Native Drums
Explore the powerful symbolism of drums in African American culture, once tools of communication and resistance during the darkest times of slavery. We confront the lingering shadows of economic exploitation and the pervasive influence of media and religion in controlling black narratives. Let’s reexamine the role of the black church and its mission to fight systemic injustices, urging a return to prophetic ministries that prioritize humanity and community over material wealth. This podcast episode is not just a reflection of the past but a call to action for the future, urging us to build a more just and liberated world.
Native Drums
" A Strange and Hostile Land"
Discover the brutal truths of the transatlantic slave trade and the enduring scars it left on generations with our esteemed guest, Dr. Harry Singleton. Through gripping narratives, we examine how slaveholders strategically dismantled family bonds and social cohesion to suppress unity among enslaved people. From the bustling auction blocks of Charleston and New Orleans to the oppressive grip of slave codes, each story is a haunting reminder of the systemic dehumanization faced by African slaves.
We also delve into the harrowing practice of flogging, rooted in misinterpreted biblical scriptures, and the relentless sexual exploitation and labor demands imposed on enslaved women. These narratives highlight the grim realities of life under slavery, where resistance could mean brutal punishment, and submission was a path to survival. The oppressive systems designed to capture runaway slaves further emphasize the harsh environment in which African Americans struggled for freedom.
But amidst this darkness, a narrative of hope emerges. Listen as we celebrate the power of education as a tool for liberation, with figures like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs leading the charge. Dr. Singleton also casts light on how Africans redefined Christianity, creating empowering theologies that inspired resilience and hope. Join us as we navigate these complex histories, shedding light on the legacy of slavery and the ongoing pursuit of justice and equality.
Good evening everyone. Welcome to segment two of the podcast, native Drums. I am Dr Harry Singleton. I'll be with you again tonight.
Speaker 1:If you can recall, the last segment ended with the shipment of African barter to the new Americas, both the United States America and to the Caribbean and South America. Tonight we take a closer look at the process by which they went, from the holes of ships to the plantations in which they find themselves, and this is why I titled this particular lecture A Strange and Hostile Land. Of course, for those of you who are familiar with the 137th Psalm, they asked, of course, the children of Israel in Babylonian captivity to sing us the joyous songs of Zion, and of course they responded how can we sing the Lord'sous songs of Zion? And of course, they responded how can we sing the Lord songs in a strange and hostile land? And so because of that, I have titled this lecture a strange and hostile land.
Speaker 1:After being broken in by slave breakers in the West Indies, slaves were then shipped to the South Americas, the Caribbean and, of course, to what we now know today as the United States of America and, of course, the Middle Passages. First stop was the West Indies, because it was a central location for creating slaves and distributing them to other parts of the Western hemisphere. Slaves were also sent to Brazil they're more there than any other continent, many other, any other country in the Western hemisphere. They were sent to Peru, they were sent to Argentina, and they were also sent to Mexico. As it relates, though, to the United States of America, the colonial precursor to the United States of America, slaves were sent to three major auction cities here, major auction cities here, and of course, those three major auction cities, richmond, virginia, new Orleans, louisiana and of course, our very own Charleston, south Carolina. In fact, charleston, south Carolina had the reputation for having the best slaves of either Richmond or New Orleans. Of course, charleston and New Orleans are right on the water, they're water cities, richmond a little further inland, and that's the distinction between the two. But of course it made more sense, logically, to have a trading port for auction be at a water city like Charleston and like New Orleans, and so we even see slave traders in Virginia, tennessee, kentucky, mississippi come to Charleston, south Carolina, even though Richmond or New Orleans may have been closer, namely because the so-called best slaves, in terms of what you were looking for, you would find in Charleston, south Carolina, and so slave port still there. Good visit to increase your historical awareness of Charleston and its role in the slave trade. The market in which they were auctioned still there as well. Great trip to take to increase your intellectual awareness of the slave trade.
Speaker 1:As it relates to the auction atmosphere, it was nothing short of a carnival like atmosphere hot dogs, coca-colas, popcorn, cotton candy. It was like a fair and the slaveholders, kids, look forward to going to auctions. They look forward to going to Charleston, look forward to going to New Orleans, look forward to going to Richmond to enjoy themselves, while their fathers, of course, purchased slaves to bring back to their fathers, of course, purchased slaves to bring back to their plantation. And, of course, during the auction process, slaves are brought on auction stage one by one and they were sold to the highest bidder, not unlike anything you've seen in a reenactment movie like Roots or 12 Years a Slave. Reenactment movie like Roots or 12 Years a Slave.
Speaker 1:From a strategic standpoint, it is important to know that families were broken up by design. Whenever they discovered that there were siblings on a particular voyage brought to auction, they made sure that those siblings did not go to the same plantation. They were broken up by design to destroy a sense of social cohesion among the slaves and, of course, to inspire other slaves in a joint effort to insurrection. And so one of the issues that we deal with today is still dealing with broken families in the black community, namely because of the hundreds of years in which the family was intentionally targeted by the slave holding community in order to create this unity and to create, did and to diminish social cohesion.
Speaker 1:Slaves that were not purchased were considered refuse slaves or refuse slaves, and they were subject to something that was probably even more demeaning they were subject to what is referred to as a scramble sale, and that is, on the last day of the auction the slaveholders would be given a booklet, and these are very, very elaborate booklets, kind of like what you would see when you go to a commencement, when you see parchment paper, resume, like paper. That is the paper that they use to list the slaves and to list what their attributes were relative to their contribution to plantation life. Relative to their contribution to plantation life, and so, generally, if you were not selected as a slave, there was probably some deformity with the slave, there were probably some impending health problems. There are probably some mobility problems. There are probably some early health problems or physical problems as to why they were not selected. But on the last day of the auction they would just open the doors of the slave auction site and slave holders would walk in and just select slaves and they could get them for free on scramble sale day or last day, which was particularly demeaning on that day, not for not just for the slaves who got selected, but also for the slaves who did not get selected. They were.
Speaker 1:If they were not purchased, they were left to die on the wharf. As we now know today it's Gadsden's Wharf where the International African American Museum is located, but they were left to die on the wharf. Now, on the one hand, you may say well, you know, this is a strange turn of fortunate events, in a sense that they were not selected, but on the other hand, they were in a foreign land that they were not from, in which they were not familiar. They were in a hostile land that, of course, was hostile to the achievement of black aspiration and of course they were already branded in the life of the religious community as demonic because they had dark skin. And so you have no change of clothes and you have no food, you don't know anyone and you were not selected to go to a plantation. And so many people, many of them, were left to die on the wharf and that's exactly what happened to them. Only a few of them were able to scrounge out some type of meager life, going forward and do odd jobs for people downtown, but that was a hostile proposition in and of itself to see somebody black walking around downtown that did not belong to an owner and did not have any past papers to come into town. Until we start seeing the infusion of free blacks who came to America much later and were never slaves. But at this point in the slave trade, this is a very, very dicey reality for those slaves, that many of whom subject to a scramble sale and left to die on the wharf.
Speaker 1:As it relates to plantation life itself, once on the plantation, slaves were immediately number one, branded with estate marks. Now this is their second mark. If you can recall, the first brand was with the ship company, so that the ship company could get credit for that particular slave, and then they were branded again with estate marks, many of many, of many, of whom were branded on the outside of their lower legs. Some were even branded on their chest and on their arms and of course they were very painful in the process of branding. And of course this is raised a contemporary discussion relative to Greek letter organizations my fellow Greek brothers and sisters out there relative to the significance of the brand, the requirement of the brand in yesteryear, that this was a throwback to slavery, and that it has been sharply criticized by progressive thinking black leaders that we should not be doing this to each other or requiring it as admission into a Greek letter organization. And so the brand has come up again in contemporary conversation relative to an otherwise enhancing process of becoming a member of a Greek letter organization, to still live in the world of brands.
Speaker 1:And of course, the second thing that happened once they got to plantations was that they were given European names and of course this would become a big issue as we move forward and develop organizations, particularly black or nationalist organizations like the Nation of Islam. Well, of course, the leadership, namely Elijah Muhammad, maintained that we must change our names because the names that we have were the names given to us by our slave master and he would. It was given to us because it was his name and so our surnames like mine, of course, being Singleton um was a name that was given to denote ownership of you, and of course, it's one of the first things you do as a human being. When you own something, you name it. When we get a cat or dog and bring it home as a pet, one of the first things we do is name it, and so naming is very significant in cultural identity, which is why an organization like the Nation of Islam uses the X, where you abandon that slave name and you adopt the X, as we saw with Malcolm X, and X means origin unknown, meaning that you don't know your name, that the only name you do know because of the way Africa has been pillaged culturally, that the only name you do know is the name that your slave master gave you and you don't know your original name in West Africa, and so they were immediately branded with a state marks and they were given European names.
Speaker 1:Slave quarters that were built for them on plantations often lacked the floor and often like heat. Generally, they had to create a fire outside and get as warm as they could and bring some coals in and try to use them to keep them warm, particularly in winter nights in Virginia and North Carolina and Marilyn Frederick Douglass talked about those cold winter nights when he was a slave and most of the time they lacked the floor and heat, which was very, very inhumane. But that's what the intent was. The intent was to impose an inhumane context on African slaves at every turn in colonial life, and we'll look at that more closely, colonial life and we'll look at that more closely in just a second. Food and clothes rationed per slave usually consisted number one, of four changes of clothes per year. So for those of you who have four closets full of clothes now, you know your ancestors had four changes of clothes per year and so, and sometimes with some slave masters, it was to a winter outfit and a summer outfit with a jacket and boots and, of course, to sometimes one meal a day, mostly with no meat of course, namely because they wanted to get as much labor out of slaves on a daily basis as they could and they felt that if they fed slaves too much, particularly meat, that it would test the slave to laziness and lack of industry. And of course, which is one of the reasons why we pigged out on Sunday as often as we can, because we got Sunday off most of the time, but we ate very little during the week, by design so that we would not be given over to so-called laziness and so that the optimum amount of labor could be obtained from us in a given day.
Speaker 1:Labor was constant and merciless. Of course the historians have referred to it as from can't see to can't see, have referred to it as from can't see the can't see, from can't see dawn to can't see dusk, and a lot of times, particularly during the cotton harvest, which was in late August, early September, which is why slaves hated the time of year, of labor day. They would work 18 to even 20 hours a day, only get four hours of rest and had to be back to brain cotton to harvest and sometimes pick 500 pounds of cotton a day. And of course this came out in the movie 12 Years a Slave. And you think about how light a cotton ball is, think about how much you have to pick and put in satchels to end up with 500 pounds. That's inhumane and merciless in and of itself.
Speaker 1:Daily goals set by master for each slave per day, the penalty generally one of three choices by the master if you didn't meet your reach your goals 39 lashes with the lip with the whip, which was done more often than the other two 39 lashes is significant. I'll talk about that in just a second. One of the other ways of penalizing the slaves with denial of dinner, and so your meal went from two meals to one meal. You would be denied dinner if you didn't meet your goals, and those were considered the nice masters, the ones who didn't whip you and just denied you dinner. And of course, the third way in which, particularly for women generally, slave masters who found slave women an object of sexual desire, if you want to call it that in that context, would generally set goals for her that he knew that she could not meet, and of course the penalty and most often, most often is that he raped her, and so he set those goals intentionally so she couldn't meet them and then raped her that evening. And of course I say rape in its ultimate and absolute value, because of course you couldn't rape a slave person or slave woman during slavery, because Africans were not considered human beings during slavery, and so I use the term rape as a means of bonding with my sisters. But of course slave masters had slave women at whim sexually and were never convicted for it.
Speaker 1:But let's go back to the first penalty Thirty nine lashes with the whip, now one way of looking at thirty nine. You may ask why thirty nine. Well, thirty nine also equals to forty minus one. Now where does that come from? One of the things that we're going to see is that, unfortunately, the slave trade had drippings of divinity and Christian faith in it, and many slaveholders were taught by white Christian ministers that the slave trade itself was the manifestation of the kingdom of God on earth and that they were using sound biblical principles in disciplining their slaves, which created an even greater understanding of righteousness if you can believe it or not among slaveholders for their treatment of slaves. But for those of you who are familiar with biblical literature, you recognize this 40 minus 1 construction.
Speaker 1:In a number of areas in the Bible, particularly as we begin with the law of Moses and the whole notion of flogging slaves, we see the reference to 40 lashes less one, which of course gives you mathematically 39, 40 lashes was determined enough to kill, so you wanted to punish them up to the maximum without killing them, and so many people who had been beaten and flawed to death had been flawed over 40 times, and so they came up with the rule in biblical history, 40 minus one as a Levitical law in the law of Moses. And thus 39 lashes is the maximum punishment short of death. And so you can see how twisted and diabolical the slave trade becomes as it includes biblical literature in its understanding of the kingdom of God, manifest in slavery. Of the kingdom of God, manifest in slavery. Specific passages when we look at Deuteronomy 25, three of the Levitical law, we see 40 stripes he may give him, he shall not exceed. If exceeded, then the brother shall be looked upon as vile or wicked. And so you could give thirty nine to your servants and still be considered righteous in God's eyes, but once you hit 40 and exceeded 40, you were looked upon as violent. So you see this, thirty nine lashes become very prevalent in the life of slavery. As a means of disciplining slaves. Criminals, transgressors of the law, were to receive no more than 40 lashes. Thus Jews gave criminals 39 lashes for breaking the law. And so you see this no more than 40 lashes.
Speaker 1:Connotation and reference again Isaiah 53, five. Another context the suffering service servant narrative. For those of you who are familiar with Isaiah and its content, isaiah 53 5 he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, chastisement of our peace upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. And so you see, slave masters teach slaves that they're putting stripes on their back because of course it's a biblical reference. And even slaves would argue with each other about insurrections and they'll say that well, you know, I'm not going to wear any stripes for this insurrection, meaning I'm not going to get involved in it. And so stripes becomes the language of disciplining, from both slave master and from slave. But more importantly, whipping is seen as healing and later salvific, that you love someone enough. And of course we have this conversation when it comes to disciplining our children. But when you begin to talk about it within the context of a diabolical institution, where you are actually doing this with big, heavy flogs to other grown people, then it's salvific leanings begin to part ways. For me that that becomes more clever sophistry to justify the slave trade and your disciplining of slaves than is rooted in anything sound from a biblical standpoint.
Speaker 1:So slaves would use this terminology in conversation with each other relative to wearing stripes and Second Corinthians, 11, 24, paul's persecution by the Jews. Paul states of the Jews five times. I received, received I 40 stripes, save one. There you see the terminology again from Paul for the stripes save one, which of course gives us thirty nine, save one, which of course gives us thirty nine, and of course, in Jesus, his passion experience with this forty minus one terminology. There is no direct reference to thirty nine lashes with Jesus, but of course he was scourged and flogged by Pilate, but not killed, which means that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that at some point in time Jesus was not only flogged but he was flogged thirty nine times. I'm sure that Pilate was familiar with the terminology relative to 40 minus one that he inherited as the district attorney in first century Palestine, if I may give him such a lofty title, and of course, and so he probably was well aware of this 39 lashes language and Jesus likely received strong. I strongly think that Jesus received 39 lashes as part of his passion before he was crucified and so that 39 lashes with the whip is not just a made up number. If the slave didn't reach the goal, it was actually rooted in the early life of the white Christian church.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, women capturing the master's eyes Women capturing the master's eyes I just mentioned women were often raped and given daily goals that were impossible to meet. A lot of times when a slave woman captured the master's eye, she would be brought into the big house for work so he could be close to her and he could be next to her so that he could look at her and do whatever he wanted to to her, which always created problems for that particular woman because she was in an unwinnable situation If she acquiesced to the slave master's demand. She draws the eye of the slave master's wife. If she doesn't capitulate to the slave master's demands, then likely he sells off to another plantation or flogs her brutally. Particularly, he sells off to another plantation if he discovers in any way, shape or form that she may be developing a romantic relationship with a field hand on that particular plantation, and so the way he would punish her and him is to sell her off to another plantation. And so she was put in a situation that was acutely unwinnable for her.
Speaker 1:Once she was brought into the big house for work, many of them, if they were recaptured, were brought back and they were flogged mercilessly in public square to send a message to the other slaves that this was what will happen to you if you have the same idea and you act on it. Generally, posse's would run out after they learn of the slave escaping, and they would, of course, put a scent on the clothes that slaves wore, and they would have cloth materials of it, samples of it, and they would give it to the dogs so that the dogs could sniff the scent and then, of course, lead them in a direction where the slaves was going. This was also a risky proposition, particularly since, early in the Slavocracy, you didn't know the land well. You didn't know the land, the fallout of the land, well. This became more and more accessible, though, as we moved through the slave trade, particularly as we moved into the 19th century and we actually began to form some alliances with whites who began to see that slavery was an abominable institution and, more importantly, that it was an immoral institution.
Speaker 1:The mortality rate was high, so that necessitated the frequent voyages to Africa that we discussed in the last segment. Slaves usually end up getting in fights with slaveholders. Slaveholders have to kill them. Sometimes they run away and die. When they have run away, sometimes they're brought back and beaten so mercilessly that they end up dying, and so it necessitated frequent voyages to Africa, but the importation stopped supposedly in 1740 to 1750, when what I refer to as the import domestic ratio becomes one in one. And what do I mean by that? By the time we hit 1740, 1750, we are about 120 years into slavery, and by this time slave men and women were having children at a rate on the plantation. Slave men and women were having children at a rate on the plantation that was equal to the number of slaves that they were bringing in per year, and so that's what I call the import domestic ratio. Once it reached one one one slave born for every one slave brought in, those importations supposedly stopped, but even as late as 18, even though it was outlawed in 1808, even as late as 1850, as I said in the previous segment, we see illegal importations happening to bring in even more slaves in the 1840s, and of course part of this had to do with the fact, too is that we were in the midst of the Underground Railroad with Harriet Tubman, and more and more slaves were running away, and so, as slaveholders saw it, they were justified in engaging in these clandestine importations of slaves in the middle of the night so that they would not get caught.
Speaker 1:And more particularly, slavery, as taught by white Christian ministers, was to be an eternal institution, that even in 2025, today, we're still supposed to be slaves Technically. I tell my students this all the time that as the older person in the room, I'm supposed to be trying to show you, as younger people, how to survive the plantation. We're not supposed to be having discussions about slavery. We are supposed to still be slaves because it was styled by white Christian ministers as an eternal institution and we were never meant to be free. But the fact that we are free at least from the institution of slavery is a testament to two realities number one, god's partiality for liberating oppressed people and number two, our never letting go of the plow of freedom, even in our darkest days in plantation life. And it was not because of those two factors factors we could very much find ourselves in the same institution that would never have ended.
Speaker 1:Speaking of regulating behavior as we move into the late 17th 18th century and we start seeing the emergence of politics and it becomes more and more prominent in the life of the colonies as we head into the Revolutionary War. And in the United States of America, we're going to see the establishment of slave slave codes or laws created by our discussion, because, of course, there's always been a concerted effort, from the plantation even to the day, to control the behavior of black people, to control the behavior of african-american people, to tell us where to live, to tell us what to read, to tell us how we should be educated, to tell us how to dress, to tell us how to think, particularly theologically and religiously. And so one of the reasons why the black church was started was so that the white church and white Christian ministers could influence slave behavior and regulate slave behavior by using religion, particular themes like submission and obedience, and the notion that when you submit to your slave master, when you're obedient to your slave master, you're also being obedient to God as well. And, of course, white images with Jesus were were touted, particularly as we move into the 19th century, and became more and more prevalent as a way of suggesting subconsciously to the slave that because Jesus is white and because your slave hold is white, that the drippings of divinity lie in the very people who are enslaving you. And since you are non-white, you are further away from divinity. And so in order for you to become righteous and for you to experience eternal life after death, you need to be obedient to the people in whose image Jesus is in that they very wicked way of connecting divine reality with the context of human bondage and black dehumanization. And so every effort was made to take power away from slaves and the significant dimensions of human existence, ie to make the slave feel totally dependent on the master. And, of course, as I said in the previous segment, they would break brothers and sisters up, born siblings, blood siblings, to destroy any sense of social cohesion, because the slaveholder wanted slaves to be totally dependent on him for the necessities of life. We see that mentality still prevalent today. Ultimately, relative to employment, relative to economics, relative to the ultimate decisions that are being made in the life of the country, in the world, they are still being made mainly by white men, and they are being made not only for white men, but they are being made for everyone else. And so, in that sense, the foundation of the slave codes mentality, wise in many ways, still exists today. Let's take a look at 10 of these codes, codes that I want to bring to our attention tonight.
Speaker 1:Slaves could not leave number one, the plantation, without permission of the master or unless accompanied by a white person. We also saw this in South Africa, with apartheid as well that you could not go into Johannesburg unless you had your passbook or your passport, that you could not go into Johannesburg unless you had your passbook or your passport One of the things that Nelson Mandela did before he was arrested and sent to jail for 27 years. To protest the booklet that you needed to get into Johannesburg, he burned it in open square. He set fire to it in open square, which only increased his visibility to be in prison for publicly flouting and taunting the South African law relative to black people. And so you could not leave the plantation without permission of a master or unless you were accompanied by a white person. You usually used to have to have a pass, particularly in Virginia and Maryland. Frederick Douglas talked about having to have a pass to go into town, and that's one of the. That's one of the. In fact, that ended up being the way in which he escaped. He went into town and he was able to slip away. At that time, he had someone with him. He was able to slip away from them and move from slave to free status.
Speaker 1:Number two slaves could not gather on the plantation in numbers larger than five For obvious reasons because of the lack of trust in slaves and because of the slave penchant to want to run away from the plantation like anyone would. In that context, slaveholders didn't allow slaves to gather in numbers larger than five. Even when the black church was started, slaveholders would go in as well as white ministers and sit in the back of the church to make sure that slaves were not plotting insurrection, which was a risky proposition for them to allow slaves to gather in numbers larger than five. But the slave code was that slaves could not gather on the plantation numbers larger than five. Three slaves could not own a weapon of any kind for obvious reasons, to be used in insurrection, to use to kill the mass. And of course, when we, when we see the insurrectionists come, the insurrections happen because slaves are able to get a hold of weapons and use them in bloody, violent insurrections. We see that in the insurrection of Nat Turner at Gabriel Prosser and right down in Charleston with Denmark Vesey. We even see in 1859, john Brown, a white minister who had led a successful slave revolt in Missouri, break into the armory in Harpers Ferry, virginia, and seize weapons and armed slaves for insurrection in Harpers Ferry Virginia. And so we still have that debate today constitutionally in America whether it's good to own a gun or not, and we see so much gun violence today. We see a different conversation today than the one then, but we still have been a weapon crazy and a weapon conscience kind of nation, and so weapons became the basis by which you either defended what you had currently created or whether you were trying to destroy what you were brought into.
Speaker 1:If you were a slave Four, any slave attempting to run away received a death penalty. Now this has to be put in its proper context. Even though it was a slave code, if you were able to capture a runaway slave and get him back to the plantation, you didn't want to kill him because you lost the labor. So this slave code was enacted more to scare slaves than anything else. Very seldom were slaves killed if they were captured after running away. But, more particularly, I call this, you know, not another slave code, but a corresponding slave code because it's in the same area.
Speaker 1:In our state of South Carolina in 1712, a runaway slave evading capture for at least 20 days the first offense he was publicly whipped. If he evaded capture for 20 days most of the time too, if you could get away for 20 days you probably had a good chance of making it to freedom, particularly when the Underground Railroad comes along in the 19th century, but at this point it doesn't exist yet. The second offense If you evaded capture for at least 20 days, you were branded with an R on your right cheek. There's another brand that we talk about, and of course, the R means runaway, and this was done quite frequently because it involved a lot of pain for the brand to be put on your face and, at the same time, it could send a message without killing you, and they could continue to benefit from your labor.
Speaker 1:The third offense your ear was cut off. Yes, you heard me right, your ear was cut off. Now, why your ear? Namely because your ear can be cut off in such a way by a novice and you not bleed out, which would not necessarily be the case if they cut your tongue out. Sometimes they would cut your tongue out and you would bleed out. They didn't want you to bleed out because they didn't want you to die, and so they wanted you to stay alive, and so a lot of times they would cut off the ear and it would be excruciatingly painful, as you might suspect, but at the same time, it would not cause you to bleed out and be bleed to death. And, of course, the fourth offense um, this also had to be done without the slave man bleeding out, and he was castrated. Um, which is why it's the fourth offense, because you had to be skilled at cutting them in such a way and he scrolled them so that he wouldn't bleed out. Most of the time he would, and so that's why this is the fourth offense for a runaway slave evading capture for at least 20 days. And so you can see that the battle lines are clearly drawn, the gauntlet is thrown down, and, of course, they try to do everything they can to impose excruciating pain on the slave, while at the same time trying to keep them alive so that they can continue to exploit their labor.
Speaker 1:Five no slave could work for pay. Of course, we continue to have an economic crisis in America that's growing even wider between the haves and the have-nots. Even in a Christian nation that is supposed to be concerned primarily with transforming the conditions of the poor, we seem to be headed in the opposite direction than that. And so slaves could not work for pay, obviously so that you couldn't develop any type of wealth or material base in order for you to form an insurrection but even further than that, to lay the foundation for you to build communities, which we saw post-slavery. To lay the foundation for you to build communities which we saw post slavery, that we saw in Wilmington, that we saw in Chicago, that we saw in Greenwood in Oklahoma. And so we see these developments of African American money moving around in the community through different merchants, post slavery.
Speaker 1:And the fear even then was that if you gave slaves money that they may use it for their benefit, not to remain slaves. Although there were some slaves that ignored slaveholders, that ignored this particular um slave code and paid some of their slaves and their slaves brought their freedom. David Walker purchased his freedom. A number of other slaves purchased their freedom because they saved every penny that they were given by their slaveholder and, of course, once the slaveholder had gotten set the price for what he paid for and for and they paid the slave master that amount Some slaveholders would free slaves. This would eventually this would certainly be the case as we move into the 19th century. Still here in the 18th century, most slaves, if not all, receive no pay for their work.
Speaker 1:Six, no slave could marry. Of course, that will allow you to establish meaning and propositiveness in the life of your community relative to establishing families. Social cohesion was a big issue among slave masters. They did not want slaves to develop social cohesion. They did allow slaves to have a ceremony and of course it's famously known as jumping the broom, and this is an adaptation from an African cultural expression wherein the wife of a newlywed couple would take a broom and sweep out the front porch of their house and the sidewalk in front of the house as a means of not allowing evil wizards to come in and destroy the life they were trying to build as a family. So you can see, even in Africa, family life was very big for African people, and so we see that adaptation even today, as we can now have ceremonies and some couples have conscientiously put the broom jumping ceremony into their wedding. Whether it's during the service at the church or whether it's during their reception at the town hall. We still see the broom jumping ritual and remembrance of our ancestors whose marriages were not recognized, but they could broom jump Seven.
Speaker 1:No slave could have a birth certificate, namely because it humanizes you, and so most slaves, and even post-slavery we, couldn't have a birth certificate. In fact that's a relatively new phenomenon for African-Americans. Even as late as the 1960s, african-americans didn't get birth certificates. Midwives delivered black kids and the midwife would write it down on a piece of paper the date and the year and the time, and of course, they would fold that paper up and put it in that big Bible that we had in our coffee tables in our homes as African Americans um, um, because you couldn't have an official birth certificate. So that's how we knew what our age was and our birthday was when the midwife delivered us. And so the very simple reason why this is the case is because white people could have a birth certificate, and so you're starting to see any type of coalescing as being anathema to the white community, that they wanted to be able to separate themselves from black people in terms of what makes one fundamentally human. And, of course, denying marriage on the one hand, denying birth certificate, are ways in which you draw that sharp distinction between your superiority as a white community and black people's inferiority.
Speaker 1:Eight as chattel, slave women could not refuse sex from a white man. As I said earlier, there was no such thing as rape, even though it was rape, as black women did not want to have sex with their slaveholders. We do see some slave women using that as a basis socially to try to derive favors from the slave master. We saw that, of course, prominently with Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, but even Sally Hemings' mother had a relationship with the slaveholder and created a relationship with that slaveholder, with the you knowholder, with the hope that it could derive some type of humanizing gesture from the slave master as a result of it. One of the things, ironically, that Thomas Jefferson promised Sally Hemings is that he would not sell the slaves to another plantation, even as he hit acute financial crisis, namely because the slaves that lived together with each other for so long they didn't want to be broken up. And so, even though Jefferson died, a broke man, monticello, sally Hemings was able to get that promise from him. Yet at the same time, she said to him when he tried to rape her the first time they had sex, she said to him you don't have to do that, you own me. And so, in that sense, a slave woman could not refuse sex from a white man.
Speaker 1:Slave men nine could not be circumcised. Again, it distinguishes you from white men who could be circumcised, and so my PSA to you is that, for young men who are not circumcised. Please get circumcised Mothers. Please make sure your sons get circumcised, particularly as they grow older, as they produce children and as they become sexually active and they need to be circumcised. And so? But at the time, slave men could not be circumcised Again. This is a new phenomenon, like the birth certificate. Even into the 1930s, 40s, 50s, black men were not getting circumcised because many of them were born at home and when they were born to the midwife, they didn't get circumcised. And so please make sure that we do this for men. But of course, white men could get circumcised, not black men. And so yet another distinction between black and white humanity.
Speaker 1:And, of course, the 10th one, which is very significant for me as an educator and as the son of two educators, both my mother and father no slave could learn to read or write. The penalty was death if you were caught teaching a slave to read and write. And of course, it was Frederick Douglass who said that knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave to read and write. And of course it was Frederick Douglass who said that knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave. And so, as Frederick Douglass grew and other blacks who could read grew, the fear from slaveholders and white Christian ministers. White politicians well found that if they learn how to read, they're going to write books and write speeches condemning slavery. And that's exactly what they did and then taught others how to read and to write as well. We see this with Frederick Douglass in his book, of course, narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass and my bondage, my freedom. We see this with Harriet Jacobs incidents in the life of a slave girl. And, of course, we see this with David Walker's appeal to the colored citizens of America, one of the most highly significant and incendiary documents in the history of this country and the past half millennium.
Speaker 1:And so this is why my PSA always is to my students read something every day. And if you can write something every day, there was a time when we could not do this and write something every day. There was a time when we could not do this. And of course, you need to maximize your opportunity now to become as educated as you possibly can, both formally and informally, and never take for granted the ability to be able to read and the ability to be able to write, because the pen, in many cases, in the onward march of human civilization and human development is mightier than the sword and that you can transform world historical situations with your pen and with your tongue quicker than you can with a tank, with a machete or with a sword. And so we have seen this in our history as well, and we've seen it with Malcolm X, we've seen it with Martin Luther King, we've seen it with WB Du Bois, we've seen it with Ida B Wells Barnett People who could write it, people who could say it and transformed black existence and made this world look at black people as human beings, and to see black Americans at the vanguard of forwarding change for oppressed people, not only in America but throughout the world, in China, in South Africa, in India, taking their cue from African-American people who learn how to read and write and use that knowledge to be able to craft speeches and to be able to craft literary works that shook up the world, as they say, relative to the notion of bondage and the relationship of human bondage to a God that liberates God's people, that does not condone bondage and is partial, and take sides against the poor, the marginalized, the vilified and the demonized in world events and world historical affairs. And so learn how to read and write, continue to learn how to read and write. Don't ever take this for granted, because someone died for your ability to be able to read and write and didn't even know your name. And so that concludes segment two strange and hostile land.
Speaker 1:In segment three, as I touched on it a little bit even just now, I'm talking about the God that's partial in situations of oppression.
Speaker 1:We're going to take a look at a lecture referred to as the coming of the gods, and we're going to see, as we move into the late 18th, into the early 19th century, two different theologies emerging in plantation life, publicly One, of course, slave holding theology, which equated biblical revelation and Christian faith with African slavery. But on the other hand, you're going to see a different type of theology emerge for Africans as they begin to lay the foundation themselves, as they begin to read the Bible more, grow in Christianity more, and they are going to be able to see a different biblical story and they are going to be able to convey that to their story and they're going to be able to to convey that to their people and to the world. And so we'll look at that next segment. It's titled the coming of the gods. Thank you for listening to this segment. Again, I hope it was enlightening and informative and I'll see you again next segment. Thank you very much for joining us and have a good night.