My Great-Grandma In WWII

I talked to Great Grandma Mary about her life during WWII many, many times over the course of my life. She was 15 when the war started, and her father, uncle, and two brothers were sent to various places overseas, most of them being highly top secret. She always shivered when I asked about Pearl Harbor, and the news that began to fly. She was told by her dad right after breakfast, because he was due to ship out days later. Our entire family was petrified, because after the bombing there, the Japanese, to civilians, seemed like an unstoppable force. Most families around them had men leaving to fight, and many of the women were frustrated, because they had no idea where they were going, or when they'd be back.
After the men departed, life was rough, because of all the normal uncertainies of wartime life, along with many women going off to work in order to support their families. My Great-Great-Grandma was a nurse for the Red Cross. My Great-Grandma used to say all the time "After the depression, it was a strange feeling to be suddenly dropped into another World War...my father always spoke of how he was so proud to be a part of such a great country, that can band together so rapidly adter so long of being almost ripped apart."
She didn't remember much about the 20s, so I always felt kind bad, that so much of her early life was in the midst of depression and war.

The New Deal and Black Women

I couldn't call this blog "The New Deals Impact on Black Women" because it didn't really have any! The only jobs avaliable to them were 'pink-collar' jobs in the south, that were mostly dangerous postitions, and paid very little money. Sure, there were plenty of groups geared towards helping Americans get jobs, like the CCC, but they only helped young, white men. As if the lack of aid towards jobs wasn't enough, FDR refused to pass an anti-lynching law, making our social life just as hard, if not harder, than the working life for us. Not to be forgotten, however, are Eleanor Roosevelt, Harold Ickes, Aubrey Williams, and John Flores Sr., who worked to gain blacks at least 10% of welfare payments, which was better than nothing. As an overall "impact" though, it was very slight, and could hardly be considered an impact at all.

Reconstruction

I see reconstuction as a failure. Yes, it helped put the country back together, and yes, it gained black's 'rights' but in the same aspect, it helped the South come up with more ways to oppress blacks such as the KKK. Even with the additon of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, angry southerners found loop-hole ways to take away the rights of black living in the South.

Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson has been called everything from a "King" to the "Common Man", personally, I juist think he was a prick, for lack of a better term. This man wanted the respect of a 'king', but had the personality of a rowdy, bar fighter. He didn't seem to have a rhyme or reason for anything he did in order to gain revenge on people, not did he have a decent reason to want revenge in the first place.


I really wish I could say more about this, but simply put...I just don't like him.

Jeffersonian Era

During 1800-1850, Thomas Jefferson had a very strong vision for America, but this time period wasn't very consistant with his vision. Jefferson was very strong for the rural areas and farmers, and wanted the single states governments to be stronger than the federal government. Outside of his vision, the small-town farmer steadily declined in importance and the federal government had a growing importance over the smaller state governments.

Outside of this, his being the first president to strongly advocate universal education, hince his founding of the University of Virgina, was the only point of his vision that really worked out the way I think he saw it. Mostly because it's the only part of his vision to not only work out, but to work out so that it is still a very large part of our country.

The American Revolution: Radical?

I think that the American revolution was incredibly radical. In going against the King, and their mother country, which is pretty radical if you ask me. Things like the Boston Massacre, where the death of five people (who were taunting and harrasing british soldiers) was turned into...a massacre...... then there was the Boston tea party, where they went as far as to dress up as indians to dump tea into the Boston harbor. Those actions, to me, are the definition of radical actions.

Columbus Day

I definatly don't think we should celebrate Columbus Day. I don't see why we should celebrate the honor of a man, who did something he didn't even mean to do. How can you praise someone who did something accidently? The only good part of it at all, is that we get a day out of school for it :P