Argumentative Essay: Gideon Jackson's Fight For Freedom
At Appomattox Courthouse, General Lee laid down his arms, and then it was all finished (prologue). Gideon Jackson, a former slave, is a strong man, full of integrity who had taken up arms with the north to fight for freedom. After the war is over, Gideon returns home to Carolina, the Carwell Plantation, and his family, Rachel, his wife, Jenny, the youngest, Marcus, the middle boy, and Jeff, the oldest. The Carwell Plantation is closed up, all the overseers are gone, and the slaves left alone. The former slaves stayed in the only homes they have known, the old slave quarters, planting crops to sustain themselves. All men over twenty-one years are called from Congress to vote. The vote is either “For a Constitutional Convention” or “Against a Constitutional Convention.”. Along with the vote, a delegate is chosen by ballot to represent the people in the
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convention, and Gideon is chosen to be the delegate. It is understood that he would go to Charleston and join in the Convention (13). The vote is by secret ballot and the delegate will be notified and receive their credentials at that time. Weeks later the letter came. Gideon’s election became, to him, a grotesque, a caricature of a thing that made a mockery of all their fine, new-won freedom (29). The letter instructs Gideon to convene in Charleston, South Carolina, on the 14th of January. On his way to Charleston he meets James Allenby. He is a teacher, taking in, and teaching orphans. He gives Gideon a warm meal and a place to sleep. Gideon insists the next morning that he pack up everything, and go to Carwell where he and the children would be safe. He would be welcome there, and he could teach the children. Reluctantly Allenby agreed. The next day Gideon continues to Charleston.
The feeling of panic that came over Gideon Jackson once he was in Charleston could not be reasoned away. It was terror of the deepest and most threatening unknown, the white man (41). Arriving in Charleston, Gideon had no money or food. He finds a day job hauling bales of cotton that pays fifty cents a day. With that he can get a good meal and find a boarding house for delegates owned by the Carter’s. The next day, Gideon signed into the convention and met Francis L. Cardozo, a Jewish black man that was born free. Cardozo introduces Gideon to other black men in the convention and encourages Gideon’s learning by giving him the books Geldon’s Basic Speller and Usage of the English Language. This was the start of Gideon’s desire for learning. At the Convention Gideon spoke shortly. “No man stays free,” he said, “I know a little history, and the little I know makes it a fight for freedom, all along. There’s one big gun for freedom- education. I say, arm ourselves.” (79) And so, the Bureau of education was established.
After the convention is over it is time for Gideon to return home. He wonders if anything had changed, and it has. The railroad is being built through the swamp, hiring on black workers for a dollar a day. Gideon knew that the Carwell plantation had been seized for taxes, and the land was going to put back on the auction block sooner or later. Allenby asks if Gideon will take Jeff with him, and says that he should not. Allenby explains that Jeff knows how to read and write, and his mind is like a sponge, soaking everything in. “He’s trying to soak the whole world in – so quickly that it makes me afraid. He knows what he wants to, Gideon; he wants to be a doctor.” (107) Gideon contacts Cardozo, and it can be arranged that Jeff will go study Boston. Twenty-two from Carwell go to work on the railroad to raise money to purchase their own land. For the first time, Gideon had an inkling of the relationship of labor to the whole of life and civilization. As slaves, he, and his people had worked, year in and year out, having nothing, gaining nothing, the was the mule or the ox works. Now the railroad, had advertised for a product they wanted to buy; the product was labor; Gideon and his people came and sold their labor for a dollar a day, and out of their labor was coming a conception and a dream (112). When they arrive back to Carwell the men have close to a thousand dollars. The plan is to use that money as a guarantee to get a loan to buy the Carwell land when it came up for sale, but the loan would not come so easily.
With a mortgage being turned down in Columbia, Gideon returned to Charleston. Sitting with Cardozo, Gideon is told of a Land-division bill that Thaddeus Stevens introduced into Congress. The proposal was to take the great rebel plantation, break them down, and give each freedman forty acres and fifty dollars for a homestead (128). Cardozo makes a deal with Gideon to write a letter to a banker friend in Boston, and one to Frederic Douglass who also may help, in return Gideon must agree to stand for the state legislature at the next election. The next day Gideon was turned down by two more banks, and agreed to Cardozo’s plan. Gideon travels by train from Washington D.C. to Boston, .All that had happened to him until now, in his thirty-seven years of life, storm and eruption had been within the world he knew, the southland that had borne him, bred him and fed him. Now he sat in a railroad car among white people who read their newspaper, spoke to one another, and neither minded nor cared that a black man was among them (130).
Gideon takes the letter from Cardozo, and finds Isaac Went. He explains to Went and Emory (a doctor friend of Went’s) what he is attempting to do for his people. For the plan to work, Gideon will need fifteen dollars of mortgage money for every dollar he has to invest. Hopelessness made a hot, heavy load inside Gideon; he had come this far; he had spent part of the money, how much farther could he go? (138-139) Gideon explains that he may not know business, but he knows cotton and he knows rice. With no cotton being grown, the north is starved for it. Cotton is a sellers’ market. If they can get the land, they can grow cash crops and make money. He assures Went he is not looking for charity, on his word of honor. After Went, Emery, and Gideon talk it over some more, Went guarantees the draft for fifteen thousand dollars. The discussion turns about Gideon and his family. Gideon explains that his son Jeff is studying there in Boston, and of his aspirations of becoming a doctor. Emory explains that medical school in this country will not admit a black man, however; if he passes the examination, he can be admitted to the university in Scotland. Emory offers to teach Jeff all he needs to know in two years to pass the entrance exams while he earns his keep. Jeff is excited at the prospect and will go study with Emory.
Gideon returns home to find sadness and terror. In his absence, one night a cross was set afire on the hill, houses were burned, and a child was killed. Brother Peter said that the sign of the holy cross, whether in blood or fire could work evil to no man. Some of them took comfort from that; others, having heard of a thing call the Ku Klux Klan, tightened their lips but kept their knowledge inside their heads (148). The sheriff, who was rumored to be the local Klan leader, refused to do anything. Gideon travels to Columbia and speaks with major Shelton and was told that “proper measures are being taken.” Realizing that the military would be no help, Gideon returns home, and organizes a militia to protect themselves.
On the twenty-second of October, Gideon, Abner lair, and James Allenby go to Columbia to join in the public auction. Daniel Greene, hired to handle the bids, was giving the information on which tracts whey wanted. After the auction was over, they came home with almost three thousand acres of land. The dividing of land was going to be difficult. Men fighting, arguing, protesting, weighing each one’s piece agents the other’, jealous, name-calling, the white hunching together against the black, the black instinctively putting should to shoulder against the white (159). This upset Gideon immensely. He suggested they pick one man by vote, and he would portion out the land. Brother Peter was nominated, and the land was given out.
With the election of Hayes for president, fear that the military would be withdrawn and, the Klan will strike became ever present. Gideon brings proof to President Grant of the plan, but Grant will do nothing. After the meeting Gideon meets Jeff at the train Station, and they head for home. Then it came. Six men in white robes of the Klan, dragged a couple into their barn, tied them to the rafters and beat them. The woman dies, but the man survives but would no longer be able to work. Gideon calls for a meeting, and tell the people of Carwell that the Klan has only one purpose, to destroy democracy in the South, to kill off the independent farmer, to split, in so doing, the black man from the white man (201). Gideon writes a telegram to President Hayes, pleading with him to delay the withdrawal of federal troops. The western union officer sends the message to a judge asking if he should send it. The judge keeps the message and said they had better keep shut about it. The violence in Carwell is escalating. The sheriff and Jason Hugar arrive accusing three men at Carwell of ripping the dress off a nine-year-old girl in town, and they were going to arrest them on assault and attempted rape. Gideon tells the sheriff that the accused men had not been to town and refuses to let the sheriff take them. Knowing that they would be back, it is decided they would take the families to the big house where they can be protected. One of the men, Trooper will not leave his home. Once settled, Gideon writes a series of telegrams, one to the editor of the New York Herald, one to Cardozo, and to Ralph Waldo Emerson. He gives the messages to Marcus, and tells him to make sure that the wires are sent. Marcus takes off to Columbia with the telegrams and a Colt revolver in his pocket.
That night, the Klan returns, riding from house to house looking for the residents of Carwell. They arrive at Trooper’s home demanding Hannibal Washington, and Andrew Sherman. Trooper is killed, the men dismount and chase his wife, tearing off her clothes and attempt to rape her. In the struggle one of the men hit her in the head with a butt of a rifle, and she is killed. Then they set the house ablaze with the children still inside. The shots fired awakened the men at the Carwell house and the flame that rose into the night sky was conformation of what was happening. The Klansmen knew that everyone had to be at the Carwell house, they burned all the houses and went toward the Carwell house, they moved forward and the men at Carwell fired upon them and two men from the Klan were killed. The Klan moved back and decided to wait for reinforcements.
Marcus arrives at the telegram office in the morning and gives the telegrams to be sent. Marcus demands that they be sent in his presence and places the Colt on the counter after the telegraph officers tells him to get out. The officer sends the message “attention central Sumter Street station Columbia reporting nigger holdup” (243). He keeps sending the same message over and over. As Marcus is backing out of the office, men with rifles fire on him, repeatedly, until they realized he was dead.
Evening the next day two hundred Klansmen, without their robes, started the first actual attack on the Carwell house. There were shots fired from both sides, and after a while the Klansmen fell back. Jeff saw to the injured and to the dead. On the second day the number of Klansmen is least five or six hundred, all crawling within rifle range. The fighting goes on through the night, but a down it stops. Bentley with white flag in hand, asks if there is a doctor. They have wounded that need looking after. Jeff goes and sees to the needs as the Klansmen, but they do not let him leave. When Jeff tires to go back, he is killed.
Gideon knows now Marcus had been killed, and Abner says he will take the telegrams and make sure they are sent. If they will not send them he will take them to Washington himself. But the Klan shoots down his horse and hangs up Abner and whips him to death. Gideon watch them drag the howitzer into place the next day (259), he knew that the end was coming. The cannon fired. The men around the Carwell house, the men who hid their faces from the sun with white hoods, watch the old place burn. The wood was dry, and one the flame had the started, nothing on earth could have put it out. All day long the house burned, and by nightfall, nothing was left except the seven tall chimneys that Hannibal Washington’s father had built (261).
Characters
Gideon Jackson is a strong, intuitive, honest man, full if integrity, fear, and pride, and like many still today, is trying to make sense of things he does not understand. Working through his ignorance of which he was raised, he rises about and learns to read and write and matures beyond just his years, but matures his mind. Throughout the book, we can see his appreciation for who he is and what he has become, but it is not arrogance, but confidence in himself, pride in his family, and his community. What they have accomplished together is far more than any of them could do apart.
Abner Lait is a character that changes for the good in the course of the book. Abner is introduced in the book at hateful white trash, which has no respect from the rich whites, and hates the black just because they are black. The first interaction with Gideon in the book Abner says “I do with I might of found you in my sights when you was with the damn Yanks. I would of filled you fuller with holes than that there black coat you wearing.” (33) Later in the story, Gideon goes to Abner with a proposal, to become part of the group to buy the land at auction. With that proposal, Abner gradually gets rid of his hate and become a member of the community, blacks and white living in together in peace.
Jason Hugar is a character that should be mentioned. He is a racist, plain and simple, and nothing is going to change that. He is threatened by what they are trying to achieve at Carwell, and he will do whatever he needs to do to keep it from happening. This is a typical reaction from southern whites, who have had everything they have known taken from them. Hate for the black man is what drives him, hate that a black man succeeding more than what he believes they should be, slaves.
Themes
Freedom road is a book about hope and oppression. Hope for a people, hope for the future, and hope that what they desire will become a reality. In the book, we see Gideon, work through his fear and questions, all for a hope for a better future for himself, his children, and his community. He does amazing things, attempting to bring his hope to others, freeman, delegate, Senator, and Gideon holds onto that hope until the end. Oppression takes away unity, divides families, and countries, promotes prejudice, and the identities of the oppressed are reduced to stereotypes. Gideon fights the oppression with every ounce of will in his body, but in the end, oppression, and all the hatred that goes with it, diminishes all hope.
Thoughts
Reconstruction was a time of experimentation in interracial democracy.
The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments established a new vision of equality before the law, regardless of race, as the definition of American citizenship, and of the national government as the protector of the fundamental rights of all Americans (Intro X). Powerful words on paper, and if they would have been acknowledged by those whose prejudice against blacks was stronger than the acceptance that they are an individual people with rights, it is possible reconstruction may have lasted and our history as a country would have been much different. How would the country (or the world) be if reconstruction would have been a success? How would it have been if the Ku Klux Klan had not decided that white supremacy was the only way? I am disappointed that hate and racism are still so prominent in society today and not just whites against black, or blacks against white, it is everyone. History repeats itself, this is a known fact. Unless we do something, learn from past mistakes, and make the world a better place for our
children.
convention, and Gideon is chosen to be the delegate. It is understood that he would go to Charleston and join in the Convention (13). The vote is by secret ballot and the delegate will be notified and receive their credentials at that time. Weeks later the letter came. Gideon’s election became, to him, a grotesque, a caricature of a thing that made a mockery of all their fine, new-won freedom (29). The letter instructs Gideon to convene in Charleston, South Carolina, on the 14th of January. On his way to Charleston he meets James Allenby. He is a teacher, taking in, and teaching orphans. He gives Gideon a warm meal and a place to sleep. Gideon insists the next morning that he pack up everything, and go to Carwell where he and the children would be safe. He would be welcome there, and he could teach the children. Reluctantly Allenby agreed. The next day Gideon continues to Charleston.
The feeling of panic that came over Gideon Jackson once he was in Charleston could not be reasoned away. It was terror of the deepest and most threatening unknown, the white man (41). Arriving in Charleston, Gideon had no money or food. He finds a day job hauling bales of cotton that pays fifty cents a day. With that he can get a good meal and find a boarding house for delegates owned by the Carter’s. The next day, Gideon signed into the convention and met Francis L. Cardozo, a Jewish black man that was born free. Cardozo introduces Gideon to other black men in the convention and encourages Gideon’s learning by giving him the books Geldon’s Basic Speller and Usage of the English Language. This was the start of Gideon’s desire for learning. At the Convention Gideon spoke shortly. “No man stays free,” he said, “I know a little history, and the little I know makes it a fight for freedom, all along. There’s one big gun for freedom- education. I say, arm ourselves.” (79) And so, the Bureau of education was established.
After the convention is over it is time for Gideon to return home. He wonders if anything had changed, and it has. The railroad is being built through the swamp, hiring on black workers for a dollar a day. Gideon knew that the Carwell plantation had been seized for taxes, and the land was going to put back on the auction block sooner or later. Allenby asks if Gideon will take Jeff with him, and says that he should not. Allenby explains that Jeff knows how to read and write, and his mind is like a sponge, soaking everything in. “He’s trying to soak the whole world in – so quickly that it makes me afraid. He knows what he wants to, Gideon; he wants to be a doctor.” (107) Gideon contacts Cardozo, and it can be arranged that Jeff will go study Boston. Twenty-two from Carwell go to work on the railroad to raise money to purchase their own land. For the first time, Gideon had an inkling of the relationship of labor to the whole of life and civilization. As slaves, he, and his people had worked, year in and year out, having nothing, gaining nothing, the was the mule or the ox works. Now the railroad, had advertised for a product they wanted to buy; the product was labor; Gideon and his people came and sold their labor for a dollar a day, and out of their labor was coming a conception and a dream (112). When they arrive back to Carwell the men have close to a thousand dollars. The plan is to use that money as a guarantee to get a loan to buy the Carwell land when it came up for sale, but the loan would not come so easily.
With a mortgage being turned down in Columbia, Gideon returned to Charleston. Sitting with Cardozo, Gideon is told of a Land-division bill that Thaddeus Stevens introduced into Congress. The proposal was to take the great rebel plantation, break them down, and give each freedman forty acres and fifty dollars for a homestead (128). Cardozo makes a deal with Gideon to write a letter to a banker friend in Boston, and one to Frederic Douglass who also may help, in return Gideon must agree to stand for the state legislature at the next election. The next day Gideon was turned down by two more banks, and agreed to Cardozo’s plan. Gideon travels by train from Washington D.C. to Boston, .All that had happened to him until now, in his thirty-seven years of life, storm and eruption had been within the world he knew, the southland that had borne him, bred him and fed him. Now he sat in a railroad car among white people who read their newspaper, spoke to one another, and neither minded nor cared that a black man was among them (130).
Gideon takes the letter from Cardozo, and finds Isaac Went. He explains to Went and Emory (a doctor friend of Went’s) what he is attempting to do for his people. For the plan to work, Gideon will need fifteen dollars of mortgage money for every dollar he has to invest. Hopelessness made a hot, heavy load inside Gideon; he had come this far; he had spent part of the money, how much farther could he go? (138-139) Gideon explains that he may not know business, but he knows cotton and he knows rice. With no cotton being grown, the north is starved for it. Cotton is a sellers’ market. If they can get the land, they can grow cash crops and make money. He assures Went he is not looking for charity, on his word of honor. After Went, Emery, and Gideon talk it over some more, Went guarantees the draft for fifteen thousand dollars. The discussion turns about Gideon and his family. Gideon explains that his son Jeff is studying there in Boston, and of his aspirations of becoming a doctor. Emory explains that medical school in this country will not admit a black man, however; if he passes the examination, he can be admitted to the university in Scotland. Emory offers to teach Jeff all he needs to know in two years to pass the entrance exams while he earns his keep. Jeff is excited at the prospect and will go study with Emory.
Gideon returns home to find sadness and terror. In his absence, one night a cross was set afire on the hill, houses were burned, and a child was killed. Brother Peter said that the sign of the holy cross, whether in blood or fire could work evil to no man. Some of them took comfort from that; others, having heard of a thing call the Ku Klux Klan, tightened their lips but kept their knowledge inside their heads (148). The sheriff, who was rumored to be the local Klan leader, refused to do anything. Gideon travels to Columbia and speaks with major Shelton and was told that “proper measures are being taken.” Realizing that the military would be no help, Gideon returns home, and organizes a militia to protect themselves.
On the twenty-second of October, Gideon, Abner lair, and James Allenby go to Columbia to join in the public auction. Daniel Greene, hired to handle the bids, was giving the information on which tracts whey wanted. After the auction was over, they came home with almost three thousand acres of land. The dividing of land was going to be difficult. Men fighting, arguing, protesting, weighing each one’s piece agents the other’, jealous, name-calling, the white hunching together against the black, the black instinctively putting should to shoulder against the white (159). This upset Gideon immensely. He suggested they pick one man by vote, and he would portion out the land. Brother Peter was nominated, and the land was given out.
With the election of Hayes for president, fear that the military would be withdrawn and, the Klan will strike became ever present. Gideon brings proof to President Grant of the plan, but Grant will do nothing. After the meeting Gideon meets Jeff at the train Station, and they head for home. Then it came. Six men in white robes of the Klan, dragged a couple into their barn, tied them to the rafters and beat them. The woman dies, but the man survives but would no longer be able to work. Gideon calls for a meeting, and tell the people of Carwell that the Klan has only one purpose, to destroy democracy in the South, to kill off the independent farmer, to split, in so doing, the black man from the white man (201). Gideon writes a telegram to President Hayes, pleading with him to delay the withdrawal of federal troops. The western union officer sends the message to a judge asking if he should send it. The judge keeps the message and said they had better keep shut about it. The violence in Carwell is escalating. The sheriff and Jason Hugar arrive accusing three men at Carwell of ripping the dress off a nine-year-old girl in town, and they were going to arrest them on assault and attempted rape. Gideon tells the sheriff that the accused men had not been to town and refuses to let the sheriff take them. Knowing that they would be back, it is decided they would take the families to the big house where they can be protected. One of the men, Trooper will not leave his home. Once settled, Gideon writes a series of telegrams, one to the editor of the New York Herald, one to Cardozo, and to Ralph Waldo Emerson. He gives the messages to Marcus, and tells him to make sure that the wires are sent. Marcus takes off to Columbia with the telegrams and a Colt revolver in his pocket.
That night, the Klan returns, riding from house to house looking for the residents of Carwell. They arrive at Trooper’s home demanding Hannibal Washington, and Andrew Sherman. Trooper is killed, the men dismount and chase his wife, tearing off her clothes and attempt to rape her. In the struggle one of the men hit her in the head with a butt of a rifle, and she is killed. Then they set the house ablaze with the children still inside. The shots fired awakened the men at the Carwell house and the flame that rose into the night sky was conformation of what was happening. The Klansmen knew that everyone had to be at the Carwell house, they burned all the houses and went toward the Carwell house, they moved forward and the men at Carwell fired upon them and two men from the Klan were killed. The Klan moved back and decided to wait for reinforcements.
Marcus arrives at the telegram office in the morning and gives the telegrams to be sent. Marcus demands that they be sent in his presence and places the Colt on the counter after the telegraph officers tells him to get out. The officer sends the message “attention central Sumter Street station Columbia reporting nigger holdup” (243). He keeps sending the same message over and over. As Marcus is backing out of the office, men with rifles fire on him, repeatedly, until they realized he was dead.
Evening the next day two hundred Klansmen, without their robes, started the first actual attack on the Carwell house. There were shots fired from both sides, and after a while the Klansmen fell back. Jeff saw to the injured and to the dead. On the second day the number of Klansmen is least five or six hundred, all crawling within rifle range. The fighting goes on through the night, but a down it stops. Bentley with white flag in hand, asks if there is a doctor. They have wounded that need looking after. Jeff goes and sees to the needs as the Klansmen, but they do not let him leave. When Jeff tires to go back, he is killed.
Gideon knows now Marcus had been killed, and Abner says he will take the telegrams and make sure they are sent. If they will not send them he will take them to Washington himself. But the Klan shoots down his horse and hangs up Abner and whips him to death. Gideon watch them drag the howitzer into place the next day (259), he knew that the end was coming. The cannon fired. The men around the Carwell house, the men who hid their faces from the sun with white hoods, watch the old place burn. The wood was dry, and one the flame had the started, nothing on earth could have put it out. All day long the house burned, and by nightfall, nothing was left except the seven tall chimneys that Hannibal Washington’s father had built (261).
Characters
Gideon Jackson is a strong, intuitive, honest man, full if integrity, fear, and pride, and like many still today, is trying to make sense of things he does not understand. Working through his ignorance of which he was raised, he rises about and learns to read and write and matures beyond just his years, but matures his mind. Throughout the book, we can see his appreciation for who he is and what he has become, but it is not arrogance, but confidence in himself, pride in his family, and his community. What they have accomplished together is far more than any of them could do apart.
Abner Lait is a character that changes for the good in the course of the book. Abner is introduced in the book at hateful white trash, which has no respect from the rich whites, and hates the black just because they are black. The first interaction with Gideon in the book Abner says “I do with I might of found you in my sights when you was with the damn Yanks. I would of filled you fuller with holes than that there black coat you wearing.” (33) Later in the story, Gideon goes to Abner with a proposal, to become part of the group to buy the land at auction. With that proposal, Abner gradually gets rid of his hate and become a member of the community, blacks and white living in together in peace.
Jason Hugar is a character that should be mentioned. He is a racist, plain and simple, and nothing is going to change that. He is threatened by what they are trying to achieve at Carwell, and he will do whatever he needs to do to keep it from happening. This is a typical reaction from southern whites, who have had everything they have known taken from them. Hate for the black man is what drives him, hate that a black man succeeding more than what he believes they should be, slaves.
Themes
Freedom road is a book about hope and oppression. Hope for a people, hope for the future, and hope that what they desire will become a reality. In the book, we see Gideon, work through his fear and questions, all for a hope for a better future for himself, his children, and his community. He does amazing things, attempting to bring his hope to others, freeman, delegate, Senator, and Gideon holds onto that hope until the end. Oppression takes away unity, divides families, and countries, promotes prejudice, and the identities of the oppressed are reduced to stereotypes. Gideon fights the oppression with every ounce of will in his body, but in the end, oppression, and all the hatred that goes with it, diminishes all hope.
Thoughts
Reconstruction was a time of experimentation in interracial democracy.
The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments established a new vision of equality before the law, regardless of race, as the definition of American citizenship, and of the national government as the protector of the fundamental rights of all Americans (Intro X). Powerful words on paper, and if they would have been acknowledged by those whose prejudice against blacks was stronger than the acceptance that they are an individual people with rights, it is possible reconstruction may have lasted and our history as a country would have been much different. How would the country (or the world) be if reconstruction would have been a success? How would it have been if the Ku Klux Klan had not decided that white supremacy was the only way? I am disappointed that hate and racism are still so prominent in society today and not just whites against black, or blacks against white, it is everyone. History repeats itself, this is a known fact. Unless we do something, learn from past mistakes, and make the world a better place for our
children.