Through the descriptive use of colors, Waniek creates a vivid picture of the quilt: “Six Van Dyke brown, squares, two white, and one square yellow of Meema’s cheek” (lines 15-17). The colors “brown, white, and yellow brown” not only describes the appearance of the quilt but also have a deeper meaning. The colors describe the color of her ancestor’s skin, not just the actual quilt. These repeating patterns of squares most likely pay homage to the speaker’s mixed heritage, with her family being of both Native American and Caucasian descent. The speaker’s heritage is supported by her visions of her grandmother’s childhood back in Kentucky “among her yellow sisters; their grandfather’s white family” (Lines 25-26).
Her first work was actually about her father and mother, her mother was a picture bride. She is also well known for starting a program in public schools where children from kindergarten to high school could learn and work with poets. She has won several prestigious awards for her works, and is still living in Hawaii with her family. The portrait was painted by Kitagawa Utamaro. Utamaro was well known and very famous for his wood block prints.
Mary Church Terrell’s “What it Means to Be Colored in the United States” speech was delivered on October 10, 1906 at the United Women’s Club in Washington D.C. In this speech Terrell is speaking out about the injustices happening in America’s capitol against African Americans. She gives many personal experiences, and examples of how African Americans are still being treated like second class citizens in “The Colored Man’s Paradise” also known as Washington D.C. which speaks to how Terrell was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1863, and was the daughter of former slaves. Her parents sent her to a type of boarding school when she was young for elementary and secondary school. Mary then attended Oberlin College in Ohio, and was one of few African American women attending.
After this, Castillo felt to better her life for her and her son so she went back to school. She received her masters in Latin American and Carribean studies and minored in secondary education. After graduating she went to teach English as a second language. She also taught Mexican and Mexican American history in community colleges throughout Chicago where she grew up. She taught feminist journal writing for several years and became a feminist activist herself.
Comparison Between The Book of Negroes and The Color Purple The Book of Negroes is a novel about a woman named Aminata Diallo and her journey to freedom. She is brought to America via the slave trade and uses her midwifery, reading and writing skills to help cope with her situation and gain freedom. The story is told from the point of view of Aminata Diallo in her later years. She looks back at her journey to freedom and the people whom she loved and lost along the way. The book deals with various themes such as discrimination, separation, slavery, oppression and survival.
An artist born in the early years of 1931, Audrey Flack, known for being a phenomenal photorealistic painter, sculptor and printmaker made history with her beautiful art pieces. As a young painter she worked with mainly abstract art. She then grew up to be one of many photorealistic artists in the United States. She grew to be emotionally connected and had a true commitment to all of her artwork. She stayed close to her family most of her career, attending a high school in New York where she was born and raised.
She decided to write a book on her own to share her experiences and to help guide those that are considering a career in the arts. She states, “What I came up with in the end was not the story of my life, but the autobiography of my voice” (p. xvii). In the next few chapters she discusses her family, education and apprenticeship. She was raised in New York; both of her parents were musicians and her home was always filled with music. She wrote many songs and poetry, beginning in junior high.
Her father was a social worker and executive secretary of the YMCA and her mother was a teacher. When she was young her parents would read to her the works of the great black writers. She grew up in Cleveland and attended Ohio State University where she experienced her first taste of racial strife, but still received a bachelor's degree in education in 1953. She began writing novels, short stories, and poems while still in college and a month after graduation she was married. The family moved to New York City so Kennedy could attend graduate school at Columbia University.
Josh Beatty Mrs. Moore Honors English 10 April 28th, 2011 The majority of people have been picked on or teased at some point in their life. Racism in the 1960’s was an extreme form of bullying. The civil rights movement was occurring in this time. The Secret Life of Bees happens during this hard, and wonderful, time for African Americans, specifically 1964, wonderful because they were getting their rights as an American citizen. In the book, Rosaleen, an African American housekeeper and nanny, gets upset with the bullying and the overpowering of the whites and acts out; this acting out gets her put in jail.
Lorna Goodison Lorna Goodison was born in 1947 in Kingston, Jamaica. She grew up in a home with eight siblings and her father and mother, who operated on the belief that “if you have nine children you can just as easily care for ten, eleven, or twelve.” As a child, Goodison was exposed to books; her mother loved books and her sister loved books. As an adolescent, she attended St. Hugh's High school and anonymously published her work in the Sunday Gleaner. Goodison went on to study painting at the Jamaica School of Art and then at the School of the Art Student's League in New York. She continued to write in secret, but, by her twenties, poetry began to take her over like a “tyrant.” As Goodison gave in to her poetic voice, she