There was much in way of dreams and expectations that each group of people possessed at the end of the Civil War. Victorious Northerners set their sights on being able to expand businesses into the destroyed South. There is much in way of evidence to suggest that the largest driving force behind the industrial North was to be able to spread their sphere of influence into the South, allowing business to expand into new markets. Southern Whites had a more challenging predicament in that they had to rebuild their homes and settings, and had to end up reassessing their own state of being in the world. This helped to create a crater of disillusionment that cradled much of the South. Questions such as how the war wound up so decisively against them, wondering as to where their own personal wealth disappeared, and how to reconcile a social order that had freed Blacks rank along side Whites all helped to create a sense of consciousness in the world with many a question. Perhaps, this is why Jim Crow laws and practices of segregation began to emerge so quickly after the Civil War, one way of bringing back some order to a world that certainly was perceived to have lacked it. This questioning of identity certainly expanded to newly freed Black Americans. The Civil War's emancipation from slavery had allowed the achievement of freedom, or a life without slavery to emerge. Yet, many Black Americans had little idea with what to do with this newly granted freedom. The idea of having been in bondage all their lives and then suddenly being released into the world with no training, no preparation, nor transition was startling to many of them. Some ended up going back to their plantations, only to find they were not accepted. Think about how this would impact goals and dreams: The life of abuse and subjugation, the only life one knows, rejects and shuns. Even one's own cursed existence is still an existence and to experience rejection from that had to have been unimaginably brutal. Many Blacks migrated to the North, trying to find some way of life that could support them or a family. Others remained in the South, trying to do the same. The transcendent question of what would happen to Black Americans, freed in the wake of the Civil War, was something that would end up being addressed by thinkers like Washington and DuBois, individuals who proposed differing approaches to the Black predicament in post- Civil War America.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
How far is Iago justified in hating Othello?
Iago hates Othello for some of reasons. First reason could be that Othello promoted Cassio in his place; however, Iago wants it and he cosid...
-
This is in response to sahabia's request for clarification on the first two lines: The chariest maid is prodigal enough If she unmask h...
-
As dusk began to mantle the day and darkness enveloped the land, the nuts vendor began to pack up for the day. This was a signal to the astr...
-
William Hazlitt, known for his biting satirical essays, attacks formal education in "On the Ignorance of the Learned." This essay ...
No comments:
Post a Comment