The Civil Rights Movement In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

All throughout 20th century America, African Americans such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dorothy Height were fighting hard for what they believed were human rights that could not be denied, such as the right to vote or the right to be served in a place like a restaurant. All the while, this civil rights movement was distinguished by the work of countless artists, authors, singers, and humanitarians who made the public aware of injustices done. These works helped to inspire and encourage fellow African Americans to protest for their rights, but also served to provide a first-hand account to future Americans reading of what life was like throughout this ordeal. Through a combination of the historical and biographical lenses, authors such as
Langston Hughes and Alice Walker utilized their experiences to give their works a distinct style that characterized the civil rights movement.
Literary works often tend to emerge from personal experiences in order to open a reader’s eyes about issues or conflicts happening in the world. For example, biographer and literary critic Arnold Rampersad remarked that noted Harlem Renaissance author Langston Hughes’ art was “firmly rooted in race pride and race feeling even as he cherished his freedom as an artist… he believed that art should be accessible to as many people as possible… his art is generally suffused by a keen sense of the ideal and by a profound love of humanity, especially black Americans” (Rampersad) to prove that Hughes’ main goal was to encourage black Americans to take a stand for what is morally justicial, and he did so by using his own experiences in his work to create a powerful and inspirational work. Hughes said that “most of my own poems are racial in theme and treatment, derived from the life I know” (Hughes), which shows a relatability between him and all the other African Americans that he tried so hard to help. Indeed, a great deal of potential writers and artists became inspired by him, such as civil rights advocates like Alice Walker, Paule Marshall, and Amari Baraka (Loessy). Without him, the world would not be in the same place that it is today because his truthtelling and influential novels, poems, and plays had such a large impact on gaining human rights.
One of the many distinct characteristics of the civil rights movement was the sudden burst of pride that African Americans felt for their culture.
Especially after the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, African Americans were ready to invent a new kind of modernism. This might best be shown by the character Dee in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”, in which she changes her name and style because it is the new, popular thing to do. The quilts that Dee loved so much could be said to symbolize different patches of black culture being stitched together in unity to form something wonderful. Critic Sam Whitsitt says about Dee, “What Dee doesn’t want to see… is that link between herself and that place she came from… it is because Dee refuses to see herself as part of that whole that her relationship to the churn handle comes to be metonymic, which is then what allows the reading which sees Dee as turning those parts of the whole into mere things, or aestheticized objects” (Whitsitt, 450). What becomes obvious to the reader, as Whitsitt pointed out, is how materialistic Dee is regarding her heritage, and how she only wants things just to have them and exploit them. At that same time, African Americans were emerging with their own television networks, shows, television personalities, and even a new genre of sitcoms. Dee’s vivacity and forthright attitude clearly stands to represent how she and her fellow African Americans felt at that time of new independence, and what these new changes may have
foreshadowed.
The most important impact that writers of the civil rights era had on their readers was the power to inspire and encourage them, and to make them feel like life was worth living. In Alice Walker’s groundbreaking novel The Color Purple, one of the characters says,
“They are the blackest people I have ever seen, Celie… They are so black, Celie, they shine… But Celie, try to imagine a city full of these shining, blueblack people wearing brilliant blue robes with designs like fancy quilt patterns… And Celie, there is something magical about it. Because the black is so black the eye is simply dazzled, and then there is the shining that seems to come, really, from moonlight, it is so luminous, but their skin glows even in the sun” (Walker, 147)
Although the “black is beautiful” was popularized back in the 1920’s with Marcus Garvey, it erupted during the 1960’s when it was most crucial, since any civil rights protester can trace his or her inspiration from a notable author or orator. It is noted that “Hughes’ poetry, stories, essays, and drama continue to inspire the sense of so many early Black Arts activists in the northeast...in addition to the influence of Hughes’ writing and of his role of as a model of an engaged black artist were his practical efforts to promote young black writers” (Smethurst, 1028-1029). The author also notes that Hughes went on to inspire some of the great black playwrights, such as Ron Milner, and other poets that became a huge factor in the civil rights movement. As it has been shown, everyone who contributed any poem, song, or other form of expression helped significantly with the civil rights movement, and ultimately led to the passing of acts by Congress that gave African Americans the right to vote and have other unalienable rights. Although there were many leaders, names like Langston Hughes and Alice Walker still provide inspiration and encouragement in today’s society, which only goes to show how groundbreaking their works were. By providing a sense of purpose to so many depressed souls, the artists of that age helped to create an entirely new and unoppressed generation of vibrant people who were ready to embrace a new culture.