New York Historical Society

This trip to the New York Historical Society was much more exciting for me than the first one. Not only was it focused on WWII itself, but it showed it from a New Yorkers point of view. I think that’s what caught my attention the most because to me New York is so beautiful that learning some history behind it would was interesting. Overall, the museum was very interesting and I liked almost all the artifacts that they had describing post, during and after WWII.

An artifact that caught my attention right away when I first walked in was the artifact of the 1939 students of the new High School of Music & Art. Over 90,000 students marched for a “strike of peace” and created many drawings and poetry for their Peace Issue of their high school newspaper. Ben Brown was student who drew a picture and later served in the army. My favorite artifact was the story of an army soldier Sidney Diamond (1922-1944), who joined the army right after high school. He was in love with his high school sweetheart, Estelle Spen. During the time he was away, he wrote to her 525 letters, and she saved them all. He was killed in battlefield in the Philippine’s on January 24, 1944, at age 22. He received a silver star for serving the country. Another artifact was the ad that described how many New Yorkers contributed to the war. Over 900,000 New Yorkers joined the military, and 3,300,000 shipped out from The Great Harbor over to North Africa and Europe. Some information that I found interesting was that after the attack on Pearl Harbor, of that time, Mayor Fionella La Guardia, sent out protection for the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and any Japanese, German or Italian that were non-citizens on Ellis Island, were interrogated by police for possible incarceration or deportation.

It was great to know that in 1942 New York City was made headquarters of the United Nations and in March of 1945, New York was the first state to pass the bill to forbid job discrimination on the basis of race, religion or creed.

MET Museum

Going to the exhibition of “Civil War”, in the MET, was new experience for me. First, I would like to mention that I had never been to the MET before, so being there for the first time was exciting already. The exhibition itself was somewhat different. The lights were much dimmed throughout the whole exhibition so it made it the feeling of it very “down”. The artifacts were somewhat depressing as well. The artifacts of the pictures of the Union and Confederate were my favorite, especially when the pictures were in gold covered and brass metal locks. To me, it was very nice to see because it was real people that we can look at pictures now, who fought and made history. A few artifacts though were not as pleasing. One artifact in particular was a picture that was attributed to McPherson and Oliver. The picture was called Gordon, a runaway Mississippi slave or “The Scourged Black Man”. This picture was taken in either March –April of 1863. It was a picture of a runaway slave named Gordon, who had whipping, scars on his back from the whips his owner would give him. His facial expression was very interesting as well. Even though he did seem upset, he had a look on his face like he didn’t care anymore. He was posing for the camera, his back towards the camera, but his head turned so you can see it. Maybe the look on his face wasn’t that he didn’t care, but maybe it was face of loss of hope. His “look” represented what it was like to be a slave: Hopelessness. This picture not only wasn’t pleasant to look at, but it made me feel kind of upset and wondered how many more slaves looked like this back when slavery was allowed. And also, it was so regular for the white owners to see slaves with scars and beatings on their bodies, how could they have walked around so nonchalant and look at them like that, and think it was fine. Overall, my trip experience was new and it was interesting to learn about a lot of artifacts that made history in our country.

Revision of Jube Benson Summary

In "The Lynching of Jube Benson", a story about racial crime, Jube is lynched after being accused falsely of rape. Not only it happened, for this case, but for thousands of innocent African American slaves who were found guilty without proof. due to racial hate. And, majority of these crimes, were caused by white people, but because they felt "superior", it was a norm that was followed for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, African Americans had no say in it.
This story made me feel that although this country is represented as the land of the free, many sufferings had to occur in order to proof that this is what this country offers. Just because you are a certain color, does not mean any race is superior or better. We are all humans, and as human rights,  no human should be higher than another.
I still feel that in many cases today, racial, unjustified crimes still exist. Not only white to blacks, but communities where certain races feel higher than another.

The Lynching of Jube Benson

For this week in class, we read the story "the Lynching of Jube Benson". This story was about a doctor telling his friend how he had seen a lynching in person. He starts by talking about Jube, an honest servant who served a family and one day, their daughter, Annie, was found raped and murdered and all she said was "That black...", and without finishing died in the doctors arms. Before anyone knew who it was, everybody started yelling that it was Jube, so they went out to the woods to find him. When they found him, he asked the doctor to help him, but the doctor, who was friend, didn't believe him and the angry mob took them to where Annie's dead body was. He pleaded that it wasn't him but they didn't believe him. When they had him hung already, before to cut the rope, his brother comes in yelling that they found the real rapist. But by the time they got there, someone had cut the rope and Jube was dead. Turns out, it was a white guy, Tom Skinner, who had covered himself up in mud, to disguise himself as a negro. The doctor, when to examine Annie's fingernails found white skin and brown hair of a white person. He then realized Jube was killed innocently.

This short story relates to hundreds of people that this happened to. Many African Americans were killed or punished for crimes they didn't do. They were almost always falsely accused and no one ever had evidence to what they did. A lot of white men would take mud and cover themselves up to look like a "negro", so they wouldn't punish them.

Slave and Citizen

From the text that we read in class, "Slave and Citizen",  Frank Tennenbaum claimed that the slaves in different countries were being treated differently form the slaves in North America. In his defense, he used that in Brazil, for example, they give their slaves more "rights" due to the fact that they are more  "privileged".

In page 4 of the text, it mentions: "Even under the Empire the negro and the mulatto-and, socially, the attractive mulatto women-had an acceptance unthinkable in the American scene." To my comprehension, I understood that although they knew that slaves in different countries had more rights than the slaves in North America, they refused to change their laws for them and still wanted to treat as harsh or more cruel than what they already did. I feel that greed led them to act upon toward the hatred of the slaves. They treated the slaves like animals when the slaves did all their work and their growth and wealth would not happen if the slaves didn't work. They wanted to keep treating the slaves the same, due to their on greed. They did not care about the slaves or their human rights or their human privileges that they deserved.

But, although the slaves in other countries were considered more "liberal", I don't think they were considered any better either as well. They had to respond to a "master" and no human being is higher then the other, therefore, although they were more "liberal", they were still looked own upon somehow. Either way, slavery wasn't correct in any country, but in North America, they were more cruel and not human like.

First Class

     In class, we discussed a section from the Declaration of Independence and David Walkers appeal. In the Declaration of Independence, it states that everyone is entitled to the pursuit of happiness, but the thing is the pursuit of happiness is different for other people, including Americans, Immigrants or even terrorists. So it makes you wonder, when a terrorist attacks, they attack because they believe that what they are doing is "correct", and their form of showing it is "right",  because no one wanted to hear it another way, and they needed to make their point across. And although we take their actions as a terrorist form, they feel that they accomplished their "happiness". So what exactly is an overall "happiness"?
      When we discussed David Walkers appeal to Jefferson, the part that stuck out to me the most was  when it mentioned that "What right then, have we to obey and call any other Master, but Himself? How we could be sosubmissive to a gang of men, whom we cannot tell whether they are as good as ourselves or not, I never could conceive. ". It reminded me of the bible verse in John 8:7, when Jesus was talking to the men who were trying to murder the promiscuous woman in the temple. It says "So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.". Basically, why should African Americans be slaves and the white people their "masters". Your color of skin does not dictate whether you are better or superior then others. Everyone is entitled to human rights, no matter your color of skin.