Tag Archives: anti

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Anti-Slavery Alphabet

At first glance, the Anti-Slavery Alphabet is definitely aesthetically pleasing and can intrigued children. The simplistic look to the Alphabet is what can draw children to the reading. For me, just by looking at it, I liked the way it looked. Children can be exposed to serious political topics in such a way that they can relate in a bit. The alphabet aspect to it brings it to entice the younger audience but the topic itself is a very strong serious topic.

As I was reading each line, I can tell this alphabet was intended for white children instead of all children. For the part of letter B, it states:

B is a Brother with a skin of somewhat darker hue, But in our Heavenly Father’s sight, He is as dear as you.

This is saying how that black slaves are just like the white in the eyes of God, which is showing equality to the younger audience. As the letters go on by, it gets a bit dark; for the letter D, it’s showing how a whip is used to punish the slaves who disobey or rest. While reading the letter H, I felt a bit uncomfortable because if this is meant for children, then this letter is definitely really dark:

H is the Hound his master trained, and called to scent the track of the unhappy Fugitive, and bring him trembling back.

The thing that struck me was “unhappy Fugitive,” because what fugitive would be happy. I feel like the use of the adjective was quite strange and really dark. As I kept reading more and more, it felt like the letters kept getting darker and darker.

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THE ANTI SLAVERY ALPHABET- DONALD NG

It is really interesting how each alphabets resemble things that relate to slavery. What is more interesting that each letter resembles a different category within slavery. I feel that this book is entitled for kids whose parents are abolitionist (as discussed in class today). The reason why is because of the fact that a child whose parent that is not an abolitionist would think that this book is not relevant. This book is to spread the belief to families that are abolitionist and let their children know that it is wrong to enslave people. This book is from passionate abolitionist authors to make younger people feel that slavery is wrong and that it should end soon. The title and the first alphabet already gives the answer to who the author wants to express this to. For the age content I would believe that if would be for non adults because of the fact that the text would be hard for a very young children to understand. The last alphabet Z caught my attention as the author stated

    "Z is a Zealous man, sincere,
      Faithful, and just, and true;
    An earnest pleader for the slave--
      Will you not be so too?"

This message is to express that we are all not being faithful, we are no zealous, 
and we are not sincere. The author is appreciating the slaves for what they do.