Jim Crow/Articles
Topics discussed in this week’s reading really open our eyes to the cruelty suffered during
times slavery was legal. Facts presented such as whites slaves or rather poor white people
endured some of the same suffering before Bacons Rebellion that black slaved went
through. This shows how easily we as humans can be bought. Something as simple as
giving a person a bit of control over others changes the integrity of that individual. These
poor white people were given governing power over the black slaves and the alliance
between the two was severed, this was cruel in itself. Also the freedom granted to the
slaves was not complete freedom. Vagrancy laws enacted by several states granted in what
I perceived as a conditional freedom. One of the vagrancy laws stated that a black person
over the age of 18 must have a job at the beginning of each year and if not they would be
deemed a criminal. It was hard enough being black at the time, but who wanted to hire a
black person for pay. This setup the majority of black people to become criminals due to
the color of their skin. This type of treatment was cruel. It did not give every man a fair
chance to overcome life obstacles, rather it set them up for failure. But as change did
become the inevitable, people suffered through it. Challenges from organizations such as
the Ku Klux Klan nearly made it impossible while creating fear in people’s lives. This
