What is Black Friday really?

As Americans we all look forward to that one day after Thanksgiving. We get our purses ready, get in the car and make on our way to town to spend all of our money on Black Friday shopping. But what is Black Friday?

Black Friday originally was Black Tuesday. On Oct. 29, 1929, the stock market fell, leading the country into the Great Depression. This huge economic fall left people without jobs and on their own.

Today we use Black Friday as a day when retail shops have enough sales to put them “in the black” is an accounting expression that refers to the practice of recording losses in red and profits in black.

This was the 84th year since the Great Depression. Is this a day to celebrate? Would people shop if they knew what this day meant to those who suffered the Great Depression?

An online interview with survivor Joy Thomas in Ohio tells what he remembers. In his interview, he said people came to repossess everything he owned: the baby’s crib, tables, curtains, the couch — everything.

During the interview, his wife had also explained how her 12 children lived in a tent and bathed in a hole she dug in the ground. She later mentioned how they killed their only animals for food and put all the meat and vegetables in cans to try and preserve them.

“Our clothing was used hand-me-downs, my son had no pants,” his wife said.

Should we Americans in 2013 know what Black Friday was and use it to learn, or should we keep it not well known and keep spending the money those people of 1929 didn’t have?

Black Friday has a major impact of learning and suffering experience in the U.S. Should people know or not? What do you think?

Macee Radford is a Journalism student at Wasilla High School.