Mandy Fowler
Historical Report on Race
18 January 2015
Eth/125

Dear Lucy,
It was good to hear from you in your last letter, I look forward to hearing more from you. I have been doing ok, but I am sure that you have heard about all the commotion about us, as black people wanting the right to vote and being equal with you white folks. I really want us to be able to meet in person, but at the moment I don’t think that will be possible for a while, considering that colored people and white people are not supposed to mingle together. I am not sure if you know anything about our past and experiences as black people, but I would like to share some of the history about us and what we have been through up until now.
As you might know that us black people had started out as slaves, we were brought over to the “New World” in the mid-1500s as slaves by the Europeans, but slave trading was not new during those times. From what I have been told by my grandfather and grandmother, that was pasted down to them from other generations, that the experiences that our people went through when being brought over to America on ships was awful. My people were chained up below the decks of the ships that were the size of small coffins and some of those that were on the ship had died. After arriving to America, my people were auctioned off to slave owners. We had to suffer separation from our families, but we managed to have a strong bond with the others that were slaves.
My people managed to develop strong cultural identities, even when we weren’t allowed to use our own cultural styles. Our religious practices had to changes as well, but we managed with learning the Christianity religious practices. We would sing hymn songs and change the words so that it gave us hope of freedom. During these times, we as black folks didn’t have any rights, we could not do stuff like the white man could. In the early 1800s is when the white people and free black people were trying to get slavery abolished. And in 1863 is when President Abraham Lincoln had made his speech about all the slaves should be freed. Shortly after his speech, war broke out between the North and the South, which was known as the Civil War. In 1865 is when the war finally ended, slavery was still going on, but it did help some of my people become free.
By the middle of the 20th century, there was a law put in affect known as the Jim Crow law. This law was put into place to make sure that us black people had no kind of contact with white folks. We were free, we just didn’t have rights to vote, we weren’t allow to go to school with white people, eat in the same eating place with them, drink from the same water fountain as them or ride at the front of the