• What significant historical and political events does Common reference? ​

Slavery-1776 till 1865 when it was abolished with the 13th amendment.

13th amendment- This was when slavery was abolished , however there was a loop hole in which white people still use to use black people for labor. It reads’ “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”

segregation- after the american civil war, slavery was abolished which meant that slaves were free, however white people didn’t want to be around black people. The wants to assert there dominance and therefore Jim crow laws were put into place.

Jim crow laws- separate toilets,drinking places, seating in cinema, no black and white schools, couldn’t eat together in public= not equal

Political- Woodrow Wilson extended these laws into the work place.

Mass incarceration- Prisons are privately owned therefore to keep it open prisoners are needed, therefore African Americans are being pulled up for minor things and are being put in jail for months/years, as he says ….’ Institution ain’t just a building But a method, of having black and brown bodies fill them’

‘Drug abuse’ was the excuse to put blacks away, this was a way to reintroduce segregation subtly. Common says this this the words… ‘nigga’ they use the word ‘criminal’

KKK- Black people were being hung from trees, as seen in letter to the free when he says ‘ southern trees we hung from’, the kkk was made to ‘keep black people in place’ and to scary them. It was a group of white people, which originated from a film shown in cinemas.

Black lives matter movement- this is a movement that campaigns against violence and systemic racism towards black people.