The life of the first African Americans that came to the USA as slaves was very difficult and it took almost two centuries to abolish slavery. But the abolition did not improve the situation, because slavery was replaced with racism and segregation. The book Let Nobody Turn Us Around is a collection of speeches and stories that were written by the African Americans that tried to improve the lives of their counterparts. Between 1619 and 1861 about 700,000 African Americans were brought to the USA and most of them lived in the terrible conditions (Marable & Mullings 4).
African Americans did not have any civil rights. The white people used them as a labor force. 75% of the slaves worked in agriculture without wages (Marable & Mullings 5). Sometimes African Americans opposed their owners. They could work slowly, damage equipment, escape to the vigilant communities, etc. After some time the fight for the rights of the African Americans became more organized. There were activists and organizations that helped to spread a word about the problems and inequality that the African Americans faced. They also communicated with the white people in order to draw more attention and change the public opinion. Literature was a very powerful source of information about the African Americans. There were several writers such as Olaudah Equiano who wrote stories about the lives and culture of the African American people. One more powerful place that had a large impact was the Church where African Americans could meet and plan their activities.
Thanks to the stories that were written by the African American people we can learn what it was like for them to live in the USA when there was slavery. One of the first African American people who published a book was Phillis Wheatly, who was lucky to learn how to read and write when she was a child. Usually African Americans were forbidden to learn to read and write. She did not write much about slavery, but she was a great example for the African Americans that it was worth studying no matter how difficult the life was (Marable & Mullings 8).
One of the first very influential writers was Olaudah Equiano. In 1789 he published “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano” in which he wrote about how he was brought from Africa to the USA. There were many wars in Africa and usually prisoners of war were sold to the Americans and Europeans. But if there were not enough slaves, the ordinary people and their families were kidnapped and brought to Guinea where the white people received them on the ships in order to go to the USA. It was very a difficult journey for the Africans, because they had never seen the ocean and did not live in the wet climate. They also had many problems with the sailors. The conditions on the ships were very bad. There were too many people, the food was terrible and the sailors were cruel. Some people committed suicide by jumping off the ship. When the ships arrived to the USA or the Caribbean countries, many families were quickly separated and the people faced new problems (Equiano 9-17).
In conclusion, despite the inequality the African Americans always hoped that the situation would change sooner or later. Prince Hall, who was the founder of the Masonic lodge for the African Americans, contributed to the development of the abolishment movement at the end of the XVIII century (Marable & Mullings 18). He and his supporters knew that slavery will be present in the American society for a long time, but he encouraged the people to be patient. Thanks to him and other leaders of the abolition movement it was possible to raise awareness about the unfair treatment of the African Americans. The American society very slowly reacted to the problems of the African Americans and only in 1871 slavery was abolished. Nevertheless, the problems did not disappear.
Works Cited
Marable, M., Mullings, L. Let Nobody Turn Us Around. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. n.d. Print.
