ASA PHILIP RANDOLPH Sharon Young Siena Height University LAS 301 Although, often looked over Asa Philip Randolph achieved extraordinary feats for the plight of the African American during his lifetime. Early involvement in the Socialist Party set the pace for his radical monthly magazine, the Messenger. With some experience with labor unions in New York, his first immense effort was the organization of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. In 1941 he and two other colleagues suggested the March on Washington, to protest racial discrimination and the desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces; typical of this time era the march was cancelled by President Roosevelt. In a time when African Americans had few piercing voices in the “sea of racial injustice, Asa Philip Randolph made huge waves socially and politically Introduction Asa Philip Randolph was born in Crescent City, Florida on April 15, 1889 to Elizabeth Robinson Randolph and James William Randolph.
Bontemps moved to New York City shortly after his first poem “Hope” was published in THE CRISIS: A RECORD OF THE DARKER RACES (August 1924). Bontemps was an influential and significant member of the Harlem Renaissance. Many of the themes of his work had an integrative approach to African American writings; his attitude toward folk material and Africa, and his racial protest, reflect the primary concerns of Harlem Renaissance literature.
He simulated and guided artistic activities and promoted the recognition and respect of blacks by the total American community. He urged and motivated black painters, sculptors, and musicians to look to African sources for identity and to discover materials and techniques for their work. He also encouraged black authors to seek subjects in black life, and to set high artistic standards for themselves. (http://www.biography.com). Locke edited the March 1925 issue of the periodical Survey Graphic, a special on Harlem and the Harlem Renaissance, which helped educate white readers about the flourishing culture there.
Blackface minstrelsy was an event during the mid 19th century that helped produce race and racism relating it to skin color. In, All the World’s a Fair, Rydell explains how the world’s fairs further attempted to imprint distinctions of race by physical features and skin color in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The world’s fairs massive displays promoted economic and material growth by suggesting which race had been more progressive. These events most notably discriminated against Black people. Despite this, Black people showed resistance, as mentioned by Robinson in Black Movements in America.
These early texts would be published in Notes of a Native Son in 1955. He would choose such title in clear reference to his friend Richard Wright’s 1908 – 1960 novels Native Son in 1940. Eventually James Baldwin would become aware of his homosexuality and in 1948, disgusted by the amount of prejudice against both blacks and homosexuals in the United States, he would leave to Paris in his mid-twenties where he would spend virtually the rest of his life. James Baldwin is widely considered as one of the greatest writers of his generation. He would be very influenced by the situation of blacks in his country as well as his personal experience of poverty when he lived in Harlem.
“The Souls of Black Folk” Review Written by the popular civil rights activist W.E.B Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk is a series of essays and sketches that proposes the "the problem of the Twentieth Century as the problem of the color-line” and describes “double consciousness”, that is, seeing oneself not only through his or her own eyes but from the perspective of others as well. Throughout the writing, Du Bois is constantly addressing the progression of blacks since the abolishment of slavery, the future of blacks, and the obstacles that must be overcome in order to obtain that future. When compared to the lives of other African Americans during this time period, Du Bois had an advantage in that he was born in the free northern community of Great Barrington, Massachusetts in 1868, where he was treated as an equal and encouraged to pursue his intellectual interests. As a result, he was able to achieve a high level of education, this being a doctorate at Harvard College, which he was was the first African American to receive. His experience with academic studies led him to believe that he could use his knowledge to empower African Americans, and in 1897, he became a professor of history, sociology, and economics at Atlanta University.
The Civil Rights Movement was a long and difficult process, affecting the lives of many African Americans. Finally, in the 50’s, the Supreme Court officially outlawed all racial discrimination against African Americans. Cleaver’s essays underlie the tensions of 1960’s and 70’s through a collection of interwoven essays that describe his own perspectives about the impact of racial discrimination in his own life. He challenges the white power structure by encouraging a powerful response of African Americans in revolt to the oppressive situation of the 1960’s. During Cleaver’s early life, he committed multiple “insurrectionary act[s]” of rape (Cleaver 33).
He was an abolitionist and played a very big role in the abolishment of slavery. As a young boy Franklins family owned many slaves. He was around slaves 24/7, and hated every minute of it. He would write papers about someday having a nation with no slavery. One paper Ben wrote in 1751 was titles "Oberservations on the Increase of Mankind", and was mainly about getting rid of slavery on economic grounds.
Du Bois describes just how difficult this racial barrier was for the African Americans living in the United States in the early 1900’s. Du Bois divides the book into fourteen different essays, each giving a different platform. The essays depict black America, the hardships that African Americans faced, and Du Bois’ solutions that contrasted the views of many. In this introduction of The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois states that the problem of the twentieth century was the color line. In the first chapter he discusses the after effects of the civil war and the governments response.
In the decades immediately following World War I, huge numbers of African Americans migrated to the industrial North from the economically depressed and agrarian South. In cities such as Chicago, Washington, DC, and New York City, the recently migrated sought and found (to some degree) new opportunities, both economic and artistic. African Americans were encouraged to celebrate their heritage and to become "The New Negro," a term coined in 1925 by sociologist and critic Alain LeRoy Locke in his influential book of the same name. Countee Cullen thought long and hard in his poems about his own and collective African-American identity. Some of his strongest poems question the benevolence of a Creator who has bestowed a race with such mixed blessings.