Keith Shynett - Timeline #1 Slavery & African American Family Structure lyrics

Timeline #1 Today many African Americans live in a non-traditional family structure compared to the normal 2 parent male dominant household that society expects. Some live with single mothers because of their fathers are in prison, or simply because they are not in the picture. Surely, this isn't just a natural occurrence for African Americans, in fact I'll argue that this was a product of America's slavery system. In this timeline I'll reflect on dates significant in African American literary history along with text to support my claim that slavery damaged African American family structure. Slavery separated families and stripped black men of a typical fathering role that continues to persist in the modern era. 1837- The Philadelphia Vigilance Committee is organized to help fugitive slaves escape their pursuers Excerpt from Victor Sejour's “The Mulatto” (1837) ‘Well! I can remember…the master said to the slave: you saved my life; what can I grant you in return? Do you want your freedom? ‘Master,' answered the slave, ‘I can never be free, while my son and my wife are slaves' 1844- On June 25, the Legislative Committee of the Provisional Government of Oregon enacts the first of a series of Black Exclusion Laws Excerpt from Frederick Dougla**' “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Dougla**” “My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant-before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it to hinder the development of the child's affection towards its mother.” 1847-Missouri abolitionist file a lawsuit on behalf of Dred Scott Excerpt from “Clotel:or, The President's Daughter” “As husband and wife through each other become conscious of complete humanity, and every human feeling, and every human virtue; so children, at their first awakening in the fond covenant of love between parents, both of whom are tenderly concerned for the same object, find an image of complete humanity leagued in free love… If this be a true picture of the vast influence for good of the institution of marriage, what must be the moral degradation of that people to whom marriage is denied?” 1854- Fugitive slave Anthony Burns is captured in Boston and returned to slavery Excerpt from “12 Years a Slave” “Eliza was still ringing her hands and deploring the loss of her children… Eliza older child, Randall was sold away from her by Theophilus Freeman. When William Ford bought Eliza, she implored him to purchase her daughter Emily as well. Ford tried to but Freeman refused the offer.” 1865- The 13th Amendment Excerpt from Francis Harper's “Bury Me in a Free Land” “I could not rest, if I saw the lash Drinking her blood at each fearful gash; And I saw her babes torn from her breast, Like trembling doves from their parents flesh” 1890- The Afro-American League is founded Excerpt from Charles Chesnutt's “The Wife of His Youth” “He may have married another woman. Your slave marriage would not have prevented him, for you never lived with him after the war, and without that your marriage doesn't count.” 1900- The National Negro Business League is founded by Booker T. Washington Excerpt from Booker T. Washington's “From Up From Slavery” “I have been unsuccessful in securing any information that would throw any accurate light upon the history of my family beyond my mother… My mother, I suppose, attracted the attention of a purchaser who was afterward my owner and hers. Her addition to the slave family attracted about as much attention as the purchase of a new horse or cow. Of my father I know even less than of my mother. .. Whoever he was, I never heard of his taking any interest in me or providing in any way for my rearing.” 1903- W.E.B. Du Bois' “The Souls of Black Folks” is published This excerpt is from W.E.B. Du Bois' “The Souls of Black Folks” “The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, this longing to obtain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and split upon by his fellow, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.”