In class we read two selections from two books. One was Nightjohn By Gary Paulen. Nightjohn was a non-fictional story based on times before the civil rights movement when African Americans were still slaves working on plantations. The chapter we read in class went over the topic of how African Americans werent gained access to books so they couldnt learn how to read or write. They also werent allowed to know math. So basically they werent allowed to know any better so they wouldnt know any better way of living. They were treated like animals. They ate out of troughs. They werent provided light, werent given good clothing. Where they stayed in the sanitation levels were low. A girl named Alice was used for breeding until one day she went crazy and escaped and was later beaten by her master. One man named Jim tried to read and was killed by dogs.
Another book we read was Mascot, which was about Malcolm X. The part we read was about Malcolm in his younger adolescent years. He was sent to a reformatory school and had to get his learning there. He grew up to become a smart kid. He also learned that you could defend yourself with violence if necessary. He lived with a white family that took him in and accepted him as one of their own.
The movie The Great Debators is similar to the books we read in class because it showed that African americans werent allowed the same education as whites, they were lynched for innapproriate reasons, segrigation, racism etc. It was different also from the time setting. Negros were granted a little more freedom.
