Never did I think that I would have been standing in front of a class full of students acting as an early 1600s English philosopher preaching why I think slavery shouldn't be abolished. I did that though and I prepared a lot and it ended up being a great result. At first, I was nervous when I was picked to be on the pro-slavery side since I have never done any research on the reasons why early Americans believed slavery was okay. It was almost funny to see some of the reasons plantation owners and old government officials used to justify slavery.
Of course, all of this was just a project assigned to me but I still did not feel right saying a lot of stuff that I said. It was a very cool concept for a project though nonetheless and I learned a lot from both sides. One of the interesting things I learned was that Benjamin Franklin owned about 300 slaves and that he also had an affair with one of them. It was crazy to me because I was always taught that he was a leader and he made America what it is today. Another gruesome fact was about Harriet Tubman and that when she would care for her owner's baby she would get whipped every time he/she cried. This made me view idolize Harriet Tubman even more because she had the will to risk going back to that so that other slaves never had to experience it.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed this town hall presentation because of the many things it taught me. I believe that activities like these benefit most students much more than studying and taking a test. I had to go out of my way to research many different things about a guy I never even heard of until that project.
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