To Overcome and Achieve the American Dream.
The Fight for Blacks Rights
Setting: South Carolina. July 13th, 1904. Three poor African American Men who work in Agricultural are drinking in an all black saloon.
Hurner- My future in this country is so utterly depressing and hopeless. We become emancipated only to realize it means nothing to our actual amount freedom in this country. "There is no manhood future in the United States for the Negro" (Turner, 44). The social inferiority of blacks caused by segregation (Jim Crow laws), and the potency of racism in this country "the Negro has nothing to expect without social equality with the whites, and that the whites will never grant it" (Turner 45). Because of various legal devices (the grandfather clause, the poll tax, literacy tests, "good character", and other laws) used by racist and powerful government officials, our ability to vote is gone, our one chance to participate in this democracy and changing it for the better. And we had so much hope in the the fifteenth amendment, but it was no match for overpowering and constant force of white supremacy in this country. The degrading effect this oppression has on blacks will be "ad infitum" (turner 46). And most of all, I need my own land, and I'm willing to leave this country to get it.
Bookington- Blacks are certainly in an unfortunate and difficult situation. African-Ameican societal inequalities can be mostly attributed the economic dependency we are facing due to the immensely detrimental effects of slavery and white fear. I do though have an optimistic belief in future equality in this country, but with that opinion I am the minority.
Idells- Economic dependency is most definitely a serious problem, but something that truly disturbs me is "There is little difference between the Ante-bellum south and the New South" (Well's, 37). With the use of black codes, including vagrancy laws, and labor contracts, also known as debt peonage. slavery has been re-established with a new list of names. The oppressiveness of these laws is matched if not outdone by the "growing disregard for human life" (Wells, 37). In the past fifteen years over 1357 African American have been lynched, the vast majority not even guilty of a crime, only guilty of trying to rise above the oppression of a society governed by white supremacists. The Ku Klux Klan terrorizes African Americans with whippings and murders, and these are common happenings! In many places if blacks do not refer to whites as Master and Mistress they are whipped! The white man "have cheated him [African Americans] out of his ballot, depreived him of civil rights or redress in the Civil Courts thereof, robbed him of the fruits of his labour, and are still murdering, burning and lynching him" (Wells, 37). Let their be no illusion that slavery has ended at all.
-A well dressed lighter skinned black man enters the bar and sits on one of the front stools.
Hurner- Well look at this man with his nice apparel and his light skin. He must think he is so much better then me with my raggedy drab clothes and dark skin. [takes a huge gulp of his alcoholic beverage]. Lets see what he's all about.
-Hurner's friends are wary of letting him confront the man, but are nonetheless curious themselves as to who this man is.
-Men walk over to the man of interest.
Hurner- Hey you. You look like you're not from around these parts. Where are you from, and what brings you to South Carolina?
Wubois- Well I am a professor from New York and have come down south to look at schools in search of students who qualify as the smartest 10% out of all African American students, a job that is the most important in bettering the social equality of African Americans.
Hurner- What are you going to do once you find these students who qualify as the smartest 10% of all African Americans?
The Harlem Renaissance In the early 20th century, African Americans were a repressed culture. Racism, was a rampant problem and over 5 million. African-American migrates to Northern States seeking for a better environment. New York city took in a great number of migrating African Americans seeking opportunity. A great many found themselves living in Harlem, and in this part of Manhattan a great cultural rebirth happened. African Americans collaborated to produce arts of music, poetry, artwork…
Lawrence, Kansas. Langston Hughes was known as one of the most prominent and influential figures of the Harlem Renaissance, a rebirth movement of African Americans in the arts during the 1920s. Through his writing, “he has enriched our lives”(1) with a profound love of humanity, especially black Americans. The main theme of his work evolves in the everyday life of African Americans – the pride to be black. The Weary Blues (1926) clearly introduced Hughes's enduring themes and established his own style…
Institutional racism is alive and thriving in modern-day America. There is nothing extreme in this statement. African-Americans have been exploited through segregation and slavery for centuries. And today they are still disproportionately threatened, incarcerated, and killed by police in the streets. To understand the sheer size and intricacy of systemic oppression in it`s entirety is nearly impossible and inevitable fruitless. However, one thing is quite clear; America needs to reckon with its fraught…
joining the African American expression of modernity. Although Hughes was not radically experimental in his form, like writer such as Pound and Eliot, there is something inherently modern about his text un that it couldn’t have been written before. Hughes adopts the American idiom in his poem using colloquial language such as ‘lawd’, The use of dialect was problematic in that it became associated with the minstrel tradition which involved whites dressing up as African Americans, thus the dialect…
Visions of Rebirth Essay During the latter part of the nineteenth century, the United States had many crises in which they had to “fix” or at least attempt to fix in order for the country to continue. The crises included money, or lack thereof, labor issues, race relation problems, differences between urban and rural areas, and the intellectual reforms. Each of the issues took a significant role in the shaping of the United States at this time. Money became a problem throughout the 1870s-1900s.…
the African American society, and the revelation of the narrator. Like the characters in “Battle Royal”, African Americans have to fight each other in real life because whites leave them so little (Brent 2). The white society sees itself as superior; therefore, it does not provide for African Americans. Blacks are then forced to compete within themselves in life. To…
The Harlem Renaissance There are many important events that happened during the Harlem Renaissance. As with the Renaissance in Europe centuries before it, there was a ‘rebirth’ of literature, art, and a way to view the world, from the African-American perspective. Summary Many advances were made in the black community, like education, politics, religion, music, and literature. Now more than ever before, blacks could get an education, no matter how impoverished the school was, they made the…
Bastards of the Party The Bastards of the Party documentary was based upon the Crips and the Bloods who are the bastard offspring of the political parties such as the 1960’s. The Great Migration occurred upon African-American migrating from the south in order to escape racism and prejudice in the south as well as to seek industrial jobs. There was a train that would stop through every town but blacks could only depart at Central Avenue. We as blacks were limited to certain neighborhoods and places…
The Harlem Renaissance, also known as the New Negro Movement, paved the road to success for many African Americans and immigrants from the West Indies during the 1920’s and 1930’s. Beginning with Blues Gospel in 1920, Stride Piano in 1925 and Hot Jazz in 1930; The New Negro Movement was a cultural, literary, artistic and intellectual movement for the fight towards equal rights for African Americans. The cultural barrier that separated blacks and whites during this era was metaphorically like the…
because he was Black. In the first few sentences of the essay, Baldwin notes that his sister was born on the same day that his father died and that his father was buried on Baldwin’s birthday. Both of these events suggest a rebirth of sorts and, in a way, the essay ends in a rebirth. At the time of his father’s death, Baldwin has finally come to understand him and realize their similarities. Baldwin’s father has, in effect, been reborn in him. Baldwin explains how his paranoid and angered father died…
