Aldis Hodge Quotes
Now, I actually have to a degree, a responsibility to ensure that it doesn't happen again.' I felt pride. When you're up there [in the noose] it does give you pause but I'm no stranger to degradation and dehumanization. I felt a lot of pride to be a part of showing something like this because a lot of people don't know and haven't been exposed to these types of historical experiences until they see it depicted on our show [Underground].
Blay, Zeba. "Aldis Hodge On The Importance Of 'Underground' And Playing A Slave." HuffPost, 9 Mar. 2016.
This quotation while difficult for us to fathom today, illustrates a very conservative 18th century view of punishment and law enforcement. The South African high court was very distressed that torture was to be ended. To them, and many others throughout the so called “civilized” European cultures of the time, capital punishment was not a very good deterrent—even for slaves. The execution was usually accompanied by horrible torture and cruelty before death. Slavery was such a horrible life, and the White colonists knew it, that death could be welcome (many slaves had committed suicide). So the suffering at the execution was to serve as a further deterrent. In reality it did not, any more than capital punishment did in the 20th century, but by the logic of the culture and the times, torture was needed as well as capital punishment.
In September of 2005 a Danish Newspaper published some political cartoons showing the hypocrisy of some Muslims who use Islam to justify murder of innocents and terrorism. Months later, in January of 2006 many in the Middle East protested vehemently and Muslim riots broke out because the Prophet Muhammad's visage was depicted against Islamic tradition. Many Muslim nations started a boycott against Denmark. Many Muslim leaders claimed that insulting religion was an “abuse” of freedom of speech including those from nations which regularly publish material that is virulent against Christians and Jews. The Sheikh along with many other Muslims called for the death penalty for the cartoonist who was exercising his Danish right of freedom of expression.
The “stake” refers to burning at the stake, one of the methods of murder used in the South to intimidate Negroes and whites who might hold anti-slavery sentiments.
Nathaniel Gordon was the first American slave trader to be executed after the slave trade was made illegal. The Erie was his slave ship where, as was typical, many of the captured Blacks, died as a result of the inhuman conditions. Although Gordon was the first person executed in America, the act making the slave trade an act of piracy dated from 1820. See {68753} .
This is a very important quotation historically. There are a few historians and many politicians who claim that the rebellion of the South in the Civil War was motivated by a number of principles having little or nothing to do with slavery, while most historians have found that slavery was the only major issue. This quote further supports that view. This is the only Union General Officer would be executed if captured by the South. What crimes did he perform to warrant such exceptional treatment? He issued an order Emancipating the Slaves of the Southern Department of which he was the Commanding General. See {619331} . Lincoln quickly countermanded the order, but the act of freeing slaves was to the Southern government so heinous that it deserved the death penalty.
When the Confederate Government realized that the Union was planning to arm escaped slaves and induct them into the Union Army, they quickly passed a law that declared any escaped slave who joined the Union Army or wore its uniform was guilty of Treason and would be executed. Most Union Generals one way or another got word to the Confederate Officers that they had better treat all Negro Union Soldiers as prisoners of war. Even President Lincoln warned the South. Butler, however, had a large number of Negro troops in his area and had heard threats of some of the Southerners to execute Black prisoners of war. He had a way of making things very clear, and he was able to prevent murder of any of his Negro troops despite the Treason law.
Like many war leaders, Davis tried to dehumanize the Northerners, against whom the Confederates were fighting. His “”theory” was that The Southerners were the good and upright sons of the Founding Fathers but the Northerners were the “degenerate” sons.
Aldis Alexander Basil Hodge is an American actor. Among his significant roles, he played Alec Hardison in the TNT series Leverage, MC Ren in the 2015 biopic Straight Outta Compton, Levi Jackson in the 2016 film Hidden Figures, Noah in the WGN America series Underground, Matthew in Girlfriends and Jim Brown in the 2020 film One Night in Miami. He will play Carter Hall/Hawkman in the upcoming DC Extended Universe film Black Adam.
