Introduction
[efstabs class=”yourcustomclass”] [efstab title=”Metaphors of Slavery” active=”active”]A few times throughout the sermon, Elliott uses the language and metaphors of slavery to describe the state of the Confederacy. For example, Elliott constantly compares the Southern people to the biblical people enslaved under Pharaoh, and describes the South as needing to “break the chains of prejudice and calumny” and describes the Confederate cause “as one of the links in the chain of his Providence.”
What are we to make of such language? At the time and place Elliott was speaking, nearly four million people were themselves literally enslaved, having actual, material chains placed upon them. Was Elliott really so obtuse as to not see the irony of his using the language of slavery? What does Elliott’s appropriation of such language reveal about him as a speaker, or about the Confederacy as an idea?
In this section, you will find a variety of authors who also utilize the language of slavery to describe their own situations. Excerpts from Joshua McCarter Simpson and Harriet Jacobs, as well as images from the American Anti-Slavery Society, show the material realities of chains for many people in the South. Bringing in Elliott’s sermon in combination with these materials raises discussion questions of when, if, and by who the language of slavery can be used, and how we must always be thinking about the cultural and historical context in which such language exists.
“When we left the church, my father’s old mistress invited me to go home with her. She clasped a gold chain round my baby’s neck. I thanked her for this kindness; but I did not like the emblem. I wanted no chain to be fastened on my daughter, not even if its links were of gold. How earnestly I prayed that she might never feel the weight of slavery’s chain, whose iron entereth into the soul!”
Discussion
How does Jacobs draw a distinction between the material reality and religious symbolism of the gold chain and cross presented to her newly baptized baby?
My country, ’tis of thee,
Dark land of Slavery,
In thee we groan.
Long have our chains been worn—
Long has our grief been borne—
Our flesh has long been torn,
E’en from our bones.
The white man rules the day—
He bears despotic sway,
O’er all the land.
He wields the Tyrant’s rod,
Fearless of man or God,
And at his impious nod,
We “fall or stand.”
O! shall we longer bleed?
Is there no one to plead
The black man’s cause?
Does justice thus demand
That we shall wear the brand,
And raise not voice nor hand
Against such laws?
No! no! the time has come,
When we must not be dumb,
We must awake.
We now “Eight Millions Strong,”
Must strike sweet freedom’s song
And plead ourselves, our wrong—
Our chains must break.
Source: “Words for the Hour”: A New Anthology of American Civil War Poetry. Eds Faith Barrett and Cristanne Miller
Discussion
What does the breaking of chains mean for Simpson?
Why choose to set this poem to the tune of “My Country Tis’ of Thee”?
How is the relationship between chains and country different for Simpson and Elliott?
“No words could express more entirely our feelings upon this day of National Thanksgiving for an almost unparalleled victory, than these opening verses of the song which Moses and the children of Israel sang when God had delivered them from the cruel hands of Pharaoh. They embody all the ideas which are most appropriate to an occasion like this, and indicate all the acts which we should be glad to perform out of gratitude for so glorious a triumph.”
“We truly believed that our cause was his cause; that we were defending a condition of society which He had established as one of the links in the chain of his Providence, and that we should be successful, not because of any merits or righteousness of our own—for God knows that we have sins enough to bring upon us any chastisement—but because we were instruments in his hands for the fulfillment of an important part of the economy of his grace.”
“Even while we were guiding the Union by our statesmanship and illustrating it by our valor—even while we were giving it its Presidents, its Generals, its Admirals—even while we were furnishing it by our well-directed and well-managed labor with its great staple of exchange, we were permitting the North to take all the credit of advancement to itself, to absorb, into its great centres of commerce, wealth, literature, science, fashion, and to call it all its own, no matter whence it came or whose rain or pocket produced it, and to persuade even ourselves that we were a helpless race, who were dependent upon it for all we were and all we might hope to be.”
“A defeat would have riveted upon us all this false opinion and false character, and it would have
required many fields of blood to break the chains of prejudice and calumny, and would have produced upon ourselves an effect which might have hung, for long years, as a crushing weight upon all our efforts.”
“The effects of this victory will be, for the present, more moral than material. For the moment, it will
only exasperate the North and spur the leaders on from wounded vanity to redouble their exertions. But it will be as a leaven working among the people, and teaching them, slowly but surely, how hopeless is the task of subjugation which they have taken in hand.”
The Battle of First Manassas, or the Battle of Bull Run, was the first major battle of the Civil War, and even though the Confederacy won the battle, both sides suffered significant losses and realized this war would not be resolved so quickly. Elliott, however, claims that men who died for the Confederacy, these “noble spirits,” should be honored and revered, as “Others may die upon the battle-field, but none can die so gloriously as they! Others may rise up and be baptized for the dead, but none can ever supplant her first martyrs in the admiration of their countrymen.” Elliott himself, however, did not experience battle.
How should we read Elliott’s descriptions of war? What effect did he intend to have with these descriptions, and what emotions or ideas did he mean to invoke?
In the attached readings, Emily Dickinson strikes a much different note when thinking about the young men who have died during the Civil War, and Stephen Crane provides a first person description of battle, which reads much differently than Elliott’s celebration. Bringing in Elliott’s sermon in combination with these materials raises questions over the formation and purpose of nationalist war rhetoric, and what the broader function of such rhetoric is intended to be.
It feels a shame to be Alive –
When Men so brave – are dead –
One envies the Distinguished Dust –
Permitted – such a Head –
The Stone – that tells defending Whom
This Spartan put away
What little of Him we – possessed
In Pawn for Liberty –
The price is great – Sublimely paid –
Do we deserve – a Thing –
That lives – like Dollars – must be piled
Before we may obtain?
Are we that wait – sufficient worth –
That such Enormous Pearl
As life – dissolved be – for Us –
In Battle’s – horrid Bowl?
It may be – a Renown to live –
I think the Men who die –
Those unsustained – Saviors –
Present Divinity –
Discussion
Though not directly mentioning the war, this poem is typically read as Dickinson commenting writing about a frequent battle in the Civil War. How does Dickinson feel about the affect that the Civil War has, on both the men who fight and die in it and on the people left behind?
“He had, of course, dreamed of battles all his life—of vague and bloody conflicts that had thrilled him with their sweep and fire. In visions he has seen himself in many struggles. He had imagined peoples secure in this shadow of his eagle-eyed prowess. But awake he had regarded battles as crimson blotches on the pages of the past. He had put them as things of the bygone with his thought-images of heavy crowns and high castles. There was a portion of the world’s history which he had regarded as the time of wars, but it, he thought, had been long gone over the horizon and had disappeared forever.
From his home his youthful eyes had looked upon the war in his own country with distrust. It must be some sort of a play affair. He had long despaired of witnessing a Greeklike struggle. Such would be no more, he had said. Men were better, or more timid. Secular and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else firm finance held in check the passions.
He has burned several times to enlist. Tales of great movements shook the land. They might not be distinctly Homeric, but there seemed to be much glory in them. He had read of marches, sieges, conflicts, and he had longed to see it all. His busy mind had drawn for him large pictures extravagant in color, lurid with breathless deeds.
But his mother had discouraged him. She had affected to look with some contempt upon the quality of his war ardor and patriotism. She could calmly seat herself and with no apparent difficulty give him many hundreds of reasons why he was of vastly more importance on the farm than on the field of battle. She had had certain ways of expression that told him that her statements on the subject came from a deep conviction. Moreover, on her side, was his belief that her ethical motive in the argument was impregnable.
At last, however, he had made firm rebellion against this yellow light thrown upon the color of his ambitions. The newspapers, the gossip of the village, his own picturings, had aroused him to un uncheckable degree. They were in truth fighting finely down there. Almost every day the newspapers printed accounts of a decisive victory.
One night, as he lay in bed, the winds had carried to him the clangoring of the church bell as some enthusiast jerked the rope frantically to tell the twisted news of a great battle. This voice of the people rejoicing in the night had made him shiver in a prolonged ecstasy of excitement. Later, he had gone down to his mother’s room and had spoken thus: ‘Ma, I’m going to enlist.’
‘Henry, don’t you be a fool,’ his mother had replied. She had then covered her face with the quilt. There was an end to the matter for that night” (Crane 6-7).
“I don’t know what else to tell yeh, Henry, excepting that yeh must never do no shirking, child, on my account. If so be a time comes when yeh have to be kilt or do a mean thing, why, Henry, don’t think of anything ’cept what’s right, because there’s many a woman ahs to bear up ’ginst sech things these times, and the Lord ’ll take keer of us all’” (Crane 9).
Discussion
How does Crane imagine the war to be seen and experienced by the young men who fight in it? How do the young man’s thoughts of war influence his relationship with his mother? How does this depiction of a mother-son relationship differ from how Elliott presents the same relationship?
“Honor then to the noble spirits who have achieved this victory for us! Others may die upon the battle-field, but none can die so gloriously as they! Others may rise up and be baptized for the dead, but none can ever supplant her first martyrs in the admiration of their countrymen. Whatever illustrious deeds may be done in the future—whatever glorious victories may inspire hereafter new songs of thanksgiving and of praise, none can ever eclipse the fame of these deeds and of this victory. They will ever be the first who cast themselves before the insulted form of their mother and received in their young hearts the wounds that were intended for her; they will ever be the first who
gave their blood to wash out before the world the stains that had been slanderously cast upon her honor and her virtue; they will ever be the first who have offered up upon the altar of justice and of truth, a hecatomb of victims to soothe her insulted spirit. Boys many of them were in years, but lions in heart! They have died young, but they have lived long enough to gain an enviable place in history, to entwine their names with the independence and glory of the South. But, above all, honor to the noble spirit who led them to the battle-field; who, having taught them by his virtue, his integrity, his unspotted character, how to live, was now about to teach them how to die! Before he left his home, he wrapped the Confederate flag around him and said that it should be his winding sheet, and all through that bloody day he courted the fulfilment of his prophecy. Wherever the storm of war was
fiercest, there was he; wherever death was busiest in his bloody work, there raged he, the very impersonation of a hero. Even that cruel tyrant seemed loth to take away so grand a soul, and it was not until victory was about to perch upon his crest and snatch him from his grasp, that he struck the fatal blow! And when his gallant boys surrounded him, even while his tongue was faltering in death, he uttered words that will be as memorable as the battle-field—‘I am killed, but don’t give up the fight.’ Like NELSON, he died in the very arms of victory, and his blood, like the dragon’s teeth which were sown by CADMUS, sprang up armed men who hurled back the cruel invaders! Mourn for such a life and such a death as his was! We cannot mourn, and even his widowed mother should say with the noble ORMOND, ‘I would rather have my dead son, than any living son in Christendom.’”
“The more in detail that we receive the accounts of this victory; the more that the smoke clears away from the scene of slaughter and of triumph, the more clearly do we perceive that this is God’s victory. There are circumstances connected with it which mark His immediate interposition and which indicate a spiritual meaning too plain to be misunderstood. God has a purpose in every thing he does and He permits his children, when the event is over, when the blow has fallen, to read that purpose and to learn from it lessons which shall discipline the heart and regulate the conduct. Man learns but little so long as he is rushing forward in the pursuit of objects which fill in his eye and absorb his soul. It is only when some great stroke has descended upon him from God’s hand, that he is sufficiently sobered to consider his ways and to understand the dealings of the Lord. Such a stroke has come, like a bolt from Heaven, from the hand of the Almighty, filling the one army and the one nation with defeat and humiliation, and the other army and the other nation with sorrow and lamentation. He has smittin our enemies in their most tender and sensitive point,their invincible power, and he has taken from us the pride of our victory by giving it to us wrapped up in the funeral shroud of the brave and of the young.”
“The eyes of two nations are on them and the hearts of two people are throbbing responsive to every stroke. From morning until evening that dreadful battle raged, and all we yet know is, that our brave boys have made, upon the fatal field of Manassas, the name of Oglethorpe still more immortal; that our statesman hero has illustrated for all time his own beloved Georgia; that victory has perched upon our banners, and that defeat, shameful, overwhelming, almost inexplicable, has humbled to the dust the insolent myrmidons of a despotic democracy. God was evidently there, strengthening the hearts of our struggling soldiers and bringing the haughty down to the dust. Could the eyes of our fainting, dying children, have been opened that day to see spiritual things, I feel sure that they would have seen horses and chariots of fire riding upon the storm of battle, and making those that were for them, more than those that were against them ‘Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth sake.’”
Elliott sees the Confederacy’s victory in the battle as cause for celebration and Thanksgiving, as a great victory in need of “gratitude for so glorious a triumph.” And yet while Elliott maintains that “this conflict was not one of the ordinary and ever recurring struggles for independence, but that it wore many of the features of a sacred war,” Elliott’s version of the battle was not shared by the rest of the country, and is today remembered quite differently. The battle’s more popular name, the Battle of Bull Run, was how it was referred to by the Union Army, and how it is persists in our national and cultural memory.
What version of this battle does Elliott offer? In what ways are Elliott’s descriptions of the battle presented to serve some broader goal or purpose? Certainly, as a preacher Elliott wants to offer hope to his congregation, but what other feelings, thoughts, and beliefs is Elliott’s version of the battle meant to invoke for his audience?
In the attached materials, we see several different presentations of this battle. Herman Melville, “The March Into Virginia, Ending in the First Manassas,” laments not the fallen Confederate soldiers – as Elliott does – but rather the thoughts of heroism which spurns the young Union soldiers on to their deaths. The painting of the battle presents a nation being trampled into the dirt, a starkly different vision of the effects of the battle than the glory Elliott claims it to have brought for national pride. When read alongside Elliott’s sermon, these materials highlight the ways that history itself is crafted to present a specific narrative, and to achieve certain results.
The March into Virginia,
Ending in the First Manassas.
(July, 1861.)
Did all the lets and bars appear
To every just or larger end,
Whence should come the trust and cheer?
Youth must its ignorant impulse lend—
Age finds place in the rear.
All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys,
The champions and enthusiasts of the state:
Turbid ardors and vain joys
Not barrenly abate—
Stimulants to the power mature,
Preparatives of fate.
Who here forecasteth the event?
What heart but spurns at precedent
And warnings of the wise,
Contemned foreclosures of surprise?
The banners play, the bugles call,
The air is blue and prodigal.
No berrying party, pleasure-wooed,
No picnic party in the May,
Ever went less loth than they
Into that leafy neighborhood.
In Bacchic glee they file toward Fate,
Moloch’s uninitiate;
Expectancy, and glad surmise
Of battle’s unknown mysteries.
All they feel is this: ’tis glory,
A rapture sharp, though transitory,
Yet lasting in belaureled story.
So they gayly go to fight,
Chatting left and laughing right.
But some who this blithe mood present,
As on in lightsome files they fare,
Shall die experienced ere three days are spent—
Perish, enlightened by the vollied glare;
Or shame survive, and, like to adamant,
The throe of Second Manassas share.
“We maintained that this conflict was not one of the ordinary and ever recurring struggles for independence, but that it wore many of the features of a sacred war, involving in its issues not human rights only, but sound religion, and the maintenance of the truth in philosophy, in morals and in government. It has been forced upon us most unwillingly and we had been compelled to break many long cherished associations and to crush many of our noblest feelings, ere we would engage in it. As it went on, we had perceived, more and more clearly, its necessity and its righteousness, and such wonderful manifestations of God’s presence with us had accompanied it, that we felt satisfied he was acting as our counsellor and leader. If any doubt remained upon the mind of any man—if any faithlessness still lingered around the heart and the spirit—God has now so signally displayed himself to our wondering eyes, that the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night was not more plain to the children of Israel. Putting man altogether aside, truly may we sing to-day the song of Moses—“He hath triumphed gloriously; the horse And his rider hath He thrown into the sea.”
“The more in detail that we receive the accounts of this victory; the more that the smoke clears away from the scene of slaughter and of triumph, the more clearly do we perceive that this is God’s victory.”
“Such a stroke has come, like a bolt from Heaven, from the hand of the Almighty, filling the one army and the one nation with defeat and humiliation, and the other army and the other nation with sorrow and lamentation. He has smittin our enemies in their most tender and sensitive point,their invincible power, and he has taken from us the pride of our victoy by giving it to us wrapped up in the funeral shroud of the brave and of the young.”
Several times throughout the sermon, Elliott describes the battle as part of a “sacred war,” and claims that the victory is proof that God is on the side of the Confederacy. Elliott says that “The victory is . . . an answer to prayer, and . . . [that] we can yet see enough in its circumstances to satisfy us of the presence of God.”
What function does the usage of religion serve in this sermon? Certainly, Elliott is a preacher, and this is a sermon, but how does Elliott selectively use religion so as to justify his own position?
In the attached readings, we see other authors of the antebellum era discussing religion for their own purposes. In the excerpts from Frederick Douglass, Douglass is critical of the particular type of religion Elliott invokes. Julia Ward Howe, in “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” shows the ways that members of the Union Army portrayed their cause as sacred and sanctioned by God, a contrast to Elliott’s sermon. Mark Twain, in “The War Prayer,” illustrates the ways religion is used in war to justify one’s own position, and questions whether or not God can really take sides in a war. Bringing in Elliott’s sermon in combination with these materials raises questions over the role, purpose, and function of religion in times of war.
“Dark and terrible as is this picture, I hold it to be strictly true of all the overwhelming mass of professed Christians in America. They strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Could any thing be more true of our churches? They would be shocked at the proposition of fellowshipping a sheep-stealer; and at the same time they hug to their communion a man-stealer, and brand me with being an infidel, if I find fault with them for it. They attend with Pharisaical strictness to the outward forms of religion, and at the same time neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. They are always ready to sacrifice, but seldom show mercy. They are they who are represented as professing to love God whom they have not seen, whilst they hate their brother whom they have seen. They love the heathen on the other side of the globe. They can pray for him, pay money to have the Bible put into his hand, and missionaries to instruct him; while they despise and totally neglect the heathen at their own doors.
Such is, very briefly, my view of the religion of this land; and to avoid any misunderstanding, growing out of the use of general terms, I mean, by the religion of this land, that which is revealed in the words, deeds, and actions, of those bodies, north and south, calling themselves Christian churches, and yet in union with slaveholders. It is against religion, as presented by these bodies, that I have felt it my duty to testify.”
Discussion
Why does Douglass take issue with the religion that men like Elliott preach? How would Douglass respond to Elliott’s sermon? Are there particular parts of Elliott’s sermon that this excerpt from Douglass speaks to?
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps.
His Day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.”
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat:
Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
Discussion
How does Howe, a Northerner, present the relationship between God and the Union Army? In what ways is the relationship Howe presents between God and the Union army similar to how Elliott presents the relationship between God and the Confederate army? in what ways is it different?
“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two – one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of His Who hearth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this – keep it in mind. If you beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
“You have heard your servant’s prayer – the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by God to put into words the other part of it – that part which the pastor, and also you in your hearts, fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory – must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.” ‘
Discussion
How does Twain complicate the idea that God takes sides during a war? How does what Twain point out challenge the support Elliott proclaims God has for the Confederacy in his sermon?
“The victory is, we firmly believe, an answer to prayer, and while we would detract nothing from the skill of our leaders or the bravery of our troops, which are the secondary causes of success, we can yet see enough in its circumstances to satisfy us of the presence of God. Let us not lose this vast advantage, but crushing the pride of human nature, let us lay all the glory at the feet of Jesus and acknowledge him to be our Saviour and mighty deliverer.”
“A little more than a month since, and the people of the Confederate States humbled themselves before God and mingled together, as became a nation who had received mercies which were altogether undeserved, thanksgiving and humiliation. We then prayed, as a nation, that God would accept our confessions, would hear our supplications, and would continue towards us His merciful favor and protection. We truly believed that our cause was his cause; that we were defending a condition of society which He had established as one of the links in the chain of his Providence, and that we should be successful, not because of any merits or righteousness of our own—for God knows that we have sins enough to bring upon us any chastisement—but because we were instruments in his hands for the fulfillment of an important part of the economy of his grace. We maintained that this conflict was not one of the ordinary and ever recurring struggles for independence, but that it wore many of the features of a sacred war, involving in its issues not human rights only, but sound religion, and the maintenance of the truth in philosophy, in morals
and in government. It has been forced upon us most unwillingly and we had been compelled to break many long cherished associations and to crush many of our noblest feelings, ere we would engage in it. As it went on, we had perceived, more and more clearly, its necessity and its righteousness, and such wonderful manifestations of God’s presence with us had accompanied it, that we felt satisfied he was acting as our counsellor and leader. If any doubt remained upon the mind of any man—if any faithlessness still lingered around the heart and the spirit—God has now so signally displayed himself to our wondering eyes, that the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night was not more plain to the children of Israel. Putting man altogether aside, truly may we sing to-day the song of Moses—“He hath triumphed gloriously; the horse And his rider hath He thrown into the sea.”
“The Church of Christ, my beloved hearers, is his habitation upon earth, and we call upon you this day to prepare it for the presence of the Lord. It is always your duty and now it should be your delight. In this crisis of our national history, there is no element of society which is so important as the Church. It wields the most powerful instruments for good or for evil at a moment like this. It carries the prayers of the people to the mercy seat of Christ, and brings back blessings upon its wings—it guides the sentiments of the people in the channels of duty and of devotion—it works upon conscience, upon heart, upon spirit—it sends the soldier to the battle inspired with more than animal courage, and it ministers comfort to those who remain behind to endure the terrible anxiety of suspense, and to bear the misery of the heart’s desolation.”
Student responses:
“If we don’t acknowledge [slavery], that this is part of our history, if we don’t read this literature, and we aren’t educated on the problems and where they come from, we will never be able to make progress as a society in general.”
“We often want to overlook the fact that a lot of human behavior is social conditioning. We’re not inherently born with these ideas of right and wrong; we’re conditioned to learn what those are. A lot of times [people] try to strip the ideology from an institution in history so they can implement it again.”
“[These texts] need to be taught and read [in] an atmosphere that looks at the implications of slavery and its environment and consequences.”