It is interesting that he is speaking so conversationally. A lot of what he is saying has the potential to be pretty offensive.

I didn't know that superstition had racial connotations in this time period.

It is interesting how the author establishes the race of the narrator without ever mentioning it explicitly.

People tried to say that black men and women were the problem, yet no one would pay attention to the fact that they were the victims.

This shows how systemic racism truly is. The laws that are in place to benefit all Americans have never benefited African Americans.

Her bluntness is jarring. It is bizarre to hear people speak about other humans this way.

She wishes to do more for, "the quick ones and the slain," but she is forced to remain sewing and unable to help those in need.

I think that she might be referring to slaves. She says that they were once men, and now they are writhing grotesque things. She pities them for what slavery has turned them into.

The author says that the object of their affection has made them think of violets, representing the small joys in life that often go unnoticed until you realize how much you miss them.

The writers of these hymnals and songs do not know - and will never know - just how important their work was in writing these songs.

He is saying that he is impressed that someone who is living within the confines of slavery was able write such beautiful songs. However, he also seems to be saying that he is impressed that any living person was able to write them.

I think that he is talking about how sacred African American hymnals are. He is asking how these, "black and unknown bards of long ago," were able to write such important hymnals.

I am assuming that this means that most of the songs that have been preserved have been preserved via white people writing them down when they heard black people singing them.

They were willing to preserve these songs when it was possible, but many slaves who created these songs were unable to write them down. They were never consistently taught how to read and write, and this severely handicapped them in the ways of preserving their songs.

This statement proves how much these songs meant to slave communities. This "sentimental taste" shows that slaves were very much interested in holding on to their own stories and remembering them as a community.

This example of misogyny demonstrated by a woman is exactly the kind of sexism that can still be found in common conversations today.

Her memories from early childhood are what she credits for enabling her to be successful in her adulthood.

This really shows what it was like to be a woman in this time period. Women went through so many struggles, and as Keckley points out, it is difficult to list them all. She has all of these vivid memories seared into her brain, and yet she knows that most people are not willing to sit down and listen to a list of the struggles undergone by women, and so she is forced to shorten her list to keep the attention of her more privileged readers.

After our class discussion last week about how close a slave and their master/mistress could really be, there seems to be a lot to unpack in this statement. How much love can truly be found within a relationship that is founded upon one individual placing a price upon the life of the other?

This line seems to be written for the purpose of catching the reader's attention. This classic opening to a slave narrative, "I was born..." is almost always present in the readings that we have done in the past. However, Harriet Jacobs has taken this line and turned it on its head. Very interesting.

This seems like an intricate form of cruelty.

He is playing into their superstitions and religious beliefs in order to gain their trust.

This just re-emphasizes the comparison between Henry and Moses. It is interesting to see him compared to such a religious figure when he is so anti-Christianity.

After our class discussion earlier in the week involving the difference between praying to the "Lord," and the "Divine," it seems even more important that he has suddenly decided to start praying in this way.

This is very different from the way we have seen writers talk about religion so far in our other readings. Delaney is altogether rejecting the Christian faith because of the white Christian Americans who taught it to him.

Delaney is talking about the fact that many people put their faith in a higher power and leave it at that. He is trying to take action in tandem with having faith. Rather than simply praying and hoping, he wants to actively work towards his goals.

Delaney is talking about the false hope that people can find through religion. This struggle with faith is one of the most realistic portrayals of religion that we have read so far.

I put the book down and stopped reading at this point.

I could not help but notice the complete hypocrisy of this statement. Earlier, he was dying the hair of older slaves to make them appear younger. Now he is angry with an infant slave for acting its age.

I noticed the lack of mentioning any sort of religion in Brown's biography in the textbook. After reading about his experiences with religion, it becomes pretty clear why that is.

The simplicity of this line, surrounded by much more complex sentences, really makes this idea stand out. This was a turning point in his life. He begins the novel mentioning that he does not know when he was born, and he lacks an understanding of cyclical time. At the beginning of Chapter IX, he is finally gaining a better understanding of the world that he is living in. The playing field is beginning to level out, and he is now better able to be an activist against slavery.

It is very disturbing to me how conversational this line comes across. I am not sure if Douglass did this on purpose, but he does not give this thought much emphasis. It is almost as if this is just another day-to-day inconvenience. This shows the atrocities that black people faced on a regular basis.

This sentence really stood out to me. In Douglass's established fashion, he introduces the death of his master, and then immediately hits the reader with this line. This shows the way that white people thought about black people, and how little black people meant to white people at this time.

This is another sentence emphasizing the hypocrisy of northern slave owners.

This shows the hypocrisy of many people in the north. They may support abolitionism as an idea, but when faced with the reality of slavery, they do not seem to show any compassion or sympathy. They would make fun of an enslaved child for being dirty even though the system of slavery that they are benefiting from is the system that resulted in his lack of cleanliness.

This sentence seems to be emphasizing the way that slaves were treated. They were treated like animals, and eventually they began to act like animals. When you feed a child the same way you would feed a pig, the child will begin to eat like a pig. This is just another way that white people methodically dehumanized black people and justified their enslavement.

It is interesting to read about the interpretation that many Northerners had about these people being so happy to be doing backbreaking labor in a big house rather than doing backbreaking labor in a field.

Douglass's verbiage "lusts," "gratification," "desires," and, "pleasurable," are all promoting this undercurrent theme of white sensuality.

Q1: The fact that Douglass wrote his own autobiography is very important, because small details like these tend to get lost when they are being filtered through white editors or ghost-writers. The small frustrations that - when actually paid attention to - end up being the cruelest of deprivations, are very important to Douglass's ability to tell his story.

This is an interesting association. He is drawing a relationship between fear and hope. This emphasizes the bravery of hoping. When you are hoping for something as important as freedom, fear is going to follow in that emotion's footsteps.

I like this idea that true patriotism involves fighting for freedom and nothing less. Therefore, the African Americans who fought for America's freedom were patriots, but the white Americans who fought for freedom from Britain were not patriotic simply because they turned around and single-handedly embedded African American slavery into North American society.

I started noticing around this point in the poem that Whitfield has a tendency of pairing the words "patriot" and "blood." It feels like he is building up a sense of martyrdom surrounding the definition of the word "patriot." This is emphasized in lines 97-102:

And manhood, too, with soul of fire, And arm of strength, and smothered ire, Stands pondering with brow of gloom, Upon his dark unhappy doom, Whether to plunge in battle's strife, And buy his freedom with his life"

Q1: How does Truth balance her discussion of abolitionism with her discussion of feminism within her speech? Q2: Truth's language is significantly simpler than the other writers we have read so far. How does this act as an advantage for her? How does this act as a disadvantage?

He is calling out the white Christian Americans who said they would get rid of slavery if only Great Britain weren't so controlling. However, when given the chance to do exactly that, they went back on their word and hardened their slavery laws even further.

He is equating the idea of Godliness to the idea of abolitionism and liberty.

I like this empowering idea that God has left a ray of hope, but it is up to the African American population to understand that it is their duty to grab hold of it and work their way to freedom.

This is a very interesting idea that Walker introduces. He is essentially saying that if African Americans are allowing white people to be their master, then they are allowing white people to place themselves on the same pedestal as God.

It sounds like David Walker is accusing whit American Christians of attempting to usurp God. This statement would draw a reaction from any religious person.

This line, although a powerful statement, is pretty dramatically polarizing. To use something as personal to the African American experience as religion against them in a way is an extremely risky action. I am wondering if this particular statement - if you do not fight against slavery, you deserve to be butchered by white people - ended up pushing some of his potential audience away from his message.

Q4: I think it is very weird that although Sejour does not have any brothers or sisters and he lives across the world from his parents, he writes such a family-oriented story as his first work.

Q4: In the biography the textbook provides about Sejour, it mentions that while he was in France he befriended Alexandre Dumas. This particular line is eerily reminiscent of the plot of Dumas' novel The Count of Monte Cristo.

Q1: I think that although this conversation is slightly unrealistic in terms of what a slave would be saying to his/her master, the content is quite accurate to the mentality that many African Americans had. This is very reminiscent of the ideas put forth by Phillis Wheatley. Her beliefs that African Americans are predisposed to be lesser than whites are reflected in this text.

It is very interesting that scholars acknowledge that even as African American hymnals were becoming more common in print, oral traditions were still largely present in African American culture.

At this point it seems like Richard Allen's influences on African American hymnals must have been extraordinary if he was controlled by these restrictions, and yet he was still able to leave such a huge impact.

I think it is really cool that the history of African American hymnals is a national discussion. When scholars see a trend in the hymns they are studying, they can trace this pattern across the country.

The decision to associate a "heroine" with "chivalry" was a peculiar one, especially given the time period that this was written during. The word "chivalry" usually has a masculine undertone. It is very interesting that its usage is turned on its head in this way.

I thought it was very interesting that the writer uses the words "birth" and "death" so close together. I could not help but wonder what the significance of this was.

This excerpt was very powerful. The emotion and passion behind it made it stand out to me when I first read it.

I think that this is a very powerful statement to be making. To be referring to an American race at such a racially divided time in American history is quite the social commentary.

It is ironic that she spouts her love of religious Liberty after reading her poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America." She states:

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land; Taught my benighted soul to understand That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:

She is so happy that she was kidnapped and put on a slave ship because it led her to Christianity. However, these ideas are pretty obviously mutually exclusive.

This is directly contradictory to everything she said in her poem "On Being Brought From Africa to America." The more I read from Phillis Wheatley, the less I like her.

This comparison stems from a story from the Bible. When Cain killed his brother, God was said to have marked him. Many people interpreted this to mean that at this point God made Cain the first black man. This association of blackness with sin (Abel's murder) is incredibly offensive.

It sounds like she is asking Maecenas what his inspiration was in the hopes of being able to utilize it herself.

I thought that this part of the title may have also been a reference to the fact that Washington had barred African Americans from serving in the army. The British army started promising these African Americans freedom if they chose to serve in their army, and African Americans began to serve under the British. Finally Washington decided to allow African Americans to serve, however, this was not until the 1770's (thirty years after the raid that this poem is about).

I noticed the use of alliteration here: brave bold behold

The sing-songy-ness of this poem came across uncomfortably child-like for such a morbid subject.

I am not sure of the significance of this, but I was immediately aware that there were no individual stanzas. He grouped the entire piece into one large stanza.

This is the first time that any writer we have read a work by has directly linked abolitionism with Christianity. This is a slight revolution in the way that religion has been used in slave narratives - at least thus far. Rather than letting religion be something that he falls back on when things do not go his way, he is using Christianity as a means to further prove his point and spread his message of equality.

I believe that this is the first slave narrative has so blatantly spoken out against slavery. This is also definitely the most eloquently written slave narrative we have read thus far. I read in the textbook that it was written without the assistance of any white ghostwriters or editors, and I cannot help but wonder where/when he was taught to write so well.

I was confused at this point. Is Equiano saying that he and his family were possibly slave owners themselves?

This reminds me of a book that I read a few years ago called Special Topics in Calamity Physics by, Marisha Pessl. Within the first paragraph of the novel, the protagonist says something very similar to this:

I had always said a person must have a magnificent reason for writing out his or her Life Story and expecting anyone to read it.

"Unless your name is something along the lines of Mozart, Matisse, Churchill, Che Guevara or Bond—James Bond—you best spend your free time finger painting or playing shuffleboard, for no one, with the exception of your flabby-armed mother with stiff hair and a mashed-potato way of looking at you, will want to hear the particulars of your pitiable existence, which doubtlessly will end as it began—with a wheeze."

The fact that a significant number of people dying from diseases on board this ship was not an important detail to him is a little upsetting. It really gives you perspective into the lives that most people led back in this time period.

The fact that this narrative is organized into chapters stood out to me. This feels better put-together than the other narratives that we have read so far.

The life expectancy throughout the 1800s was around 30 or 40 years old. The fact that he was this old and still as active as he is is very impressive. It speaks to the strength of his character.

This particular line really stood out to me, and made me take a step back. The (over)dramatization of this statement really emphasized the age of Marrant at the time. I had nearly forgotten that he was only 14 years old. However, this emotional, life-or-death comment was very angst-ridden. I am not sure if it heightened or lessened the seriousness with which I interpreted the rest of the reading.

I have a lot of family members who work as social workers within the public school systems in their respective cities. When they are confronted with a child who shows the same characteristics/tendencies as Mary Scott, they would treat the girl like she had a severe mental disorder (i.e. schizophrenia).

Is this a comment on racial equality/inequality?