses short syntax to display the differences between himself and his audience, as well as long syntax to exaggerate the neverending struggles of African American slaves. Douglass states “I am not that man.”

Read More
828 Words | 4 Pages

Frederick Douglass, born a slave and later the most influential African American leader of the 1800s, addresses the hypocrisy of the US of maintaining slavery with its upheld ideals being freedom and independence on July 4th, 1852. Douglass builds his argument by using surprising contrasts, plain facts, and provocative antithesis. Introducing his subject, Douglass reminds his audience about the dark side of America for slaves, in sharp, surprising contrasts with the apparent progressivity within the nation. He first notices “the disparity,” that “the sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and deaths to me,” as an African-American former slave. It is surprising for the audience to hear that the Sun does not bring him any prosperity, that the Sun, the source of life on earth, brings him destruction.

Read More
687 Words | 3 Pages

Sean Kim Mr. Nguyen English 3H 12 November 2014 Frederick Douglass Essay All through American history, minority gatherings were casualties of American administrative strategies, and these approaches made them powerless against uncouth and uncaring treatment on account of white Americans. American subjugation is a telling case of an administration endorsed foundation that deceived and abused a race of individuals by instilling and empowering oppression, prejudice and misuse. This establishment is harmful to slaves and slave holders indistinguishable in light of the fact that American culture, particularly in the south, experienced a dehumanization transform keeping in mind the end goal to actualize the savage and heartless convention. In the

Read More
337 Words | 2 Pages

This quote is really meaningful because this shows that not all the negroes get justice because people just assume they are guilty and they make up their minds about them being guilty just because they are negroes and the whites see them as “lower class” and they weren’t worth their time. Though, some negroes are wrongfully convicted for any crime that didn't change the fact they were people of color and they were guilty to the whites anyway. For example, this shows that the negroes probably never received their justice through the legal system. So, when I see a book or article related to back then and it involves negroes the negroes are not getting justice. For instance, the book To Kill A Mockingbird it mentions that Tom Robinson died for

Read More
868 Words | 4 Pages

In America, the Declaration of Independence are similar to God’s covenant to Abraham, which promised Israel to Abraham and his children. The Declaration of Independence promises life, liberty, and happiness to every American citizen, yet the blacks face hardships when they ask for the fulfillment of their promised rights. The psalm Douglass chose to quote parallels to the situation of the blacks because both the blacks and the Israelites were denied something, by self-qualified superior, that was promised to them. The parallelism instates shame in the primarily Christian audience because their actions are comparable to the actions of a group of peoples who oppressed their religious predecessors. Next, Douglass’ repetition of “fellow citizens” illuminates Douglass’ belief that the blacks are not considered citizens in a catholic sense of the word.

Read More
618 Words | 3 Pages

In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, we can see a clear example of injustice in the court. Equality is needed in all places no matter the person. People need to find a way to stop racism. Throughout time people have been put into slavery and have been neglected. There is injustice in this book because he is accused of someone else’s doing, is not given a fair hearing, and is attacked even though there was no evidence.

Read More
1110 Words | 5 Pages

Douglass points to the vast unwillingness from the group of whites that refuses to fully perceive and accept African-Americans as deserving and equal citizens of the nation. Based on his personal experiences as a slave, Douglass is abundantly aware that the battle to abolish slavery is not an easy task. For the first twenty years of his life, he witnessed firsthand the abject cruelty of that institution in our country. Tactfully, Douglass seizes this opportunity to publicly highlight the unmerited and coarse differences in the treatment between the whites as opposed to the blacks living in the United States during this time period. He makes a “powerful testaments to the hypocrisy, bigotry and inhumanity of slavery” (Bunch 1).

Read More
334 Words | 2 Pages

When arguing for racial equality, James Farmer Jr. quotes St.Augustine, “An unjust law is no law at all.” He claims that just laws are meant to protect all citizens; whereas, unjust laws that discriminate Negroes are not laws to be followed, thus raising awareness of racial discrimination by using emotional and logical appeals. In The Great Debaters, Henry Lowe appeals to the audience’s emotions during a debate about Negro integration into state universities. To challenge his opponent’s claim that the South isn 't ready to integrate Negroes into universities, he affirms that if change wasn’t forcefully brought upon the South, Negroes would “still be in chains,” which is an allusion to slavery. With this point, he is able to raise awareness of

Read More
833 Words | 4 Pages

In the book Atticus and the members of the court system express the reach of prejudice, justice, and fairness in the justice system. The justice system was filled with prejudice. In the book it states, “ Now don 't you be so confident, Mr. Jem I ain 't ever seen a jury decide in favor of a colored man over a white man…”(279). Reverend Sykes is witnessing the trial of Tom Robinson.

Read More
952 Words | 4 Pages

Assuming all men are created equal like Jefferson said, then slaves should have never existed. Mr. Finch adds “ a jury is only as strong as the men that make it up.” Granted the men that make it up do not believe two men of different races are equal. Tom should be given a fair trail with an unbias jury. Assuming a white male was being accused of raping a black female, the case would have been dismissed as the female lying.

Read More

More about Summary Of The Hanging Of Black Man's Encounter With Liberty

Related Topics

Open Document