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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, abridged. Ready? Go.
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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, abridged. Ready? Go.
Transcript
- 00:04
Incidents in the life of a slave girl outline time, alright..
- 00:23
where the story of Harriet Jacobs took place Harry Jacobs was a slave born in
- 00:27
North Carolina in 1813 she didn't know that she was a slave until she was six [Facts about Harriet Jacobs]
- 00:32
years old and her mama died so at least she was spared knowing how truly awful
- 00:36
her situation was even after learning her plight in life Harriet's mistress
Full Transcript
- 00:40
Margaret Horniblow was pretty cool she taught Harriet how to read and so they
- 00:44
got along just like peas and carrots but since all good things must end [Margaret's gravestone appears]
- 00:49
Margaret passed away when Harriet was 11... in her will Margaret gave Harriet to her
- 00:53
niece remember slaves were considered personal property to their owners who
- 00:57
was only three years old at the time awkward since baby niece Mary Norcom
- 01:03
was still learning her ABCs and being potty trained, her dad Dr. James Norcom [Dr James appears with Harriet]
- 01:07
became Harriet's master run Harriet run seriously if she had known what life was
- 01:13
going to be like Harriet might have strapped on her Nikes and taken off into
- 01:16
the sunset of course that wasn't really an option so she belonged to the nor [Harriet runs into James''s path]
- 01:20
comes and had to hang out and do what they wanted her to do the next 17 years
- 01:25
of Harriet's life sucked bad it wasn't bad enough being a slave Dr Norcom made
- 01:30
Harriet his sex slave too..This began when Harriet was in her mid-teens and even
- 01:35
though she came up with and executed a plan to stop Dr. Norcom's unwelcome
- 01:39
advances he kept right on pursuing her Harriet found a friend and consensual
- 01:44
partner and lawyer Samuel Treadwell Sawyer and they got down to the business [Harriet jumps on Samuel]
- 01:48
of making babies Harriet thought this would make Norcom so mad that he'd sell
- 01:52
her and the children she bore not so fast Harriet, Dr. Norcom wasn't happy
- 01:57
about this baby making business but kept Harriet around anyway since she was his [Norcom orders Harriet into the house]
- 02:01
slave, Norcom adopted the two young-uns as his own property too after all two
- 02:06
more able-bodied youngsters make great plantation workers
- 02:10
Harriet wasn't having it, Sawyer the lawyer purchased the kids and Harriet
- 02:14
escaped but it wasn't exactly to freedom she found a hiding spot in a crawlspace [Harriet walking up the stairs]
- 02:17
in her grandmother's house where she lived among rats and filth for the next
- 02:21
seven years can you imagine seven years of confinement with only a Bible and
- 02:27
some stray rodents to keep you company sounds like someone should write a book
- 02:30
about this experience anywho Harriet chose the crawl space because she could
- 02:35
keep an eye on her kids who were living there without the evil doctor Norcom [Harriet in the attic and kids playing]
- 02:38
knowing where she was, nice going Harriet...in 1842 Harriet was able to hop aboard a
- 02:44
boat headed north and sailed off to find true freedom friends in Philly took her
- 02:48
in then she got worked as a nurse maid for some nice folks who treated her well
- 02:52
Harriet even met up with her daughter Louisa, reunited and it feels so good [Harriet with Louisa]
- 02:57
with the encouragement of friends Harriet decided to put her life story
- 03:00
down on paper it wasn't easy but Harriet was able to make it happen incidents in
- 03:05
the life of a slave girl hmm what does this title make you think about A) a
- 03:10
bunch of parties a slave girl had during her lifetime. B) a very specific exact
- 03:14
tale of one girl who lived through the horrors of slavery..C) any young woman
- 03:18
who lived in slavery anywhere and at any time while none of these explanations
- 03:22
might be spot on Jacobs chose this vague title to leave the story open to
- 03:27
personal interpretation by the reader her audience was white Christian
- 03:31
northern women's who upheld the cult of domesticity above all else Harriet knew
- 03:36
these things were super important to the women around her so she shaped her book
- 03:39
to focus on how slave women were denied the right to everything involved with [Statue of liberty discussing Harriet's book]
- 03:43
the cult of womanhood slave women weren't allowed to access to Christian
- 03:48
education a happy home or a right to raise a family like other women could
- 03:52
Harriet also admitted that she used her sexuality as a way to gain her freedom [Dr Norcom sleeping]
- 03:56
which was definitely not something that the members of the cult would get down
- 04:00
with she also said the traditional ideals women were supposed to meet
- 04:03
didn't make sense to apply them to slave women and she used her book to
- 04:08
demonstrate just that we hyped up the incidents of life of a slave girl so
- 04:12
much we just know you're itchin to read and talk about some specific passages so
- 04:16
let's get to it... I had not lived 14 years in slavery for nothing I had felt seen and
- 04:23
heard enough to read the characters and question the motives of those around me
- 04:27
the war of my life had begun and the one of God's most powerless creatures I
- 04:32
resolved never to be conquered... take a moment and let that one sink in okay
- 04:38
moments over this quote comes from Chapter four we chose it because it [Norcom holding Harriet]
- 04:42
shows the great maturity and bravery Linda / Harriet had to show even though
- 04:46
she was barely a teenager most kids her age are playing video games and hanging [Boys playing on their smartphones]
- 04:50
out at the mall not Harriet she's ready to take on the world the next passage we
- 04:55
pick has to do with race... if God has the stowed beauty upon her it will prove her
- 05:00
greatest curse that which commands admiration in the white woman only
- 05:04
hastens the degradation of the female slave death was already almost
- 05:08
preferable to what male slaves had to go through but women who were slaves got
- 05:13
served with a double whammy slavery turns everything upside down even the [Harriet upside down on playground bars]
- 05:18
value of being pretty beautiful slave girls are more likely to be victimized
- 05:22
Harriet Jacobs did her best to show what real life was like for a woman born into
- 05:27
slavery it wasn't always pretty but reporting on the truth seldom is...Next up
- 05:31
let's examine a passage from the preface of incidents I do earnestly desire to
- 05:37
arouse the women in the north to a realizing sense of the condition of two
- 05:41
millions of women at the cell still in bondage suffering what I suffered and
- 05:45
most of them far worse... any guesses on what theme we're talking about here
- 05:50
Harriet opened her book by pleading with northern women her audience to listen to [Harriet protesting for people to listen to her story]
- 05:54
her story she wanted him to feel it was one worth telling she might have caught
- 05:59
their attention too if this little thing called a civil war hadn't happened as
- 06:02
you probably remember the civil war began in 1861 right about the time
- 06:06
Harriet's book was getting published nothing like an old war to put the
- 06:09
kibosh....but since Harriet was not a quitter she joined the
- 06:13
abolitionist movement and continued working to sell her book and fight [Harriet selling her book at a stall]
- 06:16
injustice talk about multi-tasking we've got two more passages to check out so
- 06:20
let's get to it this is a quote from chapter 10 and it's a toughy... I can
- 06:25
testify from my own experience in observation that slavery makes the white
- 06:29
fathers cruel and sensual the sun's violent and
- 06:33
licentious it contaminates the daughter and makes the wives wretched...can you say
- 06:38
dysfunctional family, in this short passage Harriet's talking family dynamic [Woman appears in a room and slips on a banana]
- 06:43
because of slavery the otherwise average family is a total mess it seemed
- 06:47
impossible for southern slave owners to understand how bad slavery was for
- 06:51
everyone in Harriet's opinion there's no way for families to be normal and loving [Mary waving her arms in the air]
- 06:55
as long as slavery exists this is one of the many reasons she fought to share her
- 07:00
experience and end slavery all together she didn't curl up and cry about her [Harriet crying on the floor]
- 07:04
hard life Harriet kept pushing for people to know the truth about slavery
- 07:08
during the war incidents in the life of a slave girl slowly but surely gained
- 07:12
traction abolitionists took notice and shared the book with others our final [People reading Harriet's book]
- 07:16
passage up for examination is about friendship... one was a fair white child
- 07:21
the other was her slave and also her sister when I saw them embracing each
- 07:25
other and heard their joyous laughter I turned sadly away from the lovely sight
- 07:29
I foresaw the inevitable blight that would fall on the little slaves heart I
- 07:34
knew how soon her laughter would be changed to sighs, the fair child grew up
- 07:38
to be a still fairer woman from childhood to womanhood her pathway was blooming
- 07:42
with flowers and overarched by a sunny sky. Scarcely one day of her life had
- 07:48
been clouded when the Sun rose on her happy Bridal morning... hold on one [Girl wipes tear from her eye]
- 07:53
moment..This is another super sad passage from what
- 07:57
we're figuring out is a really tragic book Harriet knows that the life of a
- 08:01
slave girl is pretty much the worst thing ever and she feels terrible for
- 08:05
the other slave girls who suffered just like she did which is another reason she
- 08:10
felt like she had to write her book it wasn't Harriet Jacobs goal to be the
- 08:14
first former slave woman to write and publish a full-length novel about being [People approach Harriet's stall]
- 08:17
a slave but that's the lady we know and love her to be today she didn't get the
- 08:21
credit she deserved in her lifetime but it's safe to say she lived a pretty
- 08:25
decent free life while she could maybe now is the time to celebrate Harriet's
- 08:29
accomplishments..[Statue of Harriet Jacobs]
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