While reading Hopkins’ story and the poems by McKay, I started to wonder about the attitudes and mindsets of African Americans during these terrible times and situations. Many of them were contributing members of society (as much as they could be), and they were no longer enslaved, yet they were still treated as second class citizens and encountered so much hatred and torture. I am curious as to how they dealt with all for it and how they still had loyalty to America and other white citizens. I feel that if I were in the same situation, I would fins any way to get out or I would have a bitterness toward everyone. They were still willing to help other whit citizens and they wanted to stay in a place where people made it evident that they were not wanted. In Hopkins’ story, Stone was charged of a crime he didn’t commit, yet he was still willing to work hard and he even risked his life to save a train full of white citizens. He didn’t take out his feelings on people that didn’t deserve it and it was almost as if he pushed his terrible feelings to the back of his mind because he wanted to work for a better life. Also, in Mckay’s poems, many of them explore the idea of being unwanted and oppressed in the US, still loving it somehow. “Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!” (America, McKay) My guess as to how African Americans continued with their lives and did not have hateful attitudes was just that they had extreme hope for change in the future and that maybe they could lead by example somewhat “kill them with kindness.” Also, they might have just felt stuck in the middle of two identities because they lived in the US, but weren’t really citizens, yet they couldn’t really go back to their home of origin because they felt like outsiders in Africa too.
I also found myself getting caught up in the hardships these freed slaves must have been put through. It seemed connected to the racial division of "the Wife of my Youth" as well, how the mulattos almost left behind the freed slaves of darker completions and could have replaced the suppression of the white man. But i understand how the slaves were able to keep on living and be civil towards other white citizens. Maybe understand is the wrong term, because i could never understand what they went through, but i can relate to. The freed slaves had a drive to prove themselves to the larger population and probably even to themselves. By showing that they can continue to live and try to improve their lives while not continuing the dispute between the races. In a nation that has treated them so terribly and people who has taken advantage of them, it speaks highly on the character of the slaves who pressed on. I think this might be due to that is the only way of life that they know. Their entire lives they have had to fight for what we today consider inalienable rights. Food, clothes, and even who they could love were not options they had any control over. After being free, choosing to keep on living seems so simple compared to the hardships that they had gone through. Now they are faced with choices of education, where to get employed, and even social activities held a whole new position in their lives. These slaves who had been through so much and survived things that other civilians could not even imagine were now free to make any choices they found fit. I can imagine that this freedom might even had been overwhelming. Their entire lives they had just followed orders and done what their masters had told them. Like being shoved out into a bright light after being in a dark tunnel and unable to see, a person will fall back on what they know. I think along with the freedom to actually live and a slight mixture of being afraid of the possibilities, these slaves lived this way that seems almost angelic to us. Today if i had ever been treated like them and fretted and given choices i too would think i would be bitter and think all of those who mistreated me didn't deserve what they have. But looking deeper into these slaves situations, i can relate to how they lived after the hardships were over.
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