Amanda Smith Jemand -The South is our home - Black Women in White America

Thèmes abordés

Black women, history, segregation, USA, Amanda Smith Jemand, civil rights

Résumé du document

The document "The South is our home" written by Amanda Smith Jemand is an article extracted from the journal The Independent, Vol.52 N°2725 dated February 21, 1901. This article was reprinted in the book Black Women in White America. This book is an anthology of documents about black history in the United States from the point of view of black women and deals with 160
years of black history.[...]Classified under the chapter
"race pride", this article deals with the black situation in the white segregated south at the beginning of the 20th century. Amanda Smith Jemand built her article in the form of a preach with rhetorical questions which she finally answers

Amanda Smith Jemand -"The South is our home" - Black Women in White America, 1973

Extraits

[...] Along Whites, Blacks took part in the creation of the American past. The author lists them in a chronological way, but without giving any detail. First, during the Revolutionary War (1775-83), when the 13 original colonies in North America fought for their independence form Britain. whose countries did the black soldiers fight in the Revolutionary War?”l.8. Indeed, about 5000 African Americans fought in the revolutionary army as “patriots” and they did not really know a form of recognition at the end of the war. [...]

[...] The first applied it to trains and the second extended to schools. Amanda Smith Jemand South is our home” - Black Women in White America So, in 1901 segregation was legal. After the preceding Supreme Court decisions, a wave of segregation laws was passed in both southern state and local governments. Those laws were called Jim Crow laws after a fictional character played in the 1830s by a white man who blackened his face to mimic the stereotype of the black man as inferior to the white man. [...]

[...] As a conclusion, in her article Amanda Smith Jemand shows biased aspects of American history that allow her to glorify her people. She fails to mention some details which can objectively matter in the understanding of the past of both African American and Americans. Her readership is cheated because they cannot remember such historical details which allow her to rally the most ignorant to her cause. Then, she uses daily life to illustrate her argumentation, a subject which everybody can witness. [...]

[...] They mainly concerned public services and places such as streetcars: cannot I ride in a first class when a Southern white woman is allowed . ”l.15-16; drug stores: can buy . but not . ”l.19-20; restaurants and hostelry. The authors lists what was allowed instead of listing what should have been rights for blacks citizens. As it is illustrated with the use of “can”l.15;19;20;21;22 and “allow”l.16. Those verbs translate the restrictions defined by the whites that she denounces with contempt: those people”l30; their brains . ”l.32. Restrictions are echoed with interdictions which are less explicit: “public libraries are for the white public. [...]

[...] Amanda Smith Jemand South is our home” - Black Women in White America The document South is our home” written by Amanda Smith Jemand is an article extracted from the journal The Independent, Vol.52 N°2725 dated February This article was reprinted in the book Black Women in White America. This book is an anthology of documents about black history in the United States from the point of view of black women and deals with 160 years of black history. It was published by Vintage books edition in 1973 and especially by the editor Gerda Lerner, an Austrian turned American, one of the pioneer of women's history who had strong convictions about the importance of justice and equality for all. [...]