Chattel Slavery In the U.S
Perspective
English
For english I annotated three songs, "The Story of OJ", "Mississippi Goddam", and "Strange Fruit". As I was annotating I was trying to view things from the song writers perspective while also including my own interpretations. I hose these three songs because I felt as through they marked different points in history. I also included a write up at the end which covered my perspective of the use of "Strange Fruit" and "The Story of OJ" on the internet in recent times.
Art
Because the topic I chose is heavy I decided to also look into things that brought joy to enslaved people. I researched how African American culture developed but more specifically the development of the banjo. The banjo was originally invented by enslaved africans, the original versions of the instrument had strong resemblances and ties to a variety of West African instruments. For my project I made a gourd banjo using objects and materials commonly used in the originals. I used found materials in order to recreate what it would've been like for enslaved people. The banjo I created isn't entirely accurate and I used some materials and tools that wouldn't have been available due to time and material restrictions.
Social Studies
For social studies I researched the conditions enslaved people lived through, women's resistance, how the US economy benefited and sharecropping. I organized my information into a website that dives into each of these topics further. I used perspective in the women's resistance section which largely covers how enslaved women felt and what they were experiencing.