Tuesday
What's Free?
DEFINING FREEDOM |
What is freedom? What are you willing to fight for?
Yesterday, we examined the case of Ancestor Eliza Winston. Even with emancipation, she struggled to have a say in what her freedom looked like. So was it wholistic?
Today, we want you to consider history, and how ancestors defined freedom for themselves. Consider what kept them from their freedom and how the injustices they faced helped them make more clear their ideas of freedom.
Listen to a passage from Frederick Douglass' famous address to an anti-slavery woman's group in Rochester NY. Then, write down your definition of freedom.
Ancestor Frederick Douglass
"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour."
Frederick Douglass
Rochester, NY
July 5, 1852
PRATT STREET SLAVE PENS |
Enslaved African Peoples were sold and traded for currency and other goods throughout the Old and New World. And, Baltimore served as a major hub for the selling and purchasing of Black bodies for forced labor. Many slave owners built and maintained pens around the harbor to hold the human beings they bought during their stay in Baltimore. Those pens were located along Pratt Street. While at visiting the marker on Pratt Street, we will consider the many things enslaved African peoples brought with them in order to remember who we are.
Using the links below, explore what slavery, and its legacies, looked like in Baltimore.
Mapping Sites of the Baltimore Slave Trade
The Legacy of Slavery in Baltimore, Maryland
MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY &
THE LCJ CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM |
Growing the Future, Leading the World
While we are visiting the Lillie Carroll Jackson Civil Rights Museum, look for evidence of what freedom is to the historical figures highlighted in the museum.
Consider:
Who were three of the freedom fighters featured in the museum? What did you learn about them?
How did they define freedom?
What did they do to fight for their freedom? What were their methods?
How are their ideas of freedom different or the same as yours?
Ancestor Lillie Carroll Jackson
With your family groups, you will explore the campus of Morgan State University. The linked google form will lead you on a scavenger hunt of the campus. Find what you can and submit your answers as a team.
COPPIN STATE UNIVERSITY |
Nurturing Potential... Transforming Lives
With your family groups, you will explore the campus of Coppin State University. Explore the University's website in the mean time!
ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF SLAVERY |
The start of the chattel enslavement of African peoples marks the start of our radical movements of resistance. We are freedom fighters because we know that we have had the self determination that we seek, once before. Slavery renders a person property; it is dehumanizing, and so a fight for freedom and justice is the most human act we can participate in. Freedom fighting is our birth rite.
This evening, we will view one last video that highlights the realities of slavery and resisting. As we watch the short film consider your definition of freedom that you developed earlier. With all that you have learned today about defining freedom and fighting to change oppressive conditions, how would you refine your definition of freedom?
