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CHILDREN'S BLACK LITERATURE               YOUNG

usually one-half, were alienated to each child in the family. Most slaves supplemented this meager fare by trapping coons and opossums in the fields or by stealing corn from the master's corn cribs and chickens from his chicken coops. . . .

"Most slaves lived in family type log cabins, but some lived in large barracks literally alive with slaves, of all ages, conditions and size. . . .The majority of the living quarters were dark, dank holes built flat on the ground. . . . 

"The usual punishment was thirty-nine lashes with a cowskin whip. It was not unusual, however, for slaves to receive one hundred or more lashes in one day. Few slaves, no matter how obedient or humble, reached old age without receiving at least one lashing. Masters who were psychotic, sadistic or otherwise mentally unbalanced devised ingenious methods of punishment. And 'kind' masters whipped the skin off slaves' backs and washed them down with brine."4

It is not the intent of this article to document injustices characterized by inhumane treatment and persecution of black people. But it is necessary to be aware of its existence and understand its relationship to the psychological development of black people. Just as the question of physical survival has haunted blacks, the more subtle question of psychological survival has also been important to the black self image.

In answering the questions of "Who am I?" and "What am I" black people in general have been deprived of a history and culture from which to choose. Instead white society's answers were accepted in explaining the inferiority of black people. An inferiority based on the rejection of the history and culture of black people. Thus, black people came from nothing and therefore they were entitled to nothing.

To gain a clearer understanding of the relationship of physical survival to the psychological development of the black individual, it is necessary to have an understanding of the outstanding components of personality.

Jersild has structured the image of self as a composite of thoughts, feelings and awareness of individual existence. The concept of the "who" and "what" of a person is basically conditioned by society's concept of "self."5 "Self" can never be isolated from the complex interpersonal relations in which the person lives. If the appraisal is mainly derogatory, then the person's self-image will also be mainly

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