Jessica king American Literature II 231 April 23, 2012 Title: Comparing and contrasting two protagonist African Americans authors, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century are controversial topic for many people. Both authors have popular debating ideas of an equal society relating to the segregation among white and black people. But what’s so interesting about both authors is their background. Booker T. Washington was born in 1856; he was an American educator, founder of Tuskegee University, and an author during the late nineteenth to early twentieth century.
Gender-Related Difference in the Slave Narratives of Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass Winifred Morgan Since the late 1960s, ante-bellum slave narratives have experienced a renaissance as dozens of the thousands still extant have been reprinted and as scholars have published major works on the sources, art, and developmentof the narratives; the people who produced them; and their on-going influence on later work. Drawing upon slave narratives as well among other sources, John Blassingame's The Slave Community (1972), for example, drew attention to the complex social interactions developed in antebellum slave culture. Examining the milieu that spawned the narratives and their development, and providing insights into what the narratives can tell about slavery as well as what they omit, Frances Smith Foster's Witnessing Slavery (1979) gave readers a book-length analysis of the genre. Robert B. Stepto's From Behind the Veil (1979) situated slave narratives at the center of African-American written narrative. John Sekora and Darwin Turner's collection of essays, The Art of the Slave Narrative (1982), focused closer attention on how the narratives achieved their rhetorical effects.
The final exam will discuss the struggles African Americans encounter for civil rights during the 1950s thru 1980s. The attitude Malcolm X had in the civil rights and the issues that others had with Malcolm X philosophy in achieve equal rights for African Americans. Also, there will be great details in Martin Luther King Jr. and others philosophy in achieving equal rights for African Americans. The overall outcome of the civil rights movement in the 1970’s and 1980’s after the death of the most important Black leaders of this country. To pin point the beginning of the civil rights movement depends on who and what is being discussed.
The Black Panthers Obviously, one should admit that the issue of Afro-American’s civil rights and their appropriate participation in the social life has been rather sensitive for the USA during almost two centuries. So called Black Nationalism consists of numerous organizations, institutions, and protest activities. The early expressions of Black Nationalism claimed the liberation for the black-skinned population from racial oppression. Generally, this movement can be divided into four large groups: Educational Nationalism, Religious Nationalism, Cultural Nationalism, and Revolutionary Nationalism. The Black Panthers Party is the most active part of Revolutionary Nationalism.
This book is about the obscured settlers who laid the foundation for African American culture; it is also about the recent beginning of African American Archaeology as a means for learning about that culture. African Americans felt strong ties to their native African culture, while it was commonly believed that most Africans had lost their cultural traditions and skills during the disorienting relocation from their home to the New World, it can be easily proven through the use of different sources which include artifactual and architectural data, that the African American people were trying to maintain their racial identity and cultural traditions. Ceramics are what make up a majority of the artifacts which archaeologists uncover at a site. By examining the different pots and colonoware plantation slave workers owned, historical archaeologists can determine a great deal about their daily lives. For example the typical colonoware associated with slaves were unglazed wares, which differ from the glazed wares used by wealthier Europeans.
Enters the New Negro, Alaine Locke Alaine Locke’s piece of work “Enters the New Negro” is one of the scholarly works that have garnered a lot of publicity from all corners of the world. In this piece of work, Locke describes a revolutionary time when the African Americans experience a new light of hope to put an end of their past miserable life, a condition that had been heightened by the existence of racial boundaries. The work of this scholar marks an ending of suffering and equal treatment of all American nationalists, whether white of black. The critics of this novel have pointed out that the Locke’s prediction of hope Black Americans was the first leg of a new journey towards salvation of the enslaved African. The feature of Harlem Renaissance used by the author, points out to the long journey of liberation that African Americans had to undergo during their stay in America.
During the Harlem Renaissance the first endeavors of a distinct African American culture, especially in the ars. New advancements in arts could be seen in music (jazz), theatre, and most importantly, literature. Writers such a Claude McKay and Langston Hughes would be two significant figures in terms of literature
Many writers of twentieth century African American Literature committed themselves to accurately capture regional dialects in order to preserve habits of speech and create the effect of authenticity in their novels (American Passages, 2003). Zora Neale Hurston is considered one of the pre-eminent authors of the genre. Her book Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) is a ‘speech-recording’ novel that takes into account local dialect of African American culture. Numerous deviations from standard conventions of English language use are registered in the book. For instance, at the level of phonology: b’lieve (believe – Standard English), Ah’m (I’m), tuh (to), dat (that), de (the), and contractions such as standin’ or tryin’.
African-American author Toni Morrison’s book, Beloved, describes a black culture born out of a dehumanising period of slavery just after the Civil War. Culture is a means of how a group collectively believe, act, and interact on a daily basis. Those who have studied her work refer to Morrison’s narrative tales as “literature…that addresses the sacred and as an allegorical representation of black experience” (Baker-Fletcher 1993: 2). Although African Americans had a difficult time establishing their own culture during the period of slavery when they were considered less than human, Morrison believes that black culture has been built on the horrors of the past and it is this history that has shaped contemporary black culture in a positive way. Through the use of linguistic devices, her representation of black women, imagery and symbolic features, and the theme of interracial relations, Morrison illustrates that black culture that is resilient, vibrant, independent, and determined.
The situation of African American people in the USA has been a disputable issue since the abolition of slavery. The treatment of African American people, who were excluded from the rights and rules of the mainstream society, began the fight for equality within the African American society. One of the most remarkable African American authors is Toni Morrison. Toni Morrison’s novels represent the issues of class distinction among African American people and their individual characters represent different life-styles, personalities and destinies. They also focus on the issues of the underclass of women in the male-dominated African American society.