Analyzing Emilie Davis's Diary

leading up to and surrounding President Abraham Lincoln’s death. The purpose of this book is to

Isabel Wilkerson’s, “The Warmth of Other Suns” starts in the winter of 1916, as the world hears the news of the European war. Therefore, it was easy for American’s to overlook things such as The Chicago Defender reporting the several black families in Selma, leaving the South. The Defender was a popular African-American weekly newspaper which informed African-America’s about stories in the coming years, also having train schedules for the community to read. The Defender occurred as both cheerleader and chronicler of an exodus that would led about six million African-Americans to abandon the states of the Old Confederacy between 1915 and 1970.

Throughout the course of Coming of Age in Mississippi, readers observe as Anne Moody undergoes a rigorous transformation – the period of adolescence proves to be years of growth and exposure for Moody. As a child, she is aware of the difference in treatment between whites and blacks – however, she is oblivious to the reason why. It is not until Emmett Till’s murder that Moody really becomes aware of what is happening in the world around her. Prior to August of 1955, Moody had been so consumed with school, work and family that she didn’t pay very much attention to race relations. It’s a point of awakening when she finally grasps the hatred that whites in Mississippi have for blacks – she now begins to understand why her family had lived through such inhumane conditions. As Moody begins to understand the concept of race and equality, she thus realizes which side of the spectrum black people are placed on. On the other hand, Moody’s mama Toosweet, has long endured the brutal callousness of Chattel Slavery -- as a result she holds a different perspective than Moody. Their differing viewpoints often lead to tension between the two characters; this essay will examine and compare the psychological effects of Chattel Slavery on Moody and her mother.

The Civil War caused a shift in the ways that many Americans thought about slavery and race. Chandra Manning’s What this Cruel War Was Over helps readers understand how soldiers viewed slavery during the Civil War. The book is a narrative, which follows the life of Union soldier who is from Massachusetts. Chandra Manning used letters, diaries and regimental newspapers to gain an understanding of soldiers’ views of slavery. The main character, Charles Brewster has never encountered slaves. However, he believes that Negroes are inferior. He does not meet slaves until he enters the war in the southern states of Maryland and Virginia. Charles Brewster views the slaves first as contraband. He believes the slaves are a burden and should be sent back to their owners because of the fugitive slave laws. Union soldiers focus shifted before the end of the war. They believed slavery was cruel and inhumane, expressing strong desire to liberate the slaves. As the war progresses, soldiers view slaves and slavery in a different light. This paper, by referring to the themes and characters presented in Chandra Manning’s What this Cruel War Was Over, analyzes how the issue of slavery and race shifted in the eyes of white Union soldiers’ during Civil War times.

Elijah’s daughter, Luvenia, struggles to get a job and into college in Chicago while her brother Richard travels back to South Carolina. Abby’s grandson, Tommy works with civil rights and protests, and tries to get into college for basketball. The story ends with Malcolm, Richard’s grandson, getting his his cousin Shep, who is struggling with drugs, to the family reunion. In reading this story one could wonder how the transition from slavery to segregation in the United States really occurred. The timeline can be split into three distinct sections, Emancipation, forming segregation, and life post-Civil War, pre-civil rights.

In “Letters of a Civil War Nurse”, written in 1863, Cornelia Hancock’s account of the Civil War gives readers an account of the suffering and hardship of soldiers through the point of view of an Union nurse. This document written by Cornelia Hancock is an account as a nurse who went through the Battle of Gettysburg and the after effects. Through a series of letters written to her loved ones, Cornelia wrote what nurses went through during the times of war. At the time women were expected to be good wives; with Cornelia Hancock’s effort she was able to help soldiers and contribute to the idea that women are capable of much more than being good wives; women can be apart of war. With her background as a Quaker and her family history, Cornelia Hancock was able to contribute greatly to the war effort even though she was originally denied to becoming an union nurse.

In the 1940’s and the 1950’s, America was going through a world war and several difficulties that included problems in civil and woman rights on the home-front. In two different nonfiction memoirs by female authors, we see different yet similarities in the novels. Nisei Daughter by Monica Sone is a memoir by a Japanese-American woman, in which she describes her childhood, adolescence, and young womanhood while growing up in a Japanese immigrant family in Seattle, Washington in the 1930 's. In the second narrative, Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody is a memoir by an African-American woman whom writes about her childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood life and growing up in her home state during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950’s. Moody and Sone had childhoods that lacked positive influences in certain areas and tell their stories to help others in understanding the issues that surrounded them as being minority women in a society that don’t accept them.

The narrative entitled “Reminiscences of My Life in Camp” is an up close look into the life of Susie King Taylor. Susie King Taylor was an African American woman born as a slave in Savannah Georgia during the antebellum period of America. Susie Taylor was born 14 years before the start of the civil war. A war that would eventually lead to the abolishment of slavery in America. The narrative of Susie Taylor tells her story as an individual, but still provides information about life during the war. Throughout the story Taylor talks about what it was like experiencing the war so closely and how life within a Black infantry included racism, discrimination, violence, and illness. Taylor also gives us details about her childhood, education, and the bond she developed with the Black soldiers. Above all we get to see how education shaped Taylor’s life and the lives of those that she was around. Education was highly important in Susie King Taylor’s life because it gave her a greater

In the mid-twentieth century life was very hard growing up in the south as an African-American because of all the racial and social injustices. These injustices include things such as lower pay than whites, segregation, and unequal educational opportunities. Therefore, these made it exceptionally difficult for Miss Anne Moody to make it in the world that she lived in. Miss Moody’s involvement in the fight for Civil Rights shows how much courage she and the other African-Americans had. Her experiences from the autobiography Coming of Age in Mississippi show proof that life was rough being an African-American fighting for civil rights during her time period.

Anne Moody’s autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, depicts the various stages of her life from childhood, to high school, then to college, and ends with her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. In the novel, Anne tells the reader her story through events, conversations, and emotional struggles. The reader can interpret various elements of cultural knowledge that Anne Moody learned from her family and community as a child. Her understanding of the culture and race relations of the time period was shaped by many forces. Anne Moody’s family, community, education, interactions with various races, and her experiences outside of her hometown, shaped her into a devout activist for equal rights. As a child, the most important

Anne Moody’s novel, “Coming of Age in Mississippi,” is a personal memoir that tells her journey from a childhood of poverty and racism to her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. She writes with raw honesty and emotional depth as she narrates a firsthand look at the harsh reality of living in the racially divided South. Through her autobiography, readers experience the evolution of a movement that challenged the foundations of segregation and discrimination that affected modern-day African Americans. Through her novel, Moody shows how colorism, the generational divide, violence, and the fear of getting involved provided insight into what life was truly like during a turbulent time in American history. Colorism In chapter two, Mama gets pregnant by a soldier who we later know as Raymond.

America during the 1960s was filled with change and progress. Although many embraced the changes occuring, there were still others who despised the change and fought for it to be stopped. With the civil rights movement in full swing, Coming of Age in Mississippi focuses on one girl’s story and how the movement gave her the power to change not only her situation in the world, but her beliefs on how the world worked. Anne Moody uses her autobiography in order to emphasize the importance of creating a path through the chaos of the world. She attempts to prove the necessity of the movement by explaining how racism in the South harshly affected not only individuals but whole communities and exemplifies the people in the movement who were brave enough

She writes to show the dynamics of the Underground Railroad and the small communities that populated the north in the 1850s. This focus provides a vivid snapshot of life during this time and gives valuable insight to some of the cultural tensions between the north and south that eventually led to the Civil War. She shows the complexity of the issue that is often lost when looking back. Because of our increasingly progressive world, it’s easy to look back past the nineteenth century and see that slavery is an obvious atrocity and that it never should have lasted as long as it did. Chevalier combats this simplistic view of the past by putting the issue of slavery in the context of the time period. She portrays the people and the rationale behind the pro, anti, and indifferent views on slavery. Through the dialogue of her characters she explains why slavery was important for the infrastructure of the country, why people wanted it, and why people were against

Harriet Jacobs, a black woman who escapes slavery, illustrates in her biography Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) that death is preferable to life as a slave due to the unbearable degradation of being regarded as property, the inevitable destruction of slave children’s innocence, and the emotional and physical pain inflicted by slave masters. Through numerous rhetorical strategies such as allusion, comparison, tone, irony, and paradoxical expression, she recounts her personal tragedies with brutal honesty. Jacobs’s purpose is to combat the deceptive positive portrayals of slavery spread by southern slave holders through revealing the true magnitude of its horrors. Her intended audience is uninvolved northerners, especially women, and she develops a personal and emotionally charged relationship with them.

In the turbulent history of African-American rights, the 18th century marks the turning point of progress with the end of two hundred fifty years of slavery. However, this progress was quickly subdued by Jim Crow laws, that deemed this new inducted population of citizens as ineligible to participate in their country’s democracy. As an educated African-American woman of the latter generation, Toni Morison attempts to capture the history and emotions of her community within her writings. Set during the Reconstruction era, Morison’s Beloved utilizes the power of memories to construct a narrative that presents the inescapable truths of slavery.