摘要
The article The Dark History of New Year’s Day in the US in Time on January 1st 2020,mentions that Americans are likely to think of New Year’s Day as a time to celebrate the fresh start that a new year represents,but there is also a troubling side to the holiday’s history.In the years before the Civil War,the first day of the new year was often a heartbreaking one for enslaved people in the United States.In the African-American community,New Year’s Day used to be widely known as“Hiring Day”—or“Heartbreak Day”,because enslaved people spent New Year’s Eve waiting,wondering if their owners were going to rent them out to someone else,thus potentially splitting up their families.The renting out of slave labor was a relatively common practice in the antebellum South,and a profitable practice for white slave owners and hirers.
