Portraits depict African American families in the early 1900s "A fascinating new collection of family portraits from the early 1900s depicts the lives of African Americans in the U.S. less than 40 years after President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. More below. Rediscovering an American Community of Color: The Photographs of William Bullard, currently being displayed at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts, offers an unparalleled glance inside the era immediately after Civil War reconstruction, a time period that is often overlooked.
Taken between 1900 and around 1912, the photographs are the legacy of Bullard, a native Worcesterer who left behind a trove of over 5,400 glass negatives at the time of his death in 1918. Among them are 236 portraits of African Americans and Native Americans mostly from the Beaver Brook community taken while they were still coming to grips with living as free people." So many today misunderstand the problems which could arise from freeing the slaves. It seems only right to mandate freedom. But for the slave, the free, and the state, the problem was much more complicated. "Of all the tragic facts about the history of slavery, the most astonishing to an American today is that, although slavery was a worldwide institution for thousands of years, nowhere in the world was slavery a controversial issue prior to the 18th century. People of every race and color were enslaved – and enslaved others. White people were still being bought and sold as slaves in the Ottoman Empire, decades after American blacks were freed. Everyone hated the idea of being a slave but few had any qualms about enslaving others. Slavery was just not an issue, not even among intellectuals, much less among political leaders, until the 18th century – and then it was an issue only in Western civilization. Among those who turned against slavery in the 18th century were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and other American leaders. You could research all of the 18th century Africa or Asia or the Middle East without finding any comparable rejection of slavery there. But who is singled out for scathing criticism today? American leaders of the 18th century. Deciding that slavery was wrong was much easier than deciding what to do with millions of people from another continent, of another race, and without any historical preparation for living as free citizens in a society like that of the United States, where they were 20 percent of the population. It is clear from the private correspondence of Washington, Jefferson, and many others that their moral rejection of slavery was unambiguous, but the practical question of what to do now had them baffled. That would remain so for more than half a century. In 1862, a ship carrying slaves from Africa to Cuba, in violation of a ban on the international slave trade, was captured on the high seas by the U.S. Navy. The crew were imprisoned and the captain was hanged in the United States – despite the fact that slavery itself was still legal at the time in Africa, Cuba, and in the United States. What does this tell us? That enslaving people was considered an abomination. But what to do with millions of people who were already enslaved was not equally clear. That question was finally answered by a war in which one life was lost [620,000 Civil War casualties] for every six people freed [3.9 million]. Maybe that was the only answer. But don’t pretend today that it was an easy answer – or that those who grappled with the dilemma in the 18th century were some special villains when most leaders and most people around the world saw nothing wrong with slavery. Incidentally, the September 2003 issue of National Geographic had an article about the millions of people still enslaved around the world right now. But where is the moral indignation about that?" Thomas Sowell on slavery We think we've addressed this problem but have not. The progressive left still wants to infantilize the black in myriad ways, including by lowering the bar regarding University admission standards. While for the overly compassionate this seems a boon, it is the opposite. Faced with a low bar, it is only human nature to make it but not stretch for greatness. Yes, there are those like Thomas Sowell who will reach for greatness regardless, for the many the low bar becomes a barrier leaving them unprepared for the rigors they will find at University. Freeing the slave, integrating the black, addressing the problems which arise from the poor, low intelligence whites who now compete and often lose economically to people they think of as inferior, all point out but a tiny fraction of the problems of freeing and integrating the slave. The photos are brilliant. What happened to those serious, upstanding, righteous black men and families? They are gone in our inner cities where 80% of children are born out of wedlock leaving them impoverished and with few prospects. This is not a problem inherited from slavery, the black families of yore had this problem worked out. It is a problem of something more modern and more insipid. The KKK, the white nationalist all proved to be incompetent at even denting the black community and its march towards prosperity. The left progressives, on the other hand, proved superior. They took a black community which was slowly but surely making its way out of poverty, building a community which was based on hard work, and education, and destroyed it with the one-two punch of affirmative action and welfare all while claiming the mantle of "Savior of the Black." Mon Dieu. Affirmative action created the artificially lowered bar, which for many disincentivized industriousness, and hard work. It also combined with the economic changes of the times to weaken the black middle classes at about the same time President Johnson was lobbying for the welfare state. The anti-segregation fight in the South had a negative side effect. Blacks nationwide stood in support and began eating at "white" lunch counters, and shopping at "white" businesses. While there was nothing wrong with this show of solidarity. It had a highly negative consequence (I'll get to that in a moment). At the same time, American was becoming wealthier, with people, including blacks owning more cars. What blacks found was the larger, but more remote stores had better prices than the small, local black-owned stores. A benefit for the black consumer is what destroyed the black middle-class business owners. Solidarity with anti-segregation combined with lower prices at the huge new "white" stores, and increased wealth and access to automobiles resulted in the death of the black small business class throughout the country, not just in the South. It was always to be so, no action will occur without unwanted side effects. As the black business owners went out of business, they and their employees were met with the open arms of the welfare state. But the welfare state had requirements and one was it would not tolerate unemployed men or fathers. The result was at first temporary disuniting of family, but the unemployment problem quickly became intractable in the inner city where the welfare estates sprang up. It did not take long before single motherhood became the plan, not a temporary situation. So, began the steady collapse of the black family (the poor white family as well). The young, naive Millennials believe that all that needs to be done is to give jobs to the poor and unemployed in the inner city and all will be well. If only it were so, but those more experienced know it is never that simple. Often these people have become antisocial, and are too irrational to make good workers. Small matters cause them to react violently, and terminations can result in deadly blowback. Suspect wanted in Maryland and Delaware shootings in custody
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