Tera Hunter reading--Tate Burwell

The case study of Atlanta in the first chapter really hit home for me. I was born and raised in Atlanta, and while I've always been aware of the South's and Georgia's history with slavery, I never thought about Atlanta in specific. I've seen all of the Civil War markers, but I never thought about what the institution looked like in my city. It's weird to think that are some people whose cities don't have a history of slavery--I guess I never thought about that before. The differences between slavery in the city and in rural areas was very interesting to read about, and I think in some ways those difference remain to this day. There is still racism in Atlanta, as there is in all of Georgia (and the rest of the country, but let's not get into that right now) but what you will experience in Atlanta is very different from what you can expect in rural Georgia, where the Klan puts flyers in peoples mailboxes inviting them to events. Hearing about how the Union soldiers treated black people puts things in perspective for those that want to venerate the North. Now I'm glad they fought, but fighting to end slavery does not mean that one is not racist, or that one cares about black people at all. Abraham Lincoln himself said that "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would  do it... What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union". He admits to not caring about black people, but about preserving the unity of the country. This shows that he did not see black people as part of the Union, and I believe that to this day people do not think of enslaved people as Americans in the same way they see slaveholders as Americans. This country has never dealt with its past, and you can feel that now more than ever. We need to be educated about our history. As an Atlantan, I should know what slavery looked like in my city as much as I know what the Civil Rights Movement looked like. We also need to recognize that the North, while it did abolish slavery sooner, was not without its problems. I think people that don't live in the South fall into this trap of thinking that the South is the worst because the racism is overt, and pat themselves on the back for not being members of the KKK, not realizing the prejudices they still hold, and the microaggressions that they inflict on others. We all need to study our cities, and come to terms with what happened there. I love my city, and am proud to be from Atlanta, but I still recognize there is work to be done. We can do more to educate ourselves on our history in an informed and complex manner, instead of assuming that we know what happened because we live there.