Connections Essay

Lives of African Americans, Then and Now Before the Civil War, African Americans were tortured, raped, and taken advantage of through hard labor and farm work. Slavery was big many years ago, but the treatment of these people went from bad to worse before the ending of slavery. Connections between the pre-Civil War era and present day are so different while on the topic of African Americans, because conditions before the Civil War were beyond undesirable. Blacks went through more than we could imagine, and comparing how it has changed is very drastic. A great deal of proof is given about how these slaves were treated, and also many diaries have been written showing their lives over a course of time. According to the Diary of Clare Ingram, she states that the slaves were treated very badly without much food to keep them satisfied. Due to being chained up close together, exercising is something that Clare was deprived of along with many other slaves. She says that close to fifty slaves have been put on the ship, and if any more were to come on, it would be too cramped to do anything.1 This time frame is before the Civil War when slaves were very prominent. Barack Obama, whose family is also a black male from Africa, became President of the United States in 2008. This defied all odds against African Americans because from one point it was slavery, and now an African male is running our country. When Obama won the 44th presidential election, he shattered two hundred years of history.2 Obama stated that now America is where anything is possible, which is fact, because when Clare Ingram was a slave on that ship, she probably once thought that this stage of slavery would last a long time. Clare Ingram’s diary was dramatically correct in the sense that people would treat the slaves so bad that it came to the point of death for many. According to her diary, slaves weren’t given any water for days, and food wasn’t expected either.1 She states that the slaves would