Prep Note 10/03/23

Chapters 4-6 went into more depth about slavery and how it became more and more race-based and biased against Africans in the US. My American Studies class just finished a section in which we were discussing similar topics, including the idea of a wake and how slavery may be ended but it still affects people. Within these chapters, stories have been employed as a way to emphasize the dark past of not only the US but also Richmond. As I write my prep note I am looking at the cover of the book in which Richmond is on Fire; over parents’ weekend my parents and I went into Richmond and when we were walking on a bridge, we noticed there were quotes of Confederate generals and Richmond citizens celebrating this destruction when they were forced to give up Richmond to the Union. I feel all these horrible stories act as a dark guide of how this all came to be and show how contrasting history is to the present, although history still seems to bleed through in some places.