Watergate

Yesterday for history I watched a movie called All the Presidents Men which is about the Watergate scandal. I had never really learned that much about Watergate so it was a good way to learn about it. The movie was very well made and the actors were great. It had a very interesting style but it worked for the movie. Anyway Watergate was the event when people were paid by the government to break into the Watergate hotel and bug the rooms that were being used by high up democrats. Once they were caught there was a huge rush to cover it up, a rush that involved the president of the united states, Richard Nixon. Lots of people initially denied any affiliation with the Watergate scandal but eventually people started talking and the truth came out. When the facts were released President Nixon was forced to resign his place in the White House.

Book Review - Parallel Journeys

I found this book really interesting and very enjoyable. It was the story of World War 2 told from the perspective of the two different authors, Alfons Heck and Helen Waterford. Alfons Heck was a young German lad during the war and he was very active in the Hitler Youth program. He was extremely supportive of Hitler and was caught up in all the anti Semitic propaganda. He believed that Germans truly were a superior race and deserved to have what they wanted. Helen on the other hand was a Jew who was just trying to escape the war safely with her husband and daughter. They moved to Holland and they were safe there for a little while. But the impending doom coming from the Germans forced Helen and her husband to send their daughter Doris to live with a dutch family where she would be safe. Over the course of the book we follow the paths of each character and get to see the effects of the war from two different points of view. Eventually both of the authors ended up meeting in America and traveled around telling their stories and ultimately writing a book. However the fact that they now know each other invalidates the title of this book, if they have a meeting point, their paths can not truly be parallel. That's my only complaint.

Movie Review - Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan is a historical war film that takes place in 1944 after the allied Invasion of Normandy. It is considered to be one of the best, most accurate war films ever made. I would have to agree with that statement, it was truly stunning. Another thing this movie has going for it is a big name cast, Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Matt Damon, Edward Burns, Vin Diesel and many other sensational actors. Saving Private Ryan was nominated for 11 academy awards and was able to win 5 of those. Along with those awards, Saving Private Ryan sneaks just inside the top 30 films according to IMDB. I would categorize this film as a work of art. From the acting, to the scenery, as well as the story line and music. Everything tied together to really make this one of the best films ever made.

Movie Review - Hidden Figures

This movie will definitely be one that is remembered for a long time. Hidden Figures is a film, directed by Theodore Melfi, about 3 black women named Katherine Johnson (Taraji P Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae), who were extremely instrumental to NASA in the space race. Katherine Johnson was a calculator genius that did all the complex mathematics for the program and help figure out landing zones, reentry points and other extremely important information. Dorothy Vaughan was the supervisor of the colored woman division of NASA and she eventually became the head of the computer program. She taught herself how to work the new IBM machine and made herself and the other colored women irreplaceable. Mary Jackson helped in the wind tunnels of NASA with a man named Kazimierz Czarnecki, he encouraged her to take night classes so that she could qualify for an engineer position at NASA. The only place that offered those was an all white high school, but Mary Jackson was able to get a petition to be allowed into the school, and she would go on to be the first black female engineer at NASA. All around this was a very inspiring movie about going above and beyond what people expect from you and the potential people see in you.  This film was a excellent balance of an engaging story line, humor, tension, historic accuracy and a bit of cinimatic extra plot.
 

Movie Review - Dirty Dozen

This movie is definitely a classic of the cinema world. The plot of the movie is that there is a very strict army Major that has been tasked with the job of commanding a group of no-good deadbeat, bad soldiers. All 12 of his soldiers have been charged with crimes in the army and have either been sentenced to hanging or life in prison. The only way they can get out of their sentence is to cooperate for the Major. Throughout the movie they overcome challenges such as some of the people wanting to run away, demanding warm water for shaving, and other instances of entitlement. But the dirty dozen, as they are called by everyone else in the army, start to come together and soon become one of the best groups in the army. I really enjoyed this movie, everyone loves a good underdog story. There was a lot of character development as the 12 men learned to trust the Major and to trust each other.

A Boys War - David Michell

This book was about the Weihsien Concentration Camp. It was mostly told from the perspective of David Michell who was a survivor of the camp. David Michell was 11 when he was captured along with everyone at the mission school he was attending. In the book David Michell talked about how he and his school friends were huge fans of the Olympic runner Eric Liddell, which is a cool detail because later in the book Eric Liddell ended up in the Weihsien Camp. He was like a father/uncle to all the young children there. Sadly Eric Liddell didn't make it out of the Weihsien Camp. He passed away in 1945, only 5 months before the camp was liberated. He wrote to his wife and said that he had a nervous breakdown due to over work. But actually he had a brain tumor that couldn't be operated on. And his death was hastened by the amount of work he was doing. I found this book really interesting in the way it told about the lifestyle of the camp, how they people survived and how they were able to maintain and strengthen their great faith through it all.

Movie Review: The Right Stuff

Last week I watched a movie called The Right Stuff. It was about the original 7 astronauts of NASA. The movie started out with Charles (Chuck) Yeager breaking the sound barrier. Which was the most advanced feat of airplanes at that time. We learned more about the test pilots that risked their lives every day to push the limits of how fast, high, and far humans can go. Then a new challenge came for the airmen, space travel. Russia had successfully launched the first ship into space and America quickly started a program to get humans ready to be launched into orbit. Men from all over the country were put through test of physical, emotional, and metal stress to see who would be up to the challenge of going to outer space. Finally NASA chose their seven men. Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton. Those members did many things for NASA, the went up to space in many different classes of rocket. Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle. The movie did a really good job of showing how big of a deal this all was to the United States at the time. And they did exceptionally well on how taxing of a lifestyle it was for those families.

Switzerland's Neutrality in World War II

Switzerland could possibly be called the smartest country in the world, why? Because they know better than to get involved in the wars of other countries. Throughout both of the World Wars, Switzerland did not form any alliances with anyone involved in the war. Because of that they weren't dragged into a war that meant nothing to them. They maintained a status of armed neutrality through out the wars. They were always ready to defend themselves if they were attacked. But had no intentions of joining the fight. Switzerland was also a sought after location for immigrants trying to escape the war. However due to being neutral and choosing not to take sides, Switzerland was forced to send these people away. By the end of World War II Switzerland had not lost any men from fighting in the war and they lost only 100 from crimes against humanity.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Many people know a lot about Martin Luther King Jr. already but I'm going to recap some of the highlights of this amazing man's life.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15th 1929 in the town of Atlanta, Georgia. From a young age MLK was held to high standards by his father. While his fathers methods of discipline may have been harsh, they seemed to be effective in young MLK.  He also began to see the effect of racial segregation. As a young boy MLK was good friends with a white boy who's father owned a shop near the King's house. But as they grew older they were forced to go to different schools, Martin to a blacks only school and his friend to the whites school.

Something I learned in my research of MLK is that he had periods where he suffered from depression for most of his life. When he was 12 his grandmother passed away and he blamed himself for her death. Because of that he threw himself out a second story window but survived the fall.

Growing up in the south MLK was quickly forced to be aware of his place on the social ladder. It was something that frustrated him and the anger and shame that went with being treated as less than human is one of the things that pushed MLK into his times of depression.

MLK was well know in his high school for his ability in public speaking and his success on the debate team. Both were talents that would be extremely instrumental as he went forward in life and with his fight against racial segregation. King would go on to use his speaking talent to become Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. which is quite an impressive title. But he was more than a name as I'm sure you all know. He brought change to our country that we were in desperate need of. He set things in motion that are still moving today. He is a man that truly inspired millions of people. But like Gandhi, his work brought enemies and MLK was assassinated on April 4th 1968. But his legacy, his dream, lives on even today.

World War II Allies

To follow up on my last post I'll now talk a bit about what countries were a part of the Allies, who lead them and what their reasoning was for being in World War 2. The United Kingdom, Soviet Union and United States of America were called the "Big Three" of the allies. The big three along with China were called the four policemen.

United Kingdom
Lead by Winston Churchill, The United Kingdom declared war on Germany in 1939. If Germany had occupied Belgium they would have controlled ports that would have made them a serious threat to the United Kingdom, so Brittan declared war on Germany after they attacked France through Belgium.

Soviet Union
The Soviet Union was under the control of Joseph Stalin, great guy. They were brought into the war when Germany unsuccessfully tried to invade their land. After they had been invaded, Stalin endorsed the western allies and joined them in the war against the axis powers.

United States of America
At the time of World War 2, Franklin Roosevelt was in the white house. USA stayed neutral in the war until 1941 when FDR and Winston Churchill came together to promulgate the Atlantic charter. Which called for the destruction of Nazi tyranny.

World War II Axis

There is too much to write about on World War 2 for just one blog. So this one will be focused on the Axis powers of the war, who they were, who lead them, and why they where in the war.

The main Axis powers  were Nazi Germany, Italy, and the Empire of Japan.

Nazi Germany
As I'm sure everyone knows, the leader of Germany in World War 2 was Adolf Hitler. Based on the steps he took, it would seem that Hitlers reason for being in World War 2 was an attempt at world domination. Hitler blamed World War 2 on western powers that intervened on Germany's war with Poland. Hitler also claimed that Germany need the war because they were overpopulating and needed to expand their boarders.

Italy
The leader of this axis power was Duce Benito Moussalini. When Italy entered the war against France and England Moussalini said, "We are going to war against the plutocratic and reactionary democracies of the West who have invariably hindered the progress and often threatened the very existence of the Italian people." Along with that Italy also claimed that they needed to expand so there would be more room for their citizens they said they were fighting for "spazio vitale" or, vital space.

Japan
The Empire of Japan was a constitutional monarchy ruled by a man named Hirohito. Japan defended its right to be in the war by saying that they were trying to unite all of Eastern Asia under Japanese leadership. They called it the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. They said they were trying to free Eastern Asia from the control of Western Powers, specifically USA.

Joseph Stalin

All I can say about Stalin, is that he has a great first name. But that's about the only good thing he's got going for him. Many people consider Adolf Hitler to be the worst man in the history of the world. And there is certainly a place for him in the debate. But some people don't realize how terrible Joseph Stalin was. Many people assume that since he was on the same side as the US in WW2 that he must be a good guy. That is far from the case. Stalin was responsible for roughly 20 million deaths in Russia. Some of the things he was recorded saying show that he had little respect for human life.

Here are a few of his most known quotes,

"A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."

"Death is the solution to all problems, no man - no problem."

"In the soviet army it takes more courage to retreat than advance."


Maybe he was the leader of our ali and not our enemy, but you can not deny that Joseph Stalin was a terrible man. He cared little for the common man and treated them as pawns in his personal game.

Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi is known all over the world for his ways of peace, truth and simplicity. He led Indians in the ways of nonviolent disobedience in order to get rid of the British oppression in India. Through his nonviolence and hunger strikes Gandhi supported civil rights, reducing poverty, women's rights and religious amity. He encouraged everyone to learn the ways of Swaraj, or self-control.
Gandhi was the fourth child of his father's fourth wife. He was born October 2nd, 1869 in Porbander City, India.
Gandhi was raised on the coast of Western India. When he grew up he studied law at the Inner Temple in London. After that he went to South Africa which is where he first implemented his nonviolence practice. His nonviolence certainly did not leave him without enemies, he was assassinated in January of 1948. Though he has passed away, the world will never forget the strength and love shown by Mahatma Gandhi. He will forever be an inspiration to people regardless of race, religion or age.

World War 2 The Blitzkrieg

Did you know that a very common football term, the blitz, came from the word blitzkrieg which was a German attack strategy in World War 2? A blitzkrieg is a surprise full out attack. Blitzkrieg translates to Lightning War. Germany used this tactic against Poland, France, and the Soviet Union to catch them off guard. The Blitzkrieg used multiple different modes of attack, tanks, artillery, and bomber planes. The ground troops would communicate with the planes so that they knew just where to target the troops under attack so that the ground troops could crash through. It was an attack that utilized speed in the air and a fast paced ground attack to smash through the confused defenders.
To start the attack Stuka dive-bombers attacked the front line of the troops, or any mode that was used for transportation, railways and roads. As soon as the air attack was done the artillery would attack, once the artillery surprise had passed the tank panzer division would join in the fight. All the tanks focused on one specific place in the front lines and smashed through. Once a path had been cleared by the tanks the infantry soldiers rushed in on foot to quickly strike the foe's flanks and sides. Eventually the Germans would practically have the opponents surrounded, they were everywhere.

Nazi Germany - Rise of Hitler

I have been falling behind on my blog posts so I'll be posting a fair amount in the next few days. Today I'll be writing about Hitler's rise to power in Germany and how he helped form the Nazi party.

        Hitler was one of many Germans who were angered by the surrender of Germany in 1918 in World War I, and they were upset by the treaty of Versailles which forced Germany to disarm and pay for damage caused by World War I. Hitler was very angry about the current state of the German government so he spent a lot of time studying the different political parties. One party that caught Hitlers attention was the Germany Workers' Party and he decided to become the leader of that party. Hitler was a great public speaker and he was able to get people excited by the ideas he had. He told them of how Germany had once been glorious and how Germany had a destiny of a supreme nation. One of the points that Hitler made that would define how people look back at him now is that he blamed Jews for most of Germany's problems. Hitler decided to rename the National Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP) it was commonly referred to as the Nazi Party. In July of 1921, Hitler was elected as the supreme leader of the Nazi Party and he had many plans for the future of Germany.
       Hitler started his reign of terror right then, he went around forcing people to support his party with the threat of death. Hitler was arrested for his actions and sentenced for 5 years in prison. While he was in prison Hitler wrote a book that told of his plans for Germany. He called it Mein Kampf which means My Struggles. It would become a sort of rule book that the Nazi's followed. Hitler didn't stay in prison for the full 5 years. When he got out he still had the same goal, but he went about achieving it slightly different. Hitler worked his way up in the political world, using every little thing to his advantage he eventually became the Absolute Fuher, the most powerful and influential position in Germany. The age of Hitler had begun, he called it the Third Reich and claimed that it would last for the next thousand years.

Life

Well, I am back in Dubuque now and things are starting to get back to normal. I start my soccer season on Monday and along with that get back into the swing of things with school. I was so blessed to have an opportunity to go live in Arizona for 2 months and I really think I grew from the experience. I definitely want to go back and visit sometime, hopefully sooner rather than later so that the kids I taught will still be there. However, whenever I can go back I will jump at the opportunity! I will try and post some of the pictures I took while I was there soon!

My last post while in Arizona: The Roaring Twenties

I am winding down on my time here in Arizona, and I am also finishing up my school work. I have been plowing through history a lot while I was here, I started in the late 1800s and am finishing up the 1920s. I have been reading a maginzine called Learning Through History. One story that I really enjoyed reading was about Harry Houdini and his war against all the fraud mediums that were tricking people and taking all their money.
As far as illusionists go, Houdini was the best of the best. And he didn't want to see people falling for tricks that he found very easy to spot. Houdini had gone to mediums before in hopes that maybe, just maybe there was some truth in spiritualism and he could contact his mother who had passed away. But to his disgust, Houdini was able to see through every single medium and realize that there were a lot of people being taken advantage of. So he set out on a war against spiritualism, he had performances that he used to show how these mediums did their tricks. He also was working with reporters who would publish his opinions.
Because of his work against spiritualism Houdini lost a friendship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who's wife was a well known medium. Houdini was able to prove Lady Doyle false and that caused a big gap in his friendship with the Doyles. Doyle would go on to defend all the mediums that Houdini uncovered.
Overall I thought it was very interesting how one illusionist would be so hard set to uncover others who were using their abilities in illusion to trick people, not to entertain them. Perhaps Houdini was so against the mediums because none of them were able to hep him contact his mother. I could be that his reasons were much more personal than just wanting to save people from losing their money.

A nice little life update

IT SNOWED AGAIN!! You would think that Arizona would be far enough to get away from the snow... next time I'm going to Florida. My time here is quickly winding down so I'm starting to both physically and mentally prepare myself to return home. For the most part things have been pretty normal here, I teach the 3rd and 4th graders PE on Mondays and Fridays. I'm really enjoying that a lot. I also had the chance to go skiing on a mountain in Colorado last week, that was truly amazing. I will not be forgetting that anytime soon. I took some pretty cool pictures while I was there but they are on my camera and I can't post them to here because my phone has no internet. Today is the last time I'll be doing something two more times while I'm here. I have EPIC (the youth group) and pickleball tonight, and I'll get to do those one more time while I'm here. It's been a really great time here, but I am very ready to go home.

Books I've been reading for school

In this blog post I am going to be writing about the books I've been reading. I've ready 4 books since I arrived. So I'll do a short little summary of each one.

The first book I read was called America's First World War: General Pershing and the Yanks.
I've already talked about General Pershing in one of my posts so I won't dwell on that book for too long. It was about Pershings life and all his war experiences, both exciting and boring, happy and tragic.

The second book I read was called Lord of the Nutcracker Men. This was a book that I really enjoyed quite a lot! It was about a little boy named Johnny, his father was a toy maker and before he left for the war he gave his son his own little army of nutcracker men. Johnny loves to play with his army and pretend that he is fighting his own little World War. The beginning of every chapter starts with a letter from his father and a new little army man that his father has sent. As the war escalates Johnny begins to think that what he pretends to do at home has an effect on the war in the trenches. He is terrified that he might be killing people by playing with his toy soldiers.

The third book was Warhorse, it's a story told from the perspective of a horse named Joey. (I'd say that's a pretty good name) Joey goes through a lot during the war, he has many different owners over the 4 years he is in the war and has to do very strenuous work. Things that killed many other horses, but he has a drive unlike any other horse, he wants to get home to his real master. I liked this book a lot, and I was very excited to find out that there is a movie version of it too! I will definitely be watching it when I get home.

The fourth book that I have read while in Arizona is The Great Gatsby. I had seen the movie before so I somewhat knew the story already, but it had been a while and I had forgotten a lot of the details. The book takes place in the 1920s and is the story about a young man who moves to New York and is next door neighbors to the popular party thrower, Jay Gatsby. No one knows very much about Gatsby, and what they do know probably isn't true. But as the story goes on Gatsby opens up to his neighbor and we learn Gatsby's backstory and then continue to learn about him in his current situation.

A little update on my life

Not too much has been happening out of the ordinary here at the Mission. I've been teaching PE to the 3rd and 4th graders here, we've been playing soccer. I am staying pretty busy around here, I have something to go do almost every night. There is even soccer on Wednesday nights, however I'm excited to get home and play for my soccer team. For the most part every day is about the same as the last one, the time is starting to pass quickly these days!!

Another blog about my history learnings

In the past two weeks I have finished my History of Us 1880-1917 book and read my first extra reading book. The extra reading book was called America's First World War. It's a very interesting book about a influential man in American military, his name is John J. Pershing. The book tells about how Pershing worked his way up through the ranks of the army. Pershing was born before the Civil War and died after the start of World War Two. When he was a young man he wanted to be a lawyer, but he was offered free college education at the United States Military Academy and he changed his course drastically. He originally planned to go to get an education, then when his army duty was finished he would go to law school. That, never happened. As he went through college and then the rest of his time in the Army, Pershing made friends with important people and was noticed for his excellence as a military leader. Not the least of these friends was Theodore Roosevelt, they fought together at the Battle of San Juan Hill. Pershing grew in importance and eventually lead the Americans "Over There" to aid in the World War. Pershing's help was vital to the outcome of the war.
Overall Pershing's story is really a very fascinating one! He was born when ramrod guns ruled the world, he fought in wars where they machine gun mowed soldiers down, fought along side tanks, saw the effects of gas warfare, and lived long enough to know the threat of atomic bombs. It is said that no matter what he faced, Pershing was always professional with a straight back and a serious expression. The only time he acted otherwise was when he was around young children. He lost his wife and three daughters in a fire in San Francisco, only his son survived. It would seem that to fight for his country was all he was passionate about after that. Pershing passed away July, 15th of 1948. He was 87 when he died. He is buried in the Arlington National Cemetery, along side the men who served under him.
        Along with John J. Pershing I learned more about Theodore Roosevelt and about his childhood, college years and ultimately his presidency. The famously know Teddy Bear was named after an incident of Roosevelt hunting. It is said that while he was hunting bears he found a small cub that he thought was too cute to kill so he spared it's life. A toy maker sent him a stuffed bear and called it a Teddy Bear, soon everyone was buying them and they're still in high demand today. Theodore Roosevelt also said that he didn't think there was ever a presidential family that had more fun being president than the Roosevelt family.

More from Arizona

Well, I have received my first piece of mail while staying here! My brother very graciously offered to let me use his really nice camera while I am here and it arrived last Thursday. So that has been really exciting! I've already had a few opportunities to use it and I'm looking forward to being able to document my trip through photos! Right now I am helping one of the teachers here by downloading audio books for her class, which is quite the extensive process! I don't really have any regular jobs, I help clean up the cafeteria after meals though. But besides that I mostly go around doing what people need to have done and try and make myself useful. The weather has been very interesting, it snows a lot but normally all melts away by the end of the day. At this point what I do most is probably games and puzzles, I've done 3 puzzles in the last 3 days. 300 piece, 300 piece, and 550 piece. Today I'm hoping to get a start on a 1000 piece puzzle!

Margaret Sanger

For school today I was supposed to read a little article about Margaret Sanger and write a blog summary of what I learned.

Margaret Sanger was the woman who founded planned parenthood. People will say that planned parenthood is a good thing to have in today's world with so many difficult situations that aren't fit for a newborn child, and others say that all life is precious and that planned parenthood is a terrible thing. Whatever side of that coin you are on, it would seem that Margaret Sanger was on neither. The main point that the article was getting across was that Margaret Sanger more or less started planned parenthood to get ride of children who were going to be born with defects, she is quoted in a biography saying, "By all means, there should be no children when either mother or father suffers from such diseases as tuberculosis, gonorrhea, syphilis, cancer, epilepsy, insanity, drunkenness and mental disorders. In the case of the mother, heart disease, kidney trouble and pelvic deformities are also a serious bar to childbearing No more children should be born when the parents, though healthy themselves, find that their children are physically or mentally defective.” (“Woman and the New Race,” 1920, Chapter 7)."


The whole article was filled with very interesting points and a fair amount of Margaret Sanger's quotes. I would urge you to read it to at the very least get a different perspective on the ideals that the planned parenthood industry was founded on.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/5/grossu-margaret-sanger-eugenicist/

A History of US 1880-1917 Part 1

        While I am in Arizona I am reading a book series called A History of US by Joy Hakim for my history. I brought along two books, the first, An Age of Extremes, is set from 1880 - 1917 and the second, War, Peace, and All That Jazz is 1918 - 1945. Everyone once in awhile I will be posting updates on what I have read from these books.

          The first few chapters of this book were about men who found ways to use the changing ways of America to their benefit and great profit. A well known early American businessman was Andrew Carnegie. Young Andrew Carnegie was born in Scotland, his father was a weaver who was out of a job and his mother was the practical one keeping the family together. It was she who decided that the Carnegie family should pack up and move to America. This decision was a very good one for Andrew Carnegie's welfare. He worked his way up job by job, promotion by promotion and pay raise by pay raise. When he was 33, Andrew Carnegie was a very rich man and he wrote a note that promised himself that he would work for two more years and then help other people. Sadly, it would seem that Andrew Carnegie forgot about that little note, he had become the king of the steel industry and showed no signs of stepping down. Carnegie was making millions, and his workers were living in the slums, they had very poor working conditions and many were injured on the job and left to take care of themselves without any help from the company. The workers of Carnegie's steel factories started to go on strike, very much like Andrew Carnegie's father had done. But that did very little to phase the great Andrew Carnegie, he was on a vacation in Scotland. Then, one fateful day in 1901 a very wealthy banker named J. Pierpont Morgan offered to buy out Carnegie's company. With the money from Morgan, Andrew Carnegie would become the richest man in the world. Maybe it was that prospect that made him take the deal, or maybe it was that little note he had written to himself years before that reminded him to help other people who were less fortunate than him. Whatever the cause, Andrew Carnegie drastically changed his lifestyle. He started donating money wherever he could. By the time he died, Andrew Carnegie had donated $324,657,399. When he learned of that number he is reported to have said, "Good heavens! Where did I get all that money?"

That was just one of the people I read about, so I will continue to post updates on as many people as I can.

Trip to Immanuel Mission

For the next two months I will be living at the Immanuel Mission school in Teec Nos Pos, AZ. A family from my church, the Suns, work there full time and we visited them a few years back. So I decided to go and help out for a little while. I am staying with a very nice family, they have 6 boys under the age of 10 so there is never a dull moment. There is no phone reception here but I am able to have access to a computer once or twice a day. I also get a chance to go into town about once a week to get groceries and other such necessities. The weather hasn't been too amazing, my first day here I was welcomed by 5 inches of snow and once that melted they cancelled school because the dirt roads were too muddy. However the scenery is really quite spectacular! We are surrounded my large mesas and outside of those, depending on the weather you can see some mountain peaks out in the distance. once the weather improves and the ground is less muddy I am very much looking forward to taking long hikes and seeing more of the surrounding area. I'll be posting updates roughly every other week.

The Reconstruction Era

            The Reconstruction was the time period directly following the civil war. It was a time where the meaning of being a citizen of the United States of America was redefined. The slaves had only recently been freed and the north and south had freshly been merged together. There was a lot of conflict between peoples, north and south, black and white, and between different political parties. But despite the conflicts there was incredible growth in the United States. The Reconstruction of America lasted from 1865-1890 it was during those years that the likes of Tomas Edison, Mark Twain, P.T Barnum, Boss Tweed, Ida B. Wells, and many more famous Americans made their name know.

            Immediately following the war, blacks knew a freedom that they had never experienced before. But that freedom quickly turned to oppression that was quite possibly worse than what they had endured during the war. Amendments such as the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments were made to protect the rights of black Americans by giving them the opportunity to vote and legally do anything a white man could do. But even though the amendments had been passed, many people found loopholes to the rule that made it so that they could oppress black people without it technically being because they were black. For example if a store owner had a rule that only people who could read and write were allowed in his store, there was a good chance that would apply to a vast majority of the black Americans as many of them had not ever received formal education. But even still others would attack black people illegally. During the reconstructing there was a sickening amount of black men, women, children that fell victim to the horror of lynching. Some people saw lynching as an act of vigilantism, but in reality they were more or less hate crimes. Killing someone purely because you didn’t like who they were or what they looked like, and in extremely inhuman ways is far from vigilantism.

            But the reconstruction era was not just a time of hardships for black Americans, it was hard from all Americans. There was a lot of confusion on how the government would be run and how laws would be passed and other such things. But despite the confusion and conflict, the reconstruction era was a time that would shape the United States of America into the country it is today.

Jim Crow

There isn't actually a real Jim Crow it was a made up term to represent the policy of segregation. A Jim Crow law was a law that specifically applied to people of color. For example, whether a black man could sit in the front row of a bus would be considered a Jim Crow law. Jim Crow was thought up because so many people had a belief in white supremacy. Not all whites were behind the Jim Crow movement. A newspaper from Charleston, South Carolina said, "The common sense and proper arrangement, in our opinion, is to provide first-class cars for first-class passengers, white and colored....To speak plainly, we need, as everybody knows, separate cars or apartments for rowdy or drunken white passengers far more than Jim Crow cars for colored passengers." There was a lot of conflict on whether Jim Crow laws were constitutional or unconstitutional, I am inclined to think that they were unconstitutional.

Theodore Roosevelt

One of the next people in history that I had to learn about was our 26th President, Theodore Roosevelt. As a boy Roosevelt was commonly referred to as Teedie, he suffered from a fairly severe case of asthma and had to live a very active and strenuous life to combat his natural weakness. He found great interest in animals and different parts of nature. From an early age he would capture animals and collect dead bugs to have a "museum" in his house, much to the dismay of his mother. Roosevelt was a very intelligent boy and would eventually attend Harvard for college. When he was 22 Theodore married Alice Hathaway Lee, together they had a daughter named Alice Lee Roosevelt. But two days after giving birth his wife Alice passed away from kidney failure. I learned in my research that Theodore Roosevelt was originally a Vice President until President William McKinley was assassinated. Roosevelt would be reelected to serve a second term, he was in office from 1901-1909. Before becoming President, Theodore made a name for himself by his actions in the military he was ranked as a colonel. He wanted to be called Colonel Roosevelt or The Colonel, but normally people just called him Teddy. The name that most people know him by today.