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Slavery An Examination On American Term Paper

S. Supreme Court. As to religion, slaves were allowed to worship in segregated sections of white churches, but with the advent of Reconstruction around 1867, freed slaves left the white churches and formed their own Baptist and Methodist congregations. The governments which were set up by the North during the Reconstruction period often mandated that segregation remain in place which affected the ability of freed slaves to attend and seek assistance in many local and state-level social institutions, such as colleges, hospitals and welfare facilities. For example, in the state of Georgia, there was no existing system for the care of disenfranchised former slaves and those who suffered from diseases and many physical ailments until the early 1880's. Also during this time, former slaves were forced to live in very inadequate housing, especially in southern cities like Atlanta, Richmond and Charleston. Before the Civil War, black American slaves had it even worse, for they usually lived in squalor in ramshackle houses behind the magnificent mansions of the white slave masters.

The black slave family was also greatly affected by the horrible living conditions forced upon them by white society and the plantation owners who lived in opulence and splendor while their slave "property"...

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It has been suggested that slavery, due to its non-recognized slave marriages, forced separations through the selling of children and the lack of authority figures outside of the white slave masters, greatly inhibited the development of strong and vital black families. However, because freed black slaves did manage to survive and provide for their families despite the presence of overwhelming racism, segregation and racial hatred, it appears that slavery did somehow provide inner strength and determination for many former slaves.
In essence, American slavery existed for at least one hundred and fifty years in the Old South, long before it became socially popular to speak out against it in the form of abolition. In the words of W.E.B. Du Bois, writing in the Souls of Black Folk, American slavery was indeed "the sum of all villainies, the cause of all sorrows, the root of all prejudice" and created "the shadow of a deep disappointment... upon the Negro people" (5) in the form of bigotry, separation, exclusion, hatred and utter indifference on the part of white Southerners.

Bibliography

Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. Intro. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Bantam Classics, 1989.

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Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. Intro. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Bantam Classics, 1989.
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