After reading the excerpts assigned I too noticed how much religion was used throughout the texts. Denzel's blog talks about, "John Browns Last Speech," and Garnet's, "From a Memorial Discourse." These two texts in-particular stood out to me because they used God to relate to their audience. When describing the cruelty slaves went through and the hardships they faced, they each bring up God in a similar way. Like Denzel said Brown describes how the new testament taught him many valuable lessons and also says, "God is a respecter of persons." And Garnet states, "in the name of God, the universal Father, we demand the right to live." I completely agree with Denzel when he says those texts were, "equally persuasive by involving the religion that the entire country was familiar with." In my opinion, by using a common religion as a way to argue that slavery is unjust and cruel would really speak to people everywhere because, back then, most people were Christians. It would connect with people in a new light and maybe allow people who had slaves to finally see how wrong it was. I also agree with Denzel when he says these two excerpts criticized the, "American Dream." They portray a slaves life was no where near the true "American Dream," that many Americans lived, but in fact, laborers treated inhumanely. In conclusion, Brown's and Garnet's Christian faith conveyed in their speeches were excellent ways to influence slave holders to think of slavery differently, and I also thoroughly enjoyed reading and responding to Denzel's post.
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