I thought this section of Jim Crow brought up some interesting sentiments. I was interested in Maggie Dublin's story because i feel like religion plays somewhat of a contradictory role in it but in the end works to her benefit. Maggie was born in 1924 in Kentucky and her grandmother was a very religious woman but as a child Maggie didn't understand religion. her grandmother said that "everything that happened that was good in the community, she'd say, "Oh, Lord, the Lord did that. If it hadn't been for the Lord, I don't know what we'd do." i thought this statement and mentality took the power away from the people and could hinder political action. If everything that is good that happens is due to the hand of god then why bother trying to do good because god will just make it happen? this is not to say i think that this mentality made people bad but the civil rights movement took a lot of planning and this mentality i think takes the credit away from the people on earth who worked hard to make change happen. Maggie begins to understand religion only when she is taught from a 'bad' woman and she believes that it is god doing his work through a sinner, which doesn't make sense to me really, because if she was a bad person then why would she be one of gods tools. under that logic i would say she is comparable to a messiah rather than a bad person. After Maggie embraces religion i feel it empowered her though because she is able to tell her dad that she was worried about him not going to church, which allowed her to be a leader for her family. she also takes up leadership later in life to build and own her house. this makes me think that religion guided her to become a leader in some way because it made her confident. this i feel is somewhat of how i feel religion impacted the civil rights movement. in some ways it hindered it because people were more invested in the afterlife but in others it breed leadership and community and empowered a lot of people.
(Alex)
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I felt as if this reading brought up many good issues, Some of the important points it talked about were the physical economic groups and the cultural control. This reading brought up some difficult issues such as the one of Cora Eliza Randle’s grandmother faced. She was raped by a Wight man, Eliza because of this situation she had to face of knowing that a white person raped a loved one of hers might have been something that really hurt her in every single aspect. I also think that what this presenter wrote in there blog is very understandable, once one person becomes incharge of something they are bond to feel as if they can tell everyone what to do. And because of this I agree with what the presenter said “It seems almost ignorant to believe that after one group of people have total physical, economic, and cultural control over another group that these two groups could coexist peacefully. This is not to say that attempts at this should be abandoned, but by learning more about these differences I believe will allow us to set more achievable goals for future civil rights endeavors.” I agree with this because if people would understand the different issues going on everything would improve drastically in every perspective.
I thought this reading in Jim Crow was one of the most interesting yet because you can see so much the psychology of religion progressing throughout the story. I was raised super religious and a lot of the mentalities I remember are present in the reading.
She begins by telling the story of the man who died a sinner in her town, and how the all mourned him because they knew he was in hell. Then directly after that she says she believes in god like her grandmother does, knowing that this man was good but still believing he is in hell. She later goes on to describe the saved bad woman and her grandfather, the good sinner. There is contradiction after contradiction of the role religion plays. What should religion inspire if not goodness? I mean how should you be able to recognize a follower of god?
She also refers to her father before he joins the church as being worried about him because he was getting old. Once again posing the question of what role religion has if not to effect you with extreme positivity while alive. If her father didn’t need religion during his life to be a good man, then why does he only need it in his death?
It is questions like these that I think can either bring people closer or further from god, but I think she needs to ask them. Throughout the article she also is seemingly trying to convince herself of the beauty and change that religion brings. She says my grandfather was a good man but he was different, after his baptism. She also talks about how a mundain song was suddenly beautiful after her baptism making the reader question the validity of her convictions.
emily
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