Herbert Gutman’s book, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom 1750-1925 (1976), is a part of revisionist literature in reaction to earlier literature on slavery that emphasized the destructive impact of the institution on African American life. Gutman’s main purpose is to dispel the assertion made by Daniel P. Moynihan in The Negro Family in ...
As a defender of slavery, John C. Calhoun made arguments explicitly opposed to the Founders’ conception of individual rights. Calhoun, in his Disquisition on Government, denied the existence of a state of nature in which people are born free and equal. For Calhoun, this state of nature never did nor can exist; all men are ...
The PBS special “Slavery By Another Name” shines light on a critical part of American history that has been for the most part, ignored or forgotten; the persistence of a new form of neo-slavery that lasted for over eighty years beyond the end of the Civil War. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (1862) is traditionally regarded as ...
John Hope Franklin says in a film that this country has not confronted the issue of slavery yet. I think that Mr. Franklin is speaking the truth in this statement. Slavery is one of the worst conditions that have existed throughout history, not only in this country but in other places as well. The enslavement ...
In Olaudah Equiano’s book, readers are given an opportunity to view slavery during the 18th century from a perspective that is not commonly shared: that of a slave himself. Because many slaves of that time did not and could not receive proper education in reading and writing, Equiano’s account is both interesting and meaningful for ...