fiche notion

« I'm going to talk about the notions of seats and forms of power.

The power is the ability to exercise a control on somebody, but leads generally to conflict between those who have power and those who don't.

I choose to illustrate this notion with slavery in America with 3 documents, a photo of a slave during the movie « Amistad », the Harriet Tubman's reward and the Martin Luther King's speech « I have a dream ».

First of all, slavery is a power that white people exercised on black people coming from Africa.

This power took place in the Southern States until the end of the Civil War in 1865.

Americans needed strong labour for agriculture like cotton, tabacco or rice.

We can see on the movie's picture « Amistad » a slave who had horrible conditions during his journey : I'm shocked by the rope around his wrists.

Moreover, their work in the New World was very hard and slaves didn't have the same rights as white men.

Whites were allowed to do all they wanted and blacks had to obey them.

Meanwhile some people rose up, they represented the conterpower.

For example Harriet Tubman was a very important black woman in the struggle against slavery.

She was an abolitionist, she led many slaves to freedom in the Nothern States.

She's the most celebrated leader of « underground railroad ».

But though the slavery was abolished in 1865, the racism continued, black people still didn't have the same rights as whites.

They didn't share the same restaurants, the same public toilets, they were separeted in bus.

Thus it was the segregation.

Martin Luther King, a black american pastor, stand up for black conditions and hope one day all people, black and white will be equal.

Consequently for the 100th anniversary of abolition of slavery, he maked his famous speech « I have a dream » in front of more than 200 000 people to demand civil rights for african americans.

It happended in Washington, which represent the politic power, next to the Lincoln Memorial.

So we can deduce that the president was agree with King.

In a nutshell, slavery is an injust power that leads to the Civil war in America.

Nowadays we can tell black people are free in particular in America where the president is black.. »