Remember book reports when we were in school? For some they were a dreaded terrible thing, for others they were fun ways to recall your favorite book and an easy format to tell someone what the book was about. I've decided to post some reports of books I've read recently; let's jump right in.
My best friend asked if I could write something that focused on the history of black Americans. I asked Tony Hotep for a recommendation for this project. And he gave me this book. It's more like a detailed information pamphlet that holds historical information about the Underground Railroad. I found it interesting and it definitely got a rise out of my emotions.
I also wrote and published 8 books check them out here: https://www.lulu.com/search?sortBy=RELEVANCE&page=1&q=Jodie+Spartz&pageSize=10&adult_audience_rating=00
Author: New Jersey Historical Commission
Title: "Steal Away, Steal Away..."
Main Characters: There are no main characters; although there are various people mentioned that did great things to assist us as a human race to flourish.
Setting: This information mostly comes from different parts of the state of New Jersey.
Plot: New Jersey's role in the Underground Railroad.
Personal Endorsement: This information made me feel many different emotions. There was anger that all of this even transpired, there was empathy for the people fighting just to be human. There was confusion as to how people could even conduct themselves in these ways and be considered people of power. There was a feeling of helplessness because the law is the law and it's a fight to change things and people must survive in the meantime. There was also a feeling of JOY to know that we as Black Americans no longer stand in those positions even though we have a long way to go. I discussed this with Tony Hotep to get his opinion on some of the things that stood out to me while reading this information.
I'm going to do this book report a little different this time. I want you to read our opinions and think about either what it means to you or how you feel about it. No matter your race this happened to human beings and everyone did not have a say in just being a person. That's sad and we MUST do better.
* Slaveholders and their sympathizers, in attempting to make slavery morally defensible, asserted that slaves were simple, child-like creatures who were very much contented with their bondage.
Jodie Spartz: How the hell does someone even get to say that about another person! That is crazy. Making slavery morally defensible is diabolical. Dare I say I feel like it has been achieved in our current society.
Tony Hotep: Slaveholders have become stockholders and the sympathizers are big corp CEO's. Bondage is citizenship and I sometimes feel child like in this situation.
* While great attention has been recorded the role of white abolitionists in assisting UGRR fugitives, this role appears somewhat over drawn.
Jodie Spartz: I would like to start off defining the word abolitionists; a person who advocates for the immediate and total end to a system, practice, or institution. In saying that I would state the obvious because of course there had to be more white people for slavery than against it for it even to become a thing!
Tony Hotep: If I'm saying 100,000 participants according to estimates of runaway slaves. That says that the slaves role in assisting fugitives and themselves was strong too. They just didn't have enough printing presses to get the story out.
* The fugitives when not relying solely on their own cunning and wile to reach the free states, were mainly assisted by free blacks-acting individually.
Jodie Spartz: This sounds more accurate than white people being the main ones helping them.
Tony Hotep: The lyrical content and songs sang in the church system played a big role in the UGRR.
* Harriet Tubman, spent the summers between 1849 and 1852 as a hotel worker in Cape May NJ. Earning money to finance her forays into her native Maryland Eastern Shore to guide fugitives slaves to freedom.
Jodie Spartz: Talk about hustling to fund a dream! Brought to mind the movie the Princess and the Frog. Princess Tiana hustled for her dream too. Hey it's what cha gots ta do!
Tony Hotep: Back then you would take a job to blend in because if you didn't have a job you would be considered a runaway slave. That's what they did in Jersey on the UGRR. When you arrived you were given a job to blend in and make a couple dollars on your journey.
* William Still wrote the 1872 classic The Underground Railroad. It is noteworthy because it alone among nineteenth-century works on the UGRR made the freedom-seeking fugitives-not the abolitionists who assisted them the true heroic figures of the UGRR's dramatic and compelling story of struggle against oppression.
Jodie Spartz: First of all freedom seeking fugitives is absolutely insane. This is real that you could actually be breaking the law because you wanted to be free to be treated like a human being! My heart breaks knowing that we had to come to a place of love for each other. This "freedom" that we have a taste of now is because people decided to come together and treat each other equally. We're no where near where we need to be as a people to flow without the need for chaos but because of the auntsisters and unclebrothers energy helping people wake up and remember their real history we can have faith that it can be done.
Tony Hotep: William Sill was in Philadelphia Pa. He has access to a printing press so he gave us access to stories in real time that were happening from people that were going through it. I Salute him. If you have the stomach for it and you ever want to hear a real time story read the book!
* 1675 the first legislation implying the actual presence of black slaves in New Jersey is enacted; it prohibits transporting or harboring a slave who has left his or her owner without permission.
Jodie Spartz: See, now we have case workers. If there was a simple thing such as a caseworker back then; then there would at the least be someone to assess why you left and what can be done to help you either get into a better situation or deal with the one you're in. My God who was making these laws the devil himself!
Tony Hotep: 1675 says that there has been a lot of years of us trying to figure out how to treat each other.
* 1789 U.S. constitution takes effect; it states that no runaway slave becomes free by escaping from one state to another. (article 4, section 2 , clause 3)
Jodie Spartz: How bout a better law, again at the least; if you wanna go free be free if you want to stay a slave stay a slave; because not everyone was treated poorly and abuse wasn't the whole of slavery. There was more greed, laziness and control going on.
Tony Hotep: A lot of these laws were constituted personally by institutions who had slaves. They are put into effect as easy as an executive order.
* 1793 First federal Fugitive Slave Act enacted; it requires appropriate officials in the state to which a runaway slave has fled to return the fugitive to his or her owner.
Jodie Spartz: This had to be a hell of a time because people stay minding other people's business and I can just imagine the chaos that ensued when this law went into action. I just know it was people turning people in just because they were black. Knowing nothing about their situation. Wouldn't surprise me if there were black people doing it to each other. Disgusting!
Tony Hotep: From a people who thought a people were so inferior they sure wanted them around a whole lot. They were doing all kinds of shit to keep these niggas around!
* 1804 New Jersey's first abolition law passes. It frees all black children born on or after July 4th, 1804, after serving an apprenticeship to their mother's owner of 21 years (female) and 25 years (male).
Jodie Spartz: I had to sit with this one for a minute. It made me my skin crawl. What in the nonsense is this? It's crazy because that's how I feel about being born now. We're already born into a system designed for us before we get here. It's still our job to wake up from the matrix and free our minds. This is ludicrous! I am so thankful for the freedom fighters that made my life slightly less hectic because I wouldn't have made it back then I would've pitched myself in the river so it wouldn't have been a need to pitch my child!
Tony Hotep: That's deep shit; to me it says that, it kinda lets us know that the fact that this information is documented kinda shows the receipt of who built this country.
* 1830 the UGRR begins after the first appearance of trains in the nation in 1829. The origin of the term remains unclear.
Jodie Spartz: It is clear that slaves felt the need to escape long before the how was given a term.
Tony Hotep: Anywhere occupation existed for a slave also created a hub for escape. Basically, I'm saying where ever a nigga was a slave; he was trying to get free.
* 1831 William Loyd Garrison prints the first issue of the Liberator, an anti Slavery Newspaper.
Jodie Spartz: And I'm glad he did! It's amazing to me that it took so long. It also occurs to me since there wasn't a internet it took longer for information to be passed. Things were going on a long time in places before enough people found out to do something about it. Now we can tell on each other in the blink of an eye. Justice is still a hard thing for a lot of people to come by but it can happen way faster now.
Tony Hotep: William Loyd Garrison in comparison could be compared to the first anti social media network of its day.
* 1833 Slavery is abolished in the British Empire, making Canada a safe settlement area for runaway slaves participating in the UGRR.
Jodie Spartz: I think I pointed this out to mark the fact that Canada became a safe state before the United States.
Tiny Hotep: Canada was kinda like a British colony and Freedom was payment for being a solider and Britain was at war.
* 1838 Fredrick Douglas uses the UGRR to flee from bondage in Maryland. The abolitionist leader becomes an UGRR operative while living in Rochester, New York.
Jodie Spartz: I thought this was worth mentioning because he's someone we learn about frequently during Black History Month.
Tony Hotep: Fredrick Douglas was a powerful speaker he was the inspiration for all those cats that came up in the 60's, man; he was making moves.
* 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act repeals the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and introduces the doctrine of "popular sovereignty"; this allowed territories to decide whether to be slave or free states.
Jodie Spartz: I mean at least they were given the right to decide whether to continue to be inhumane or not. I shake my head and wag my finger in disappointment at the human race sometimes, like damn greed and control is a Mutherfu*%er!
Tony Hotep: Popular doctrine is saying what's popular. And how is it not popular to want to be free at this time. Cats still thinking it's popular to want to hold people captive and break up families. HOW???
* 1857 Dred Scott decision is rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court, it holds that Blacks are not American citizens and that congress has no authority to prohibit slavery in any part of the nation.
Jodie Spartz: Damn man they really wanted to put up a fight for this. I don't know what to say, SMH now I see for myself proof of the phrase "they are trying to keep the black man down."
Tony Hotep: I think that part of the set up was creating fancy titles that one group of people gate kept from another group of people and in legislation we strive for the titles, but in life never receive the privileges.
* 1860 Eighteen slaves are recorded for New Jersey by the U.S. census, making the state the last in the North in which slaves can be found.
Jodie Spartz: Damn, now I'm giving New Jersey the squinty eye look! Like ya'll held on to the bitter end. I wonder if they treated their slaves better and were like "We not even abusive, why we gotta give our slaves up?" So many questions, so many assumptions.
Tony Hotep: I'mma say opposite of what you say because I am a New Jerseyian and I'mma keep it real. Thank You New Jersey for keeping it real and honestly telling us your number even tho the number is sus. At least they didn't lie about it technically.
* 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln goes into effect. It frees slaves in the Confederate states, but not those that remain in the union. This encourages even greater numbers of southern slaves to flee from their owners.
Jodie Spartz: Like what's up with all the clauses? It's like they can be free but not if... The whole fact that slavery even became a major problem is because people don't like to be controlled. Now it has been figured out how to gain control without the masses knowing because I don't know why people don't realize it is more of US than it is of THEM and when we work together that's when change happens. Have we forgotten this? Have they put so much fear into us that we don't even have the strength to fight?
Tony Hotep: I would say that Lincoln proclaimed emancipation to slaves down South. Northern states was still figuring it out. That's what caused the war between the North and the South. At this point the word FREEDOM meant you have to fight for a side; it wasn't no chillin.
That's all for now if you'd like to know more you can visit the Peter Mott House located at 26 Kings Court Lawnside, Camden County (856)546.8850 You can also read more at: https://archive.org/details/DKC0088
Jodie Spartz has also written, edited and published 8 books. One is a clabo with Tony Hoptep you can find them here: https://www.lulu.com/search?sortBy=RELEVANCE&page=1&q=Jodie+Spartz&pageSize=10&adult_audience_rating=00
-photo by, Tony Hotep
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