Heat of The Night Reflection

 After watching the movie In the Heat of The Night in my Talk About Freedom class at High Point University my eyes were opened to how white males acted in the south. 

At the start of the movie we watch as a police officer is driving past a house and sees a woman nude in the windowsill. From here he drives into the town where he finds a dead body of a wealthy Industry owner from the town. The police officer checks the body and finds nothing but knows who the man is.

Quickly after the same police officer goes looking for suspects, he comes across a black man named Virgil. When he roughs him up Virgil turns over his wallet where Sam finds a wallet that is full of money. With the common southern proception that black people could not succeed like that in the south Sam brings him into the police office.

This is where our first understanding of how the Southern man thinks is portrayed in the film. It was a very common trend through the movie when Virgil was places thought he movie the way he dressed, the way he talked, and the way he acted was completely opposite to how white people wanted him to. Therefore through the film we constantly see common white males of the town call him slurs, limit him from entering places, and refuse serving him.

Once Virgil is brought down to the station he is questioned by the chief who we see right away is not qualified for the job of solving a murder. Virgil is calm and quite because he knows the truth, HE'S A COP! When he calls his CO from back up north he is struck with brutal news, he has to stay down in the south and help solve this murder case. 

This is where the second male thought portrayal occurs, this one being white superiority. Virgil is completely over qualified homicide detective from Philadelphia but when he tries to take proper detective measures he is meet with resistance at every turn. 

First with the medical examiner when he wants to use proper precautionary measure of washing his hands. The cornier and another man look at him like he is crazy and says its out in the lobby. After that when he asks for a thermometer ETC to figure out when the mans time of death was he is once again meet with resistance. 

Next Virgil is at a plantation where the man owning it is a share-cropper. When he enters the nursery Chief is very hesitant as he is a black man talking to a wealthy plantation owner in the south. There are a few awkward interactions and then at the end when Virgil presses into this wealthy man the man slaps Virgil, without hesitation Virgil slaps him right back in the face. The plantation owner quickly with an astonished face turns to chief and says did you see what he just did to me. 

After this interaction Virgil, and Chief go back, the middle of the movie seemed kind of slow to me but at the end it ramped back up again. An important character is a chef at the dinner where Sam went to visit every night. When Virgil went in there the man refused to serve him food. At the end of the movie when Virgil figures out the real killer is him because he needed money the end scene is unforgettable.

Sam has a band of whites he has riled up from the town with guns to his face and he puts the whole thing together. Yet the still don't seem to believe him, begging for his life Virgil tells them to check a purse and check a pocket for money. When it is prove true the white mob turns on each other quickly but this is my final point in closing.

Even when Virgil was begging for his life, there was still a disconnect between white and black. They really didn't believe him at all! after all of that they were going to kill him because of his skin tone in the mid 1960's! I will leave you with one final point in writing all of this my parents were born in 1969, the biggest thing this film helped me realize is that America's dark history in rooted racism and segrigation are not that far behind us.

Sharecropping Video Reaction

                                                                          

When the Civil War ended, approximately four million formerly enslaved people gained their freedom. However, the promise of liberty quickly transformed into a different form of bondage—sharecropping, a system many historians consider "slavery under another name."

In the aftermath of the war, landowners across the South divided their plantations into smaller plots of 20-50 acres. Freedmen and their families were offered the opportunity to work these parcels in exchange for a share of the crops they produced. On the surface, this arrangement seemed reasonable, even beneficial. In reality, it became a new mechanism of exploitation and control.

The terms of sharecropping were deliberately oppressive. Families who labored in the fields from sunup to sundown were forced to surrender half or more of their harvest to landowners. Even more insidious, sharecroppers were required to purchase seeds, tools, and supplies from specific stores, often owned by the landowners themselves. These stores charged exorbitant prices and extended credit at predatory rates. By harvest time, most sharecropping families found themselves deeper in debt than when the season began, trapped in an endless cycle of poverty.

President Andrew Johnson's decision to return confiscated Confederate land to white owners sealed the fate of millions. By the end of Reconstruction, only 30,000 African Americans owned land—a mere fraction of the formerly enslaved population. The dream of "forty acres and a mule" evaporated, replaced by economic subjugation.

Those who dared to challenge this system faced swift and brutal consequences. Intimidation, violence, and death awaited anyone who questioned the arrangement or attempted to leave. White supremacy maintained its stranglehold on the South through terror and economic coercion.

The sharecropping system persisted for nearly eight decades, finally ending after World War II. However, its legacy endures. The racial wealth disparities we observe today trace their roots directly to this period when African Americans were systematically denied the opportunity to accumulate land, wealth, and economic independence.

Sharecropping was not merely an economic system—it was a deliberate re-branding of slavery. Different chains, perhaps, but chains nonetheless. It perpetuated debt, exploitation, and white supremacy throughout the South, ensuring that freedom remained largely symbolic for millions of Black Americans. Understanding this history is essential to comprehending the persistent inequalities that continue to shape American society.

Reconstruction failures- Mother Emanual Massacre

 On June 17th, 2015, a gunman opened fire inside Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina, after praying alongside its Black congregants. Driven by racist hatred, he murdered nine people in cold blood. To understand this tragedy, we must look back to Reconstruction—the failed promise that shaped centuries of racial violence.

A Moment of Unprecedented Hope

In the summer of 1862, thousands of enslaved people found safe haven with Union forces, strengthening the military effort and transforming the war's meaning. When the Civil War ended, the federal government faced monumental questions: How would the nation reunite? What would become of four million formerly enslaved people? Who qualified as a citizen, and what rights did citizenship entail?

For a brief moment, remarkable progress seemed possible. Black Americans sat in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Families torn apart by slavery desperately searched for each other, placing newspaper ads and literally walking roads looking for loved ones. The Freedmen's Bureau was established to help this transition from slavery to freedom, ensuring fair treatment in local courts and labor relations. With over 850,000 acres of land available, the "40 Acres and a Mule" initiative offered a blueprint for real economic independence.

The Betrayal

Then came Andrew Johnson. Hours after Lincoln's assassination on Good Friday, this Southern-born vice president was sworn in at a Pennsylvania hotel. Though he hated the planter class, Johnson's reconstruction plan ultimately served white Southerners. Wealthy rebels received pardons if they personally appealed to him. By summer's end in 1868, they were back—voting, making laws, reclaiming power.

Most devastatingly, Johnson ordered land returned to pardoned Southerners. Black families were forced to work the same land for the same owners who had enslaved them. America had a chance to make amends for centuries of enslavement and failed to take it.

The Violent Backlash

White Southerners refused to accept four million Black people integrating into society. In 1866, a Richmond journalist published "The Lost Cause," framing the Confederacy as noble protectors of Southern society against Northern aggression. This mythology gave devastated communities something to cling to—a belief their cause had been just.

Mississippi passed "Black Codes" designed to maintain slavery in all but name. Vagrancy laws required Black people to sign yearly labor contracts with white employers or face fines and forced labor. Children could be stolen from parents deemed unable to care for them.

The KKK emerged in Tennessee, functioning essentially as slave patrols. Black people who owned land, sent children to school, or simply existed while white neighbors struggled were attacked, run off their property, or killed. Every Black church and school was burned or destroyed. In New Orleans, a white mob killed 40 people. When the 39th Congress reconvened, they skipped over Southern state representatives entirely—not a single name from rebel states was called.

The Long Shadow

Though new Southern governments eventually ratified the 14th Amendment, and Black Americans briefly achieved remarkable political integration, white resistance never ceased. Jim Crow laws codified the violence into legal segregation.

The line from Reconstruction's failure to Mother Emanuel is direct. The same hatred that burned churches in the 1860s murdered worshippers in 2015. Understanding this history isn't about dwelling on the past—it's about recognizing how abandoned promises and unpunished violence created patterns that persist today.

AI Disclosure: After taking notes in Class over a video talking about how the Mother Emanual Massacre could be traced all the way back to the failures of reconstruction, I had AI expand on notes I took during the video to create the blog post you just read Enjoy!

The legacy of lynching: American Terrorism

 The history of lynching in America represents one of the darkest chapters in our nation's past, yet it remains essential to understanding the roots of contemporary racial inequalities. Between 1877 and 1950, over 4,400 Black Americans were killed by mob violence in a systematic campaign of terror designed to maintain white supremacy in the post-Civil War South.

The Promise and Betrayal of Reconstruction

To understand how lynching became so prevalent, we must first look at the Reconstruction era. From 1865 to 1877, the federal government attempted to integrate formerly enslaved people into American civic life. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments abolished slavery, established citizenship, and protected voting rights. This period saw remarkable progress: approximately 2,000 Black Americans held public office, including 16 members of Congress. Black literacy rates tripled from 10% to 30%, and land ownership expanded as families built farms and businesses.

However, when federal troops withdrew from the South in 1877, white Southerners systematically dismantled these gains. Lynching emerged as their primary weapon.

The Scale of Terror

The numbers are staggering. At least 4,084 documented lynching's occurred in twelve Southern states alone, with Mississippi recording 581, Georgia 531, and Texas 493. The 1890s saw the highest frequency, averaging 161 lynching's per year. These figures represent only recorded cases—many killings in isolated areas went undocumented, meaning the true toll is likely much higher.

The alleged offenses varied widely. While some victims faced accusations of serious crimes, many were killed for minor social violations or simply being too economically successful. Historical records reveal that accusations were frequently fabricated or unproven. Victims never received trials, legal representation, or any form of due process.

Public Spectacles of Violence 

Lynching's weren't hidden crimes—they were performative acts of terrorism. Many attracted crowds of hundreds or thousands, sometimes announced in advance through newspapers. Photographs of these killings were sold as postcards well into the 1930s, revealing how socially acceptable this violence was considered.

The complicity of legal institutions compounds this horror. Law enforcement officers were present at roughly 10% of documented lynching's, with sheriffs often handing prisoners to mobs or refusing protection. Between 1900 and 1950, lynch mob participants were prosecuted in less than 1% of cases.

Lasting Impact

The effects extended far beyond individual victims. Lynching enforced Jim Crow laws and crushed Black political participation. In Louisiana, Black voter registration plummeted from 130,334 in 1896 to just 1,342 by 1904. Prosperous Black farmers and business owners were disproportionately targeted, their property frequently stolen afterward.

This terror directly caused the Great Migration. Between 1916 and 1970, approximately six million Black Americans fled the South for Northern, Midwestern, and Western cities, fundamentally reshaping American demographics and labor markets.

The Long Road to Justice

The legal response took an extraordinarily long time. Between 1882 and 2022, over 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress. Despite passing the House multiple times, Southern senators repeatedly blocked them through filibuster. Federal anti-lynching legislation didn't become law until March 2022—140 years later—when the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act finally designated lynching as a federal hate crime.

Why This History Matters Today

Understanding lynching isn't merely an academic exercise. Current research reveals connections between historical lynching rates and present-day disparities in wealth, education, and incarceration. The trauma experienced by these communities has been transmitted across generations.

This history explains how systematic violence created demographic patterns, economic inequalities, and institutional practices that continue shaping modern America. Recognizing these connections is crucial for addressing the racial disparities we still face today. Only by confronting this painful past honestly can we work toward a more equitable future.

AI Disclosure: After giving a 3 minute speech in class about the History of Lynching in the deep south. I had AI pull key points and facts that I presented in class, and turned them into the blog post you are reading now.