Context Flashcards
(22 cards)
What are some racist words she’s been called throughout the anthology?
SOUTH: mulatto, half-breed (breed = used for dogs, cats, animals - half of her is an animal (black) and half is not (white)) - calling her an animal for being mixed race
SOUTHERN GOTHIC: nigger lover, half-breed and zebra (half white half black like a zebra)
where was she born
Gulfport (the setting of Elegy for the Native Guards), Mississippi
when was she born
on Memorial day (remembering civil war), 100 years after the civil war ended
who were her parents
Gwendolyn (black mother) and Eric (white father, poet)
why did she and her parents move up north
anti-miscegenation - aka laws that made it illegal for white and black people to marry
These laws were active in Mississippi when she was born so they moved up to Ohio so her parents could marry
One year after she was born, those laws were abolished - Loving vs Virginia (court case ending those laws)
There is a poem in her anthology called Miscegenation about this
when did she move back down south
When she was six, after her parents divorce, she moved to atlanta, georgia
When did her mother remarry
no definite date but after they moved up, so after she was six
when did her mother divorce
when she was 18
what was her mother and Joel’s relationship like
very abusive - she had gone to the police about him many times
he also had abused Natasha
Joel had gone to prison around the time they divorced for selling cocaine
when was her mother murdered
When Natasha was 19, freshman in college and her mother was 40
what happened
the police had been pretty dismissive of her abuse
he tried to kidnap and kill her mother before this and they took notice
he had come to visit natasha at college with the intention of murdering her and then changed his mind - he had often stalked her
the police were guarding outside of her mothers house but they left for about an hour which is when he shot her
there were recorded phone calls from the day before with him saying he was going to murder her and then kill himself
who were the native guards
1st Louisiana Native Guard, a prominent all-black regiment that served in the Union Army during the Civil War,
why does she write about them
They were forgotten about in history, not taught in schools etc. They’re a symbol of how black people are treated in america and how she feels her mother and herself were treated
what was the civil war
1861-1865, was a conflict between the Union (the North) and the Confederacy (the South) primarily over the issue of slavery and states’ rights
The Union/north won and they abolished slavery in the us
what happened to the south following the civil war
Their economy was largely based on slave workforces so they saw a huge decrease in their economy and became much poorer as a result
what happened to black people in america
segregation followed eg jim crow laws - separate spaces for black/white people eg schools, pools, buses
black people faced continuous racism and poverty
what was the civil rights movement
a movement to end segregation and give black people more rights
led by Martin Luther King Jr (peaceful) and Malcolm X (black panthers, more revolutionary in his beliefs)
what is the kkk
The Ku Klux Klan is an American Protestant-led Christian extremist, white supremacist, far-right hate group. It was founded in 1865 during Reconstruction (post civil war) in the devastated South. Various historians have characterised the Klan as America’s first terrorist group.
what is ship island
off the coast of gulfport, where Trethewey was born
The native guard guarded Confederate prisoners on Ship Island, a location off the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
there is a memorial there but not for the native guards
why does she focus on the theme of history, memorials and memory in general
The unreliability of memory, and the question of why certain stories are told in American history while others are not.
when was slavery abolished in mississippi
no cause this is insane…..
they abolished it in 1995
but the state didn’t actually file the paperwork until 2013
Its’
