Bridging the Gap - The Slave Experience and the Autonomy of Health

The legacy of slavery is the very real perception by the descendants of the enslaved that they are personally powerless to affect their future. In order for a person to take control of their own health, they must believe they can. Education is the key to this relearning.  Wendall Berry said, “We did not enslave African Blacks because they were black but because they promised to free us of the obligation of stewardship, and because they were unable to prevent us from enslaving them. They were economically valuable and militarily weak. It seems likely, then that what we call racism came about as a justification of slavery after the fact, not as it's cause. We decided that blacks were inferior in order to persuade ourselves that it was all right to enslave them.” An example of this is seen in the Treme community of New Orleans and on the West Bank of St. John the Baptist Parish, where free people of color formed a substantial part of the early urban and rural population. Instead of the normal black/white and enslaved/ free experience of the  American South, there existed a bridge between the two realities. This bridge can be used as a tool to prove that from the beginning, Blacks were as likely to thrive and prosper under freedom as any other race in the new world. In order for the descendants of enslaved Americans to be truly free and healthy, powerless must be eliminated.