martin mitter <[e-mail]>

B L A C K P E O P L E

‘black’ was an insult in former times ! people avoided the term ‘black’ ! in the late
60ies and 70ies: ‘black is beautiful!’ ! opinions are undergoing changes ! movements
like ‘black power’ developed => very radical movement ! Malcolm X
there were times when you couldn’t talk about ‘negro’ ! from Latin word ‘niger’ ! the
swearword ‘nigger’ developed

Afro-American history: talked about misconceptions concerning black resistance in
the US ! slavery was an all-American problem ! slavery was exercised from North
to South-America ! Brazil was a brutal slave-holding country for a very long time !
the slaves worked on sugar and cotton plantations ! there was humid climate

end of slavery => American Civil War: president A. Lincoln
11 pro-slavery states seceded from the Union ! Washington D.C. was situated on the
Potomac-river (the border between N and S) !

North:

was industrialized ! Puritan,

business-orientated US part -

South:

a deeply rooted feudal society with big estates

(gr. Ländereien) - the S became a strong rival for the N, because the S had people
who worked for nothing

a lot of ‘missing pages’ in US history ! e.g. ✏ many Cowboys were black ✏ they sang
religious songs (about Moses and the Bible); ‘Ohio-River’ ! Marc Twain ✏ there
were also black Founding Fathers ! Chicago (at Lake Michigan) was founded of a
black man
F. Douglas - 1895 - told the people: ‘We must fight back!’ ! he didn’t accept the
segregation (Rassentrennung) ! progress through struggle ! ‘you cannot get crops
without ploughing’ (pflügen) - F. Douglas was a predecessor of Malcolm X