In the book Sounder by William Armstrong, the main character faces racial challenges in the 19th century, poverty, and many other hardships. As the boys family struggles to put food on the table the father decides to steal a ham. When the father is caught and taken away in a wagon, sounder follows, resulting in a brutal injury inflicted by one of the officers. As the boy sets out to look for his father, he peers into a camp where his hand is cut. Later, as the boy roams the land for his father, he comes across a school house, from inside the teacher sees him and proceeds to see what's going on. The boy says that his hand is wounded. Because of these events, the boy ends up moving in with the teacher.…
In Chapter 1 of the second paragraph of W.E.B. DuBois’s The Souls of Black Folk, DuBois uses a descriptive style of writing to create a sense of deep spiritual connection with his reader. DuBois incorporated numerous vivid phrases, such as “rollicking boyhood” and “wee wooden schoolhouse” to deliver the reader into the very place and time of an unforgettable event that happened when he was a young child. This event sets the tone of his book as it gives the reader an explanation for the motives behind every decision he made in his lifetime. The words “vast veil” becomes a powerful way to grasp the very essence of DuBois’s feelings toward white people. In a unique application of “the blue sky”, DuBois constructs a vibrant picture of joyful…
In 1933, during a time in history where many African American minds were focused mainly with the economic turmoil of the country, Dr. Carter G. Woodson published a book entitled “The Miseducation of the Negro.” Dr. Woodson’s main objective of writing the book was to empower Blacks and enlighten them on the untapped potential our race has had throughout history, but hasn't yet discovered. Rather than attacking who he often refers to as the “oppressor” for blindfolding us, Dr. Woodson hold us accountable and calls us “miseducated.” In Chapter 18 of “The Miseducation of the Negro”, he stresses the important of being educated on our history as it shapes the future of our race. It goes without saying that Blacks have been so well controlled by their…
Gary Nash’s “Black people in a white people’s country” is an article that provides us with insight into the overall development of the international slave trade and slavery of West Africa beginning in the late fifteenth century and continuing. The economic influences, impact of the stages of transport on the slave ships especially that of the “middle passage”, and the impact on white or the Europeans society as African slavery became not only more prominent but also more institutionalized in the Americas.…
As a fictive tale, the novel leaves one speechless and appalled by the ignorance once held prior to reading, wholly unaware of the horrors individuals faced in the North, and the cruelty that even free African Americans were exposed to, one could not be blamed for harshly judging individuals, like Frado, who look racially ambivious, for choosing to pass as a European American. After receiving an enlightening re-education, one who reads the work of James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, may not choose to judge the novel’s protagonist as a criminal, as he does, but view it as a mechanism for survival. Johnson’s novel shares similar themes with Our Nig regarding identity, race and freedom to an African American individual of racially ambiviliant appearance. Wilson’s work allows the reader to sympathize with Johnson’s unnamed narrator, and his betrayal of the African American race by passing for a Caucasian American, even though he is unable to forgive himself.…
Although the Civil War left slaves under the impression that they had won their freedom, blacks were still constantly the target of discrimination and it took many years for them to finally gain equality. In James Weldon Johnson 's The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, a story is told through the eyes of a man in this troubling time, who learns in his early childhood that he is black, but with the ability to pass as a white man. Throughout his life he develops and fights a conflicted opinion: whether to live safely as a white man, or acknowledge his racial identity and act to advance his own race. Having been passed as a white by his mother the first several years of his life, with no knowledge of being in any way different from his white companions, the lines of race in America soon became blurred. This gave him the advantage of seeing and understanding both sides of the race issue. This man, half-white half-black and of very light complexion, was forced to choose between his heritage and the art that he loved and the ability to escape the inherent racism that he faced by passing as a white. This man learned about and struggles with his identity; he made his way through each of the social classes, became a linguist, and learned the tongues of the different people and through this becomes his own person. Above all, the ex-colored man realized the distorting influences in which colored men act upon in the U.S. in the post-Reconstruction era. These influences were external, a result of the societal pressures around him and the actions of others.…
The introduction of The Progressive Era and Race: Reaction and Reform, by David W. Southern, opens with his representation of the Progressive Era and the subsequent American shift from emancipation to segregation that occurred during it. The author uses social history to examine and demonstrate his subject. He argues that “the nation was in fact caught up in a powerful tide of white supremacy at home and imperialism against people of color abroad.” Southern discusses the hopes and expectations of the emancipated and subsequent generations alongside the failures of the Progressive movement. Chapter titles provide a glimpse of his discussion into the restructuring of the American social hierarchy.…
President Lincoln needed all the manpower he could possess to secure the possibility of the United States being whole again. The purpose of Document G is that President Lincoln wants to state his reasoning for passing the Emancipation Proclamation; to make African-Americans part of the Union’s military. Furthermore, the percentage of deserters in the Union’s military instantaneously. As a result, President Lincoln turned to the black community for military support. The audience of Document F are African-Americans. The recruitment poster wanted to get African-Americans create a regiment only for them. However, the 54th Regiment was paid less than the white soldiers.…
In the 1861 essay by Wendell Phillips, the author uses poignt, relevant alusions coupled with powerful selection of detail to reassure Northern Americans reluctant to allowing African Americans to join the military that the African American community is more than competent to defend their own freedom and to demonstrate to the African Americans willing to join that they are to be seen as no less than a regulation soldier.…
African American and supporter of the Union, Alfred M. Green, delivered a speech to fellow African Americans during the first month of the Civil War in 1868 Philadelphia. Green’s purpose in this speech is to persuade and convince other African Americans with the same political beliefs as him to prepare to eventually join the Union forces. Green adopts a patriotic, religious and solemn but yet, sarcastic, tone in order to illustrate that while African Americans were not legally permitted to enlist in the army, they should still strive to prepare to enlist as soon as the legal right to fight for their country and against slavery was given to African American men, as well as to speak briefly about the injustice shown to African Americans before and during the Civil War.…
The American dream is seen as opportunity and high achievements, but this wasn't always the case for those who lived in America. For those of African and Native American decent the American dream was anything but a dream. These two races received discrimination, false hopes, and experienced turmoil. In the writings of Zitkala Sa (Gertrude Simmons Bonnin) and James Weldon Johnson these troubling times are explained from the perspective of those living or witnessing these wrong doings. The African Americans and Native Americans experienced America as less than equals while enduring discrimination, as objects that needed improvement, and as very intelligent human beings held back by their race.…
In the document, “Address of a Convention of Negroes held in Alexandria Virginia August 1865,” it provides details about…
In the beginning Locke tells us about “the tide of Negro migration”. During this time in a movement known as the Great Migration, thousand of African Americans also known as Negros left their homes in the South and moved North toward the beach line of big cities in search of employment and a new beginning. They left the South because of racial violence such as the Ku Klux Klan and economic discrimination not able to obtain work. Their migration was an expression of their changing attitudes toward themselves as Locke said best From The New Negro, and has been described as "something like a spiritual emancipation." Many African Americans moved to Harlem, a neighborhood located in Manhattan. Back in the day Harlem became the world’s largest black community; also home to a diverse mix of cultures. Having extraordinary outbreak of inspired movement revealed their unique culture and encouraged them to discover their heritage; and becoming "the New Negro,” Also known as “New Negro Movement,” it was later named the Harlem Renaissance.…
In the book “Being Black and Middle Class”, author Steele mainly focuses on her central theses which is the unequal treatment in race and class. Throughout the book she is argues continuously on the perception of discrimination. The author believes that usage of racial discrimination is a big burden for the Black race. According to the authors insights, the white class or group sees the black class as targets to comfort their guilty ethics, whereas the black people make an effort to make their status as fatalities into a kind a money that will not afford to buy a genuine value. Henceforth, she argues more that the black race must take hold of “purchasing into the zero amount game” by embracing a culture of distinction and success without depending…
In his article “Black Men and Public Space,” Brent Staples argues that people change their behaviors due to their assumptions when a Black man is present and I agree with Brent Staples. For instance, when Brent Staples was going to work the security called on him” One day, rushing into the office of a magazine I was writing for a deadline story in hand, I was mistaken for a burglar. ”(paragraph 8) I have experienced this before, when I and my aunt went to go get some food there was an African American man walking to get some food and the people quickly rolled their windows up and seem to be really scared.…