Band of Angels Movie

The Band of Angels is a drama film about the Civil War romance between a landowner, a former slave runner, and a Southern belle was shocked to learn her mother was a slave upon her father's death. 

Band of Angels (1957)

Amanda Starr is a character in this movie who is described to be an attractive young, privileged women who lived in Kentucky before the Civil War. Her widower father was an extremely wealthy southern cotton plantation owner. Suddenly, her father dies, and Amanda feels her life has completely gone through loop due to the lies she later finds out about her father. Those lies consist of her father was living off of borrowed money and that her mother was a slave snd her father's mistress. Therefore, Amanda has been sold as property bought by a Louisiana plantation owner. She even attempts suicide when she realizes she will be put up for sale at auction. Even though she got bought from a wealthy gentlemen, she was introduced into a fine house with some unusual servants. 

Amanda Starr Band of Angels

This film actually had a lot of conflict due to people comparing this film with "Gone with the Wind." Band of Angels was proved to be a release failure, both commercially and critically. A lot of people tend to find "Gone with the Wind" a better film, and even gave Band of Angels a nickname. This nickname was, "The Ghost of Gone with the Wind." Now imagine the director of this film and how frustrated it is when he poured his heart and soul into his move production just for it to get shade from others. Obviously with every movie, everyone always has something negative to say and the director knew that. However, this just seemed to be out of control. I personally agree with the public on Gone with the Wind being an overall better film. This is because I thought that movie had a better flow, and overall better cast and plot. 

Rate Clark Gable and Yvonne De Carlo in Band of Angels (1957)

Reflection post for the Trial/EOTO

My fellow classmates presented the reify victory into the concrete language of the law, anti-slavery leaders in Washington drafted the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments (the Reconstruction Amendments), and the states ratified them, they hoped, to put a final period on the end of the sentence.

The Reconstructive Amendments

I learned a lot about the fifteenth amendment. It was passed by congress on February 26, 1869 and was ultimately ratified on February 3, 1870. This granted African American men the right to finally vote. This was a step to equality on the rise after the 13th and 14th Amendments were passed. Even though African Americans legally had the right to vote, many Southern states took discriminatory actions to stop them from voting, such as literacy test, and poll taxes. The 15th amendment was supposed to be the last stop in Reconstruction on the Republican parties end. Although segregation followed, African Americans were finally starting to get a voice. The voting Rights Act of 1965 and then 24th Amendment passed laws against discrimination in these elections. In the end result, African Americans then began to serve in government in state and local offices, congress, and the senate. 

15th Amendment: Constitution and Voting Rights

The next thing I learned about was the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and 1875. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 protected all people in the United States and their civil rights to furnish the means of their vindication. This guaranteed basic economic rights to create contracts, sue, inherit, purchase lease, or own property. Lastly, it guaranteed citizens the right to engage in business and give evidence in court. 

The Civil Rights Act of 1866

Lastly, I learned the Civil Rights of Act of 1875. This act was designed to "protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights", providing for equal treatment in public accommodations and public transportation and prohibiting exclusion from jury service. This granted all Americans, regardless   of race, equal access to all public places. This included places like theaters, hotels, train stations, and restaurants. Another thing this act provided positively set a penalty for anyone who denied equal access for someone else because of race. This resulted in a $500, which was a very good amount of money given the time period. 

About the US Civil Rights Act of 1875

Plessy v. Ferguson (KEY POST for the Trial/EOTO)

In class, we held the Plessy versus Ferguson debate where slavery exploded into all-out civil war in 1861. I was on Plessy's side and argued he should be shown as not guilty. 

Plessy v. Ferguson

Homer Plessy was an American shoemaker and activist, best known as the plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court decision of Plessy versus Ferguson. He was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was a mixed-race man who boarded a train in the "whites only section" in Louisiana where it was against the law. He was arrested, went to court, and Ferguson argued that this was against the Constitution and Louisiana’s separate but equal accommodations for blacks and whites. At the time, there were many who agreed with Ferguson and argued that Plessy was guilty as he intentionally violated Louisiana law. 

No Internet, this is not Homer Plessy. But who is it?

Firstly, Plessy was half black and half white so therefore, why was he seen as a black man and not a white man? There was no specific law for mixed races, even the Louisiana law at the time did not apply to a mixed-race person. This implies that he should have never been arrested because the law did not apply to him. Secondly, Louisiana law implied blacks were inferior giving states the power to make laws that regulate a person’s health, safety, and morals. The Louisiana law gave police the power to determine if the law should be applied in whichever situation they think applies. Why does a state like Louisiana have the right to interpret the Constitution as they want if it is a federal law? Therefore, Louisiana or any other state should not give the right to interpret the Constitution as they like. Thirdly, the Constitution is color blind and does not recognize or distinguish social classes, so the Louisiana Law of “separate but equal” was unconstitutional.

These were the reasons to support the question on why Homer Plessy is not guilty. 

How Homer Plessy and Fellow Creole Activists Challenged Race Itself

Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854

The Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854 revoked the Missouri Compromise, created two new territories, and allowed for popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty basically means they allowed the settlers of a federal territory to decide the slavery question without interference from congress. It produced a violent uprising known as “Bleeding Kansas,” as proslavery and antislavery activists flooded into the territories to sway the vote.

The Kansas Nebraska Act 

By 1854 there were 15 slave states, and 19 free states. Kansas revealed it was a free statin January of 1861 only weeks after 8 southern states seceded from the union. 

Kansas Nebraska Act and part realignment

Senator of Stephen Douglas Illinois proposed a bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska, a vast area of land that would become Kansas, Nebraska, Montana, and the Dakotas. He believed the settlers of a territory should decide the slavery question without the opinions from the rest of the world. The bill raised the possibility that slavery could be extended into territories where it had once been banned. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act induced party realignment and violence, furthering the sectional divide that ultimately erupted in the Civil War. 

Kansas Nebraska Act History

The Frederick Douglas Game (What I learned)

The Frederick Douglas Game introduced me and my classmates to come together and discuss a growing end to slavery and rebuttals in defense of slavery were becoming angrier. In conclusion, this was Americas circa 1845. My other classmates that presented were the defenders of the Constitution which were against slavery and against the government ending it. 

In class during the Town Hall Meeting I gained a lot of knowledge on many different famous people about their opinions on slavery. I learned from one of my fellow classmates about Thomas Jefferson. Something new that I never l known before was that his slaves at the time were in specialized training. The adults would have to help in the house or on the farm, and the kids would have to work in the hailer. In his lifetime Jefferson owned more than 600 slaves. Something absolutely crazing is at one time he owned about 100 slaves that lived on the mountain, and the highest slave population in 1817 was 140. He was very close to almost breaking that record, which is not a good thing. 

A second famous person my fellow classmate presented was John Locke. He supported slavery only as a punishment for a terrible crime for which one’s life could be forfeit. Locke took part in administering the slave-owning colonies. His overall way of thinking on his opinion about slavery was that it is a basic form of human life. Locke expressed that he would be entitled to take his attacker’s liberty if a victim of an assault was entitled to take his life in self-defense.  

Lastly, the third person my fellow classmate educated me on was Samuel FB Morse. He had a strong belief that slavery is not a sin. He was well-known as an active defender of America’s institution of slavery. Samuel defended the institution of slavery without compromise as a part of God’s ordained plan that must not be opposed.