SapphireH - Timeline 1 lyrics

The dates provided below introduce events that occurred during the slavery era to the 1900's. Additionally the excerpts display work featured by African Americans, which these works express the emotions, thoughts, reactions and hardships of everyday lifeduring these times. Specifically these excerpts resemble the struggle African Americans faced was a loss of identity. Then after losing their identities they faced knowing they could be equal to those oppressing them. Finally these excerpts will display a strong urge from the African American population to want to change ideas of what was then the identity of an African American and re-familiarize their selves with what identities they consider their own. 1776 :Declaration of Independence, Phyllis Wheatley On Being Brought from Africa to America "Taught my benighted soul to understand That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew." 1829: David Walker's Appeal written, George Moses HortonOn Hearing of the Intention of a Gentleman to purchase the Poet's Freedom “Thus on the dusky verge of deep despair, Eternal Providence was with me there; When pleasure seemed to fade on life's gay dawn, And the last beam of hope was almost gone." 1838: Frederick Dougla**escapes from slavery,Narrative of the Life of Frederick Dougla**, an American Slave, Written by Himself “ I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant…. A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit.” 1843: Henry Highland Garnetdelivers speech at National Negro Convention , An Address to the Slaves of the United States “The diabolical injustice by which your liberties are cloven down, NEITHER GOD NOR ANGELS, OR JUST MEN, COMMAND YOU TO SUFFER FOR A SINGLE MOMENT, THEREFORE IT IS YOUR SOLEMN AND IMPERATIVE DUTY TO USE EVERY MEANS, BOTH MORAL, INTELLECTUAL, AND PHYSICAL, THAT PROMISES SUCCESS. If a band of heathen men should attempt to enslave a race of Christians, and to entail slavery upon them, and to keep them in heathenism in the midst of Christianity, the God of heaven would smile upon every effort which the injured might make to disenthrall themselves.” 1848: Frederick Dougla**speaks at first Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, Sojourner TruthAr'n't I a Woman “if de fust woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down, all ‘lone, dese togedder [and she glanced her eye over us], out to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again, and now dey is asking to do it, de men better let em.” 1850: Clay Compromise, Frances E. W. Harper The slave Mother “ He is not hers, although she bore For him a mother's pains; He is not hers, although her blood Is coursing through his veins! He is not hers, for cruel hands May rudely tear apart The only wreath of household love That binds her breaking heart." 1861-65: American Civil War, Frances E. W. Harper wrote during the civil war ,Bury Me in a Free land "Make me a grave where'er you will, In a lowly plain or a lofty hill; Make it among earth's humblest graves, But not in a land where men are slaves. I could not rest, if around my grave I heard the steps of a trembling slave; His shadow above my silent tomb Would make it a place of fearful gloom." 1896: Supreme Court approve segregation with “separate but equal ruling”, Charles W. Chesnutt,The Wife of His Youth “Suppose that this husband, soon after his escape, had learned that his wife had been sold away, and that such inquiries as he could make brought no information of her whereabouts. Suppose that he was young, and she much older than he; that he was light, and she was black; that their marriage was a slave marriage, and legally binding only if they chose to make it so after the war. Suppose, too, that he made his way to the north, as some of us have done, and there, where he had larger opportunities, had improved them, and had in the course of all these years grown to be as different from the ignorant boy who ran away from fear of slavery as the day is from the nigh. Suppose, even, that he had qualified himself, by industry, by thrift, and by study, to win the friendship and be considered worthy the society of such people as these I see around me to- night, gracing my board and filling my heart with gladness; for I am old enough to remember the day when such a gathering would not have been possible in this land. Suppose, too, that, as the years went by, this man's memory of the past grew more and more indistinct, until at last it was rarely, except in his dreams, that any image of this bygone period rose before his mind."