One thing that immediately struck my attention was the picture on page 128 of Daniel Trattles of the 19th Michigan Infantry after he was released from Belle Isle in Richmond. I think this really impacted me because of how deathly skinny he looks. By just looking at his shoulders and chest, I almost would not be able to guess he’s human because there’s just nothing there besides skin and bone. I never knew Belle Isle existed and it’s hard to believe that a prison like that existed in the US. I almost have this notion that yeah, things like this happen, and it’s awful but it seems so foreign, like it could never happen in America.

It also was crazy to read about the countless ways that people tried to continue suppressing black people after slavery was abolished. The school system especially focused entirely on targeting black people, expelling them from schools, and attempting to replace African-American school teachers with white teachers. Urban development was another way that white people attempted to continue to suppress black people. The text talks about the decision to extend 7th Street in Richmond so that it cut directly through Richmond’s historic black cemetery where many famous slaves were buried. Later on in the reading, chapter 8 talks about how highways were developed, splitting historically black communities and displacing residents who would eventually be reconcentrated back into public housing courts. It’s even crazier to think that all of this happened so recently.

The section about education and how white students were told a distorted, watered-down version of history was also interesting. The author talks about a specific textbook that was required for all 4th-grade students. This textbook spent two paragraphs out of 328 pages talking about slavery in the context of the Civil War. To top it all off, the textbook also says, “Some of the Negro servants left the plantation because they heard that President Lincoln was going to set them free. But most of the Negroes stayed on the plantations and went on with their work. Some of them risked their lives to protect the white people they loved,” (Campbell 147). This also reminded me of a conversation I had with one of my friends here at UR who grew up in Alabama. He said when he learned about the Civil War, it was referred to as “the succession of the North”. It’s unbelievable that to this day, we are trying to influence our youth through distorted views of history.