Japanese Internment Camps

World War Two was one of the most significant sculptures of the history of the United States. However, it did not possess the joy of victory and patriotism in all its citizens. Thinking back on what I know of the war, I realized that I knew very little about what happened at the home front. Like many other American children before me, I was taught of what the Germans were doing to the Jewish communities, but left ignorant of the racist battle within our own boundaries. I asked the question of how many personal liberties are taken from citizens in times of war. I was yet to know of the answers that would emerge. Doing some research on national security in the United States, a pattern emerged. In times of war, the liberties of specific groups are often ignored and/or unrightfully taken away.

Over seventy years after the end of the Civil War, blacks were still being discriminated against in the army. This did not surprise me since there is still so much racism today. However, what I learned about the Japanese-Americans did. While Jews were being persecuted for their religion and existence in the Europe, we were persecuting American citizens based solely on their race. I believe it is important to educate my peers on how devastating this treatment is to how high we hold our government. I’m not saying our government is the worst system out there, but what happened to this group of individuals is a tragedy.

The Japanese internment camps took away personal liberties given by the constitution because the government needed a way to calm the general public after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. They were forced out their homes and businesses, forced to sell everything but a small suitcase of items. Herded into assembly centers, they slept in makeshift barracks that every whisper could be heard throughout. Communal showers/baths, toilets were mostly reduced to latrines, and a single mess hall for meals made privacy and sanitation very poor if existent. Girls went to great extremes to have some form of privacy by wearing underwear or bathing suits in the baths or even trying to use them late at night when no one was around. Babies did not keep just the parents up at night, but awoke everyone in the entire building. This was caused by the lack of real walls (these only had pieces of wood that did not even meet the ceiling) between cells of one or two families. The wind would whistle loudly through the non-solid walls, causing drafts and dirt to build up on the ground. The lack of privacy and humiliation is a form of torture used by the military today.

This mistreatment violated many amendments of the Constitution we hold dear. The fifth, sixth, and seventh amendments were ignored as the Japanese-Americans were held in camps for no reason other than that they were of Japanese descent. I firmly believe that my peers should understand that the world that they hold dear came at a price to someone. The government that we trust has done some horrible things in the past and we allowed it. In times of public weakness, they exploited our fears and racism, more so in times of war. I fear that history will repeat itself as I look upon the situation today. Arab-Americans are discriminated against just because of the world in the Middle East that they may not be a part of. Muslims are discriminated against because the public believes that only Arabs are Muslim, making them more dangerous. If you are Arab and a Muslim, then you have the double whammy as the public hates you for no reason. Racism is a sad part of American culture. Children today should learn of how racism leads to the abuse of another race to cause a false security.

Booker T. Washington's Battle Tactics

The Reconstruction Act of 1667 was enacted to aid the 13th amendment to be fully integrated into the South. However, it soon failed before accomplishing its goal of helping blacks vote to achieve equality. President Hayes had made a compromise in 1877, which ended Reconstruction and allowed white supremacists to take over the Southern black population. Though, the 14th and 15th amendments were ratified before the end of Reconstruction, they did not make much of a difference when the military power of the federal government left the South. The 14th amendment, which was enacted in 1868, outlined who was a citizen of the United States, and all of whom had equal protection under the law. It also said that all male citizens over the age of twenty one in all states, had the right to vote. It also voided all debts that former slaves may have held, causing all obligations and claims to their person to be illegal. The 15th amendment, which was enacted in 1870, said that all citizens of the United States had the right to vote. This amendment stated that no one could be denied the ability to vote because of their race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Though these amendments were created to allow black more control of their social, political and economic situation, the Ku Klux Klan rose to smash it down. Men, women and children were suppressed through lynching, wrongful imprisonment and intimidation. A speech, which was written down for future use, was published in a book written by Booker T. Washington. It was originally given at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. At this era, expositions were like world fairs. There is many exhibits that show off the progress of mankind and inventions. The tones of these are always of a positive note. It is for fun loving people, so it is not very tense. The blacks were mostly likely serving the whites as janitors and waiters. Few, like Washington, would be free to do as they please. This speech was given in 1895, by a black man, who had been born into slavery. Washington because a popular spokesman for the African-Americans and quite popular with whites as well for this speech. He was also the founder for the Tuskegee school.
For the majority of the speech, Washington speaks of two things; cooperation and servitude. He wants the cooperation between the whites and black to further the progress of the South. He claims that this is of great importance to the African-American population. He also criticized the fact the bottom was ignored because they began at the top instead of building their way up from the bottom. They had to focus on industrial and rural progress instead of political agenda. He encouraged blacks to find the same amount of dignity in tilling a field as to writing a poem, by putting more brains and skill into common jobs. To the blacks, he says to cast down your bucket as a analogy to trust. He then encourages them to never underestimate the importance of friendly relations with the whites. To the whites, when he says cast down your buckets, he tells them that they will find the people, whose fidelity and love they tested, will still be loyal. The other part is where he is telling blacks to be useful to the white man. He romanticized slavery by claiming blacks were created as slaves to be submissive, patient, law-abiding, unresentful, and loyal servants. This appealed the to the Southern white’s dream of returning to the old order of things.
This small window allows us today to understand that even in 1895, the south was still fighting for the equality of African-Americans. However, this speech shows the idea of one man of how to solve the problem; give up, be perfect and they will eventually welcome us with open arms. Appealing to the whites, it also secured the funding and support of the Tuskegee school. This school, which was founded by Washington, taught young African-American women and men how to be better farmers, domestic servants, and businessmen. It neglected the skills of reading, writing, arithmetic, and science that our public schools today are mandatory. On the subject of equality, Washington believes that blacks should ease into it, by proving that they are prefect angels that should take baby steps to the dream of social equality. This comes from the simple fact that when the South was pushed too hard too fast, lynching increased, blacks remained at the bottom of the social chain and may lives were ‘wasted’. However, he ignores the problem of debt peonage that many blacks were pushed under. He tries hard to appeal to whites, saying that they should treat blacks like submissive servants, but still respect them. On the subject of segregation, he believed that though they were forced apart like fingers, whites and blacks were a part of the same hand and united. However, in the minds of most southern whites, this was not the case, they were treated like intruders that should never been worth anything. Segregation was just one of the many tools used to control blacks. Washington’s whole theologies depends on the fact that he believes that if blacks do not fight for equality and just allow whites to do as they please, that eventually they will be welcomed with open arms. This depended on the entire population not to severely and constantly struggle for equality, which according to Washington would be an artificial force. Du Bois, once supported Washington, had later criticized this speech. He claims that Washington was telling blacks to give up important rights. Political power was greatly reduced with the disfranchisement of the states and to give up voting. Giving up on the insistence of civil rights was implied when Washington told blacks to accept civil inferiority and segregation. While Du Bois believed in training based on ability, Washington’s Tuskegee school focused on agriculture, domestic and work force training. Du Bois viewed this as limiting the higher education for the Negro youth. He greatly opposed the contents of this speech. However, he was not a realist, sexist and didn’t understand that Washington was trying to save his race from being persecuted more for rebelling instead of just being submissive. Today, as I look back at these two men’s battle of morals and ethics, I can understand how they fought in different ways. Washington wanted a more subtle battle of conquering gradually, allowing people to change and soften with each generation. Du Bois, on the other hand, is more like a general who would send men on a suicidal mission, just to prove that they were not going to lie down and be tactical. He was more of the type to be fierce and yet, not think through the consequences of his actions. These men had the same end, but different means to get there.

Huckleberry Finn’s Families

In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain creates the story of young Huck, who lived in the late 1830’s to early 1840’s. Taking place after the novel, Tom Sawyer, Huck is now under the care of a widow, while his drunken father is out of the picture. Huck is taken from the widow’s by his father and soon discovers he is not completely happy in either place. After faking his own death, Huck takes a raff down the river, looking for a new start away from civilization. Later joined with the runaway slave, Jim, Huck enjoys his own travels on and off the Mississippi River. However, the most interesting element of the novel is that of the nature of family. Huck does not settle down with any of the families he discovers on his adventures because he has a family in his relationship with Jim.
Despite Adventures of Huckleberry Finn being one of the greatest novels ever written, many want it banned because of the relationship Huck has with the runaway slave, Jim. In the beginning, the only think blocking Huck from turning Jim in is “I said I wouldn’t, and I’ll stick to it. Honest injun I will. People would call me a low down Ablitionist and despite me for keeping mum- but that don’t make no difference. I ain’t agoing to tell, and I ain’t agoing back there anyways”. Even before they became friends, Huck decided that he was going to keep his word to a runaway slave, though this meant he may be shunned and harmed for this decision. After a while of traveling, Huck and Jim are separated by a fog. Though Huck returns after a few hours, Jim had been worried sick, calling Huck’s name, and heartbroken that his friend may have been lost to him. When he is awoken by Huck, playing a trick on him, he is angry and tells Huck so. This makes Huck feel regretful enough to want to kiss his foot and later apologize to him. Toward the end of the book, Jim is captured as a runaway slave and Huck has to decide whether he writes a letter to the widow and tell her where Jim is or he breaks Jim out. Huck writes the letter and then “All right, then, I’ll go to hell”, declares Huck before he tears up the letter. Huck has made his decision; “…I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again”. The bond between these two is so strong that impossible odds could not keep Jim in slavery again.
During the novel, Huck meets and stays with many families. In the beginning, Huck lives a widow and then is kidnapped by his father. The widow was religious and civilized. She was a more permanent mother figure, but lacking in a nuclear family structure. With her structured nurturing, Huck changed in small ways to mold to hers. However, Huck did not mind leaving too much. Huck’s father, Pap, is more of an outlaw figure. A-religious and barbaric, he believed in more situational ethics. Without any structure, he locked up Huck in a cabin all the time, leaving them to be more self-sufficient. To escape both fates, Huck fakes his own death. During the raff journey, he meets other families such as the Grangerfords and Tom Sawyer’s Aunt Sally. The wealthy Grangerfords were in a rather pointless blood feud with the Shepherdsons. This battle was over thirty years old; no one remembered how it began and why anymore. Huck decides to move out toward the Territory because he didn’t want “…Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before”. He does not have the drive to stay with any of these families, though he could have.
In the end of the novel, Huck does not expressly admit that he thinks of Jim as family. Without that bond, he wouldn’t have changed his view on the runaway. At the beginning, Huck and Tom played a prank on Jim in his sleep. Huck viewed Jim as just a slave that the widow owned. During their journey together, Jim becomes more human and less like another race, but just someone with different skin. He had personality and value beyond his ability to do free labor in Huck’s eyes. The nature of family is tricky in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but the closet thing that Huck considered family and stayed with because of that belonging, was Jim.

Mississippi Black Codes

During the beginning of the Civil war, the goal of the North was to stop the expansion of slavery through the power of the federal government. The South, which was on defense, promoted expansion of slavery and that the state’s had the right to choose which to be, slave or non-slave. In the end, the North won the Civil War. It enforced that slaves were now free, using its federal power, in the South. However, this court document from Mississippi demonstrates the early power struggle the whites possessed to once against control the backs. Southerns, who were so dependent on the old order, wanted the huge, cheap work pool they once had. These Black Codes reinforced that blacks were the inferior race and must be kept under white control. Whites protected themselves by using their newly created legislatures to pass laws in their state, which were on the borderline of legal, to create a system that was slavery expect in name. The labor system returned with a boom. Ensuring a labor force, blacks were forced to stay on plantations with contracts of service and severe penalties for vagrancy. The white authorities were allowed to abuse their powers and impose on privacy without reprimand. This particular set of Black Codes was passed in the same year as when the Civil War ended.

Each law applied to mulattos, those of mixed blood, freedmen, and free blacks, which narrowed the field of who was most affected by these Codes. In this document, some things were given as rights, but with strings attached. Blacks could now acquire property, but cannot lease it out unless they owned it inside an incorporated town. Men and women, who lived and acted as husband and wife, were now recognized as a legal binding. However, interracial marriage was punishable by prison for the rest of their lives and deemed a felony. Advances in law rights was that blacks could sue and be sued in all civil cases and be a competent witness where they are the victim in criminal trials. However, employment was where the most length was added. If a black was working for longer than a month, they needed to sign a written contract, which duplicates are made, and could not quit until the contract was up. Blacks could be arrested for playing hooky or refusing to work, by authorities. They are then taken back to their employer, which the party that takes them in is paid five dollars (back then was a lot of money). Even persuading or trying to is a misdemeanor. Children were also included in the codes. Any minor under eighteen, who was deemed to be in unfit care, orphaned, or not wanted by parents, could be removed and given as an apprenticeship to a master/mistress. These guardians are chosen by the all white court and are more likely than not, to be white themselves. Like a parent, the master or mistress could deliver corporal punishment, as long as it was not cruel or inhumane. Black’s personal time was also monitored. Vagrancy was defined very broadly, leaving authorities to do as they please. Any blacks over eighteen were not allowed to assemble unlawfully, day or night. White men were severely punished for sleeping with a black and for associating with blacks like equals. Blacks, not in the military or licensed to carry, cannot carry a gun, knife or ammunition. For countless misdemeanors, if a black is convicted and fails to pay the fines and costs, is hired out to a sheriff, other official, or to any white person that pays the costs.

This document completed the goal of the South’s goal; slavery in all, but name. They successfully violated most rights to citizens of the United States, which blacks were now. The right to freedom of religion was violated, when they said that you cannot preach the Gospel with being licensed and being a part of an established church. Freedom of speech was violated, when it was illegal to say verbal insults and seditious speeches. Right to bear arms was violated, when black were told they cannot carry weapons without being in the military or being licensed, in which was rare for whites to have either. Even liberty was violated, when you have severe limitation of the free time of other people. Freedom of assembly was violated, when blacks cannot ‘unlawfully’ assemble, day or night. There was no equal protection under the law or right to due process in the South, the law was completely in the hands of the whites, where they preferred it. Blacks look at these Codes in horror. They finally become free, only to have limits put on the rights they now deserve. These laws threatened families, who were in a different type of poverty as compared to whites, to take away children. Their already low income was constantly under threat for court costs and fines. Employers were now like the slaveholders all over again. Whites, on the other hand, saw this as a few yards back to the Old Order. Blacks were under their thumb as the inferior race. It was a few steps closer to their prefect system of labor and profit. I look at these Codes as a fact. They happened and it was to be expected. Taking away a system of dependence from people with more power and resources causes them to fight for more power back.  These Codes were of not honor, lawfulness, or chivalry, but one of selfish greed, racism and control over people. However, in the time period, it makes sense for their creation, but it doesn’t mean that they are lawful and just.