How Parchman Reflects The Intertwined Themes Of Reform And...

Analyzing how Parchman reflects the intertwined themes of reform and race, we must look back into the history of the state, to see what caused the instability that led to reform and the role that citizens played. The Civil War is just ending and the South lost not only did they lose the battle , but they also lost their family members, homes, land and most of all for some they lost their slaves. During the war Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves in territories that opposed the Union. Oshinsky paints a beautiful picture of the scenes that had unfolded when he wrote that, â€Å"Few could escape the consequences of this war. Mississippi was bankrupt. Its commerce and transportation had collapsed. The railroads and levees lay in ruins. Local governments barely functioned.† (p.12) The world that many white southerners had come to know was now destroyed. Being placed under these conditions, outraged many white southerners. Adding fuel to the fire, the fact of knowing that former slaves were now equal to even the poorest of whites, did not set well. The author states that, this hatred had many sources. The ex-slave had become a scapegoat for the South’s humiliating defeat. John F.H. Claiborne, Mississippi’s most prominent historian, blamed him for causing the war and for helping the North to prevail.† ( Oshinsky, 1996, p. 14) Carl Schdrz, a reformer from the North, became very concerned about how blacks would be treated, with rising sense of