Blog #7

Textbook
1.Two of the major dividing forces between women of the North and South, were economic development and social beliefs. Women in the North, who wanted to abolish slavery, lived in an area that already had allowed slaves to be free. The idea that black men and women should not be enslaved had been socially accepted in the North and many white women agreed. Their lives were also not dependent on slaves for economic survival and therefore they had much less to lose when the end of slavery came. The women of the South however, whose feelings towards blacks had long been negative, had a much more difficult time accepting that blacks were not property, but instead human beings who should not be owned. The economy in the South depended greatly, if not solely, on slave work. If slavery were to end, their way of life and economic survival would be threatened, leaving them without a workforce.

2.The “New South” had great impacts on women of all color and most classes. Black women, who were now free, often left to search for family members who had been sold or they had lost contact with. These searches ended in sorrow a lot of times. Because such long periods of time might have passed, and because of the relocation of slaves, many had already formed new families, or children did not remember their family members, leaving those who went searching in despair. Some blacks decided to stay with their white owners, mostly because they had no where else to go. Although blacks were now free, their opportunities were still limited and they faced just as many challenges as before. One new great opportunity for blacks was education in schools. Elite women had a very difficult time adjusting to life without slaves. Now they were forced to either pay for labor or do it on their own. Middle class women were not as affected by the emancipation of slaves since they had already been doing many things slaves had done for the elite, on their own.

Source Interpretation

1.The lynching of Thomas Moss was done by Southern white men angry at the new opportunities for blacks and the competition in money. Tensions among these white men were already high seeing as they didn’t want slaves to be free. The fact that these black men were also now taking their money threatened not only their social beliefs, but also their economic status. The larger conflicts involving lynching was that free black men were a threat to whites, socially and economically. The whites did not want the blacks to do well, or have a same status, so they did all in their power to keep blacks down. They used lynching for any and all reasons, but covered it up with the excuses that black men were raping white women.

2.Lynching was mainly done under the cover of rape. Men who were lynched often times did not do anything that would he would even be tried in court for, let alone be brutalized in such a way. It was an excuse for the white men to do away with blacks as they saw fit, for blacks were becoming much too powerful, and in doing so also created a stereotype black men had trouble getting away from. The cover of rape was used most often in the reasoning behind lynching. Since rape is such a horrible thing, whites could get away with this as their reason. However, rape was usually not the case at all. Some blacks who were caught with white women were actually in willing relationships with these women but that did not matter, since white women were not thought to want to be with black men. Wells wanted to change the stereotype of black men that said black men were all rapists and deserved to be lynched. She wanted to expose the true hatred and racism that white men used as a way to keep the blacks down.

3.There is major hypocrisy among the history of white men raping black women and black men raping white women. For years white slave owners had felt the right to rape black women as they felt necessary. They held no responsibility for the pain or fear they instilled in these women and would sell their illegitimate children for a profit. White men saw black women as their property, with what they could do anything to. Black men on the other hand, were still viewed as unworthy and therefore “unthinkable” (308) for a white women to be attracted to. This meant, that no white women would ever even consider being with a black man, and so if this came to be, it would be called rape. Whites would not fathom the want of white women to be with black men. White men had always felt they were superior to blacks and this was just one way the showed that. While white men saw no difference in the raping of black women, the purity and goodness of the white women must be protected by the raping of blacks. It was also a fear of producing colored children. When white men raped black women and a child was born, the mother and child were both of color. When a white woman bore a mixed child, they would not share the same skin color and if could not be hidden.