After the emancipation of slavery in the 1800’s, African Americans have struggled to be treated with the same equal rights as Europeans. Even with the laws that were pasted to protect African Americans there were states that ignored and created new laws to overturn the laws to protect African Americans. The ignorant of Europeans who denied African Americans the equal rights the laws stated they deserved. African Americans decided to stand up for themselves by developing non violent protest movement to fight for the equal rights of African Americans. ("Civil Rights Movement") Martin Luther King Jr. became the leader of the non violent protest movement in the 1950’s.The development of Martin Luther King Jr. in this era started when an African American woman named Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.
In the documentary Jane Elliot focuses on discrimination against women, homosexuals and mostly against African Americans and how society is biased to suit the oppressors. The blue eyed brown eyed exercise teaches white people what its like to be black in the United States of America. This is done by separating the blue eyed people who are all white and the brown eyed people and making the blue eyed people feel inferior by treating them the same way as blacks are treated in society. In the documentary Jane Elliot uses the exercise to make the blue eyed people feel uncomfortable, frustrated, humiliated, and discriminated against. By doing this she is simulating society’s discrimination of minority groups.
Washington’s views on "racial progress" were that offered black acquiescence in disenfranchisement and social segregation if whites would back the idea of black progress in education, agriculture, and economics. Agriculture to Washington was one of the soul ideas of his "racial progress" theory. Washington argued that the focus of African-Americans should be education on a trade so that they could be taught the skills they needed to be able to open up their own businesses. That would lead to African-Americans to create jobs for other African-Americans. Washington felt blacks shouldn’t worry about winning civil rights, but rather have some kind of economic stability first.
Double consciousness is a concept that Du Bois first explores in his 1903 publication, “The Souls of Black Folk”. Double consciousness describes the individual sensation of feeling as though your identity is divided into several parts, making it difficult or impossible to have one unified identity. Du Bois spoke of this within the context of race relations in the United States. He asserted that since American blacks have lived in a society that has historically repressed and devalued them that it has become difficult for them to unify their black identity with their American identity. Double consciousness forces blacks to not only view themselves from their own unique perspective, but to also view themselves as they might be perceived by the outside world.
The poetry written by Langston Hughes further explains the points discussed in The Souls of Black Folk. W.E.B. DuBois asserts the fact that black people should be recognized as a key part of the formation of America. In The Souls of Black Folk, DuBois is neither trying to “Africanize America” nor “bleach his Negro soul.” Langston Hughes’s poetry reiterates the subjects aroused by DuBois. Hughes expresses how black people represent a key part of America’s formation.
Feminism was one of the major events that took place throughout the 1900s, which was the protest of women rights compared to that of men. The Color Purple, is generally based on this topic, and how a patriarchal society runs in south America. Alice Walker does a phenomenal job in portraying her characters as vividly as possible. The plot of The Color Purple is based from the 1900s to the 1930s, which was the time of feminism’s first wave. Alice Walker, an African American herself, writes about the abuse of women in a black, patriarchal society, through the use of epistolary.
The “Ideal” Body Image in American & African Culture Candice Strachan November 16, 2014 The “Ideal” Body Image in American & African Culture Body image is defined in many ways. The correct definition of body image is the subjective picture or mental image of one’s own body. The perception of body image affects all women of all ages. Body image perception can affect many things such as one’s self confidence and also one’s lifestyle. I have taken interest in this topic and I asked myself “How does body image perception for women differ in American and African Culture?” This research proposal is a sociological study of the roles of culture in the perception of body image.
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.
The place was Harlem in New York City and the people were African Americans who came from the South looking for a better way of life. The importance of this movement to African American literary art lies in the efforts of its writers to exalt the heritage of African Americans and to use their unique culture as a means toward re-defining African American literary expression. It encompassed a wide variety of cultural elements and styles, including new experimental forms in literature such as modernism and the new form of jazz
Rising Up “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou is directed towards blacks on how to be proud of their ancestry, themselves, and their overall appearance. The poem is a special and motivating poem that African-Americans (and other races for that matter) should read and take to heart. According to African-Americans, Maya Angelou states that no matter what white Americans (slave owners) say or do to African-Americans (slaves) they can still rise up to make a better life for themselves and their race as a whole. One reason blacks should rise above their oppression is so they can better themselves and in turn make a better life for their next generation, just as their ancestors tried to do. “Bring the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave” says Angelou is taking the lessons learned from their ancestors and dreaming and hoping to rise above slavery.