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Analysis Of Black Community Impacted And Unified By Black Literature

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Black Community Impacted and Unified by Black Literature
In R. Alan Brooks’ TedTalk, the question, “When the World is Burning is Art a Waste of Time?” is proposed. He mentions how he has created art as a form of activism, stating that his art has inspired change around the world (Brooks). While this is a key point made in the presentation, it quickly becomes shadowed by the overreaching fact of Brooks being black. He continually mentions anecdotes that seem to fulfill a word count instead of providing an answer. It is clear that Brooks being black gave way to inspiration for the answer, but rather than truly capitalizing on this fact, it becomes a hinderance to the presentation’s understanding. Rather than only providing anecdotal facts, I …show more content…

Art may not seem important on a surface level; however, the stories behind the art and even beyond what is seen have resounding importance throughout society. It is also important to mention that art is beyond what is seen in an art gallery and also includes music, cinema, theater, and most importantly literature. Literature, like other forms of art, has heavily impacted society. This can especially be seen throughout the black community, which has become more unified through literature by black literary artists like Maya Angelou and Toni …show more content…

As a black woman she created a space for women to show their confidence as well as be comfortable within their own skin despite their background. Throughout her pieces, her artistic voice captures her strength, courage, and resilience which resonates with her readers. This is especially seen throughout her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which is “credited with helping other abuse survivors tell their stories” (Spring). Despite schools wanting to ban the book for its depiction of abuse, over a million copies have sold worldwide and it has been translated into a variety of languages (Spring). This demonstrates Angelou’s wide-reaching influence as more and more people are willing to read her pieces and learn about her experience as a black woman that has influenced so many other black women. With her wide-reaching influence and many awards and recognitions she has been given, Angelou has been able to give hope to women and young girls within the black community that there is a place for recognition outside the walls of their

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Maya Angelou published her novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in the late 1960s to shed light on her personal experiences as a girl growing up in the segregated South. She writes unfiltered depictions of rape and sexual abuse, along with topics such as racism and teenage pregnancy. Her novel, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings became censored in America in 2002 due to these topics. Regardless of this novel being censored, it holds significant value in the lessons it teaches.

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This question, in my opinion, is one that is worthy of being on the final exam. I feel authors of African-American decent are often looked over. Many courses outside of African American Studies classes, do not take the time to explore literary works these authors have to offer. It would be nice to remind students about the impact that all races of people had in the world of literature.

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740 Words | 3 Pages

Maya Angelou philosophy and teachings are timeless. There is a lesson to be learned in her more than 30 published works and her lessons taught as a professor and lecturer. More important she lived what she preached. She had a strong belief in humanity as a whole, in the human spirit and in the African American community. She fought tirelessly to change extinguish racism, prejudice and discrimination during a time when she herself as a black woman experienced its effects.

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Angelou, later on, became a writer, dancer, and poet. She went on to prove that no matter what skin color you may be, you can still go on to be successful. Throughout life, you should never judge a person because of how they look on the outside. You never know, that person could go on to be beyond than what you believed.

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802 Words | 4 Pages

Maya Angelou recalls the first seventeen years of her life, discussing her unsettling childhood in her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Maya and Bailey were sent from California to the segregated South to live with their grandmother, Momma. At the age of eight, Maya went to stay with her mother in St. Louis, where she was sexually abused and raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. Maya confronts these traumatic events of her childhood and explores the evolution of her own strong identity. Her individual and cultural feelings of displacement, caused by these incidents of sexual abuse, are mediated through her love for literature.

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842 Words | 4 Pages

Never hesitant to speak her mind, Angelou passionately defended the rights of women, young people and the

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224 Words | 1 Pages

Moving forward to the “Black Lives Matter” movement Collins explained how this was not only about black activism but activism for each of the marginalized facets within the black community. From Collins speaking I found that it is important for any activist movement to avoid a specific caricature as a result of this innate multifaceted nature. “The Black Lives Matter Movement is a movement within a movement”, Collins mentioned near the end of her talk. This quote is very telling of her purpose to avoid caricature in black activism and I also find it rather synonymous with something Kelly explains in his essay.

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1288 Words | 6 Pages

Throughout American history, black culture has been treated inferior to the white race. Because Africans were brought to the United States against their will, forced into slavery, then eventually freed as American citizens, they wish to be treated equally while maintaining their unique and indigenous cultural values. Whether it is through music, art, or literature, black Americans express their way of life in order to gain authenticity for their community. However, in the case of literature, readers are unable to see color, therefore, writers must reveal cultural identity differences creatively. One style that became very popular after the Civil War is called local color: fiction that features the peculiarities of a particular community.

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In the memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou forms a connection with her reader through relatable stories with intimate details of her discomfort to convey her message of the hardships she faced as being an outcast in a community that is full of outcasts from society. Angelou at a young age wants to her peers to accept her, but instead, when she pees her pants in church, she ends up yet again an outsider as “giggles hung in the air” from the other Sunday school children (5). She uses descriptive words and phrases to trigger the reader to remember times in their life when they had gone through an uncomfortable and embarrassing situation. Not fitting into the community Angelou believes that she should be white, but instead, something

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476 Words | 2 Pages

She shows us that despite the injustices that may occur, there will always be victory for those who truly deserve it. Maya Angelou's perspective as a young African American girl is described in Chapter 19 of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, titled Champion of the World. Her community is gathered to support Joe Louis, the former champion, in a boxing match that determines if he'll continue being champion or not. As the story progresses in her grandmother's and uncle’s store, the tone transforms from hopeful to defeated, to triumphant.

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Graduation The way African- Americans have been treated by white Americans in history is truly awful and disgraceful. Maya Angelou is an African- American eighth grader who will be graduating shortly. She could not be more excited about the day she has been anticipating for months now “I was the person of the moment” (76) feels Maya. Maya and other African-

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It provided a means for artists to express their creativity and communicate their message to a wider audience. According to art historian Maurice Berger, "artists were making politically motivated works that reflected the reality of their world" (Berger 43). This statement emphasizes the importance of art as a tool for social commentary. Artists used their work to raise awareness about issues such as racism, poverty, and the Vietnam War. For example, the Black Arts Movement was a cultural movement that emerged in the 1960s, in which black artists sought to create work that reflected the realities of their experience.

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Black literature is taught as sociology, as tolerance, not as Serious, rigorous art form _ Toni Morrison African -American history predated the emergence of the United States as an independent country, and African – American literature was similarly in deep roots. Jupiter Hammon who was considered as the first published Black writer in America, he published his first poem named, “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries”in 1761. Through his poem, he implemented the idea of a gradual emancipation as a way to end slavery.

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African American literature began to be defined and analyzed. Toni Morrison is the best known writer of this phase; she is a living proof that black women succeeded in this phase as novelists, poets, writers and

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“Caged Bird” written by Maya Angelou in 1968 announces to the world her frustration of racial inequality and the longing for freedom. She seeks to create sentiment in the reader toward the caged bird plight, and draw compassion for the imprisoned creature. (Davis) Angelou was born as “Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928 in St Louis, Missouri”. “Caged Bird” was first published in the collection Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing? 1983.

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