WEBVTT - 010624 Way Black History Fact - New Year's Day for Slaves

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<v Speaker 1>For now, it's time to move on to the Way

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<v Speaker 1>Black History Fact. Today's Way Black History Fact is sponsored

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<v Speaker 1>by Underground Beach Club. From the Streets to the Beach

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<v Speaker 1>the latest in beachwear, visit Underground Beach Club dot com.

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<v Speaker 1>And while we're now a few days into the new year,

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<v Speaker 1>it's important to kind of commemorate this with a story.

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<v Speaker 1>We couldn't get it in before the end of last

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<v Speaker 1>year just because it didn't time out that way. But

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<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna share a bit with you from Black History Unlocked.

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<v Speaker 1>Go ahead and give them a follow up here on Instagram,

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<v Speaker 1>or you can go to their website too if you're

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<v Speaker 1>not but Black History Unlocked. In the years before the

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<v Speaker 1>Civil War, the first day of the New Year was

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<v Speaker 1>often a heartbreaking one for enslaved people in the United

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<v Speaker 1>States and the African American community. New Year's Day used

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<v Speaker 1>to be widely known as hiring Day or heartbreak Day,

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<v Speaker 1>as the African American abolitionist journalist William Cooper Neil described it,

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<v Speaker 1>because enslaved people spent New Year's Eve waiting wondering if

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<v Speaker 1>their owners were going to rent them out to someone else,

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<v Speaker 1>thus potentially splitting up their families. The renting out of

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<v Speaker 1>slave labor was a relatively common practice in the Antebellum

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<v Speaker 1>South and a profitable practice for white slave owners and hirers.

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<v Speaker 1>Hiring Day was part of the larger economic cycle in

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<v Speaker 1>which most debts were collected and settled on New Year's Day,

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<v Speaker 1>says Alexis mccrossen, an expert on the history of New

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<v Speaker 1>Year's Eve and New Year's Day and a professor of

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<v Speaker 1>history at Southern Methodist University who writes about hiring Day

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<v Speaker 1>in her forthcoming book Times Touchdown the New Year in

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<v Speaker 1>American life. Some enslaved people were put up for auction

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<v Speaker 1>that day, or held under contracts that started in January.

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<v Speaker 1>These transactions also took place all year long, and contracts

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<v Speaker 1>could last for different amounts of time. These deals were

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<v Speaker 1>conducted privately among family's friends and business contacts, and slaves

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<v Speaker 1>were handed over in town squares, on court house steps,

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<v Speaker 1>and sometimes simply on the side of the road. According

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<v Speaker 1>to Divided Mastery, Slave Hiring in the American South by

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<v Speaker 1>Jonathan D. Martin. If you want to learn more about this,

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<v Speaker 1>you can check out Time dot Com and America's Black Museum.

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<v Speaker 1>But I think that this illuminates something that a lot

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<v Speaker 1>of people lose sight of in one it's that, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>for people that have this position, well, you know, my

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<v Speaker 1>family never owned slaves, and slaves are only owned by

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<v Speaker 1>rich people, and so I'm not responsible for the condition

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<v Speaker 1>that black people are in. It's not my problem to

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<v Speaker 1>fix that sort of attitude, which is prevalent, particularly in

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<v Speaker 1>horror conservative circles. You know, the people that don't feel

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<v Speaker 1>like they came from money and are not fully are

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<v Speaker 1>taking in the American dream. I think that this illuminates

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<v Speaker 1>a very important fact, which is that you didn't have

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<v Speaker 1>to own slaves to benefit from slavery.

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<v Speaker 2>It's just like you don't have to be a racist

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<v Speaker 2>person or a white supremacist to benefit from the system.

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<v Speaker 2>Excellent that that are the tenets of those practices.

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<v Speaker 1>Yes, and then another thing that's worth mentioning is that

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<v Speaker 1>slavery was not just slavery like in the traditional sense.

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<v Speaker 1>It was also practices like these. There was an infinite

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<v Speaker 1>number of ways that you could deploy your slaves, and

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<v Speaker 1>people did that everything from slave labor like you would

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<v Speaker 1>think cotton fields, to you know, scientific experiments, to rentals

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<v Speaker 1>to perverse sexual stuff, on and on and on and

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<v Speaker 1>it's important you notice