Essay On African American Legacy

Legacy remains an integral aspect of the African American community as the honoring of generational influence has proved to be instrumental in racial identity and communal solidarity. From seventeenth-century slave novels progressing to contemporary black literature, artists use their social status and nobility to act as a vehicle for elucidating the younger generation of the predecessors that challenged racism and societal discrimination, hoping for future generations to carry that baton. African-American history proves to be a sentimental and logical factor of one's identity and the medium of art to attack or dismantle any form of national neglect. Examples range from the timeliness of self-empowerment in works of Frederick Douglass that
Personally speaking, reminiscing on one's personal memories can fully structure their values and beliefs as an African-American, which could be beneficial, yet simultaneously might portray negativity. Nevertheless, maintaining that genealogy does not only seem like a personal desire, but a racial imperative in order for African American people to fully self-actualize their role in America. Through reviving forgotten names in the African-American canon back to popularity and outlining ways to use art as a mode of resistance, establishing a relationship to the past ignites a sense of self-identity in the African American community while generationally instructing the future to further the African-American spectrum and prevent historical
Controversial and considered skeptical, Their Eyes Were Watching God, used its theme of feminism, independence, resistance to oppression, and identity to attack forms of racial and sexual oppression through the scope of its black female protagonist, Janie Brent. Morrison impeccably comments on how black literature, especially Hurston's, empowered African-Americans to attain independence, and by recovering parts of history to examine the ascension of status of the African American, one can elevate themselves humbly as not only a citizen, but an African-American citizen. By reintroducing Hurston back in the literary conversation, black audience preserve the conflicts faced by African-Americans in the early 20th century and methods they use to uplift themselves at any means necessary. In a similar vein, Alice Walker, most notable for The Color Purple, references multiple black women of creativity to