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African american cultures essay
African american cultures essay
African American Culture and Values
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More handpicked essays just for you.
African american cultures essay
African american cultures essay
African American Culture and Values
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In Staging Race: Black Performers in Turn of the Century America, author Karen Sotiropoulos sets out to describe black artists and their art as “ constitutive of and emblematic of their own generation” (1). Centered in the years post-Civil War and during the dawn of the Jim Crow laws in the late 19th century, Staging Race focuses on the advancement of African American artists in the flourishing cities in America. Artists held the stage in America’s growing entertainment and commercial sector. However, author Sotiropoulos is meticulously in reminding readers that although there were possibilities for advancements, there were still prevalent struggles among artists. Facing racial violence, segregation, disenfranchisement, and social Darwinism,
Robert O’ Hara speaks to the idea of the modern black experience in America and the future of black Americans. Ron proclaims,” you asked what it feels like to be free… lost I feel lost sometimes without a connection without linkage without a past….story..(O’Hara, pg. 330).” There was and disconnect like in real life between the older characters and the longer characters of the play. The younger characters were yearning for the older characters understand them and their ways of life. While, the older characters in the play were trying their best to show them life and all the hardships of society- consistently failing to break through their ideas.
Jacob Lawerence’s “Migration Series” encapsulates the black perspective of a massive migration in the early to mid 1900s. The movement of African Americans moving from the rural South to cities located in the North and West searching for opportunities and equality. It was a time of reinvention, through his multiple panel series, Lawerence showcases this movement between worlds. Through his panels Lawerence tells a story, a story of movement and change, but also one of hardship, violence, and discrimination. I picked the last panel of the Migration Series, No. 60, captioned, “ And the migrants kept coming.”
In “A Curious Study”: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Pedagogy, and the Post-Plantation Imagination”’ Lisa Hinrichsen explores two interconnected themes in James Weldon Johnson’s historic novel. Hinrichsen argues that Johnson’s novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, an emphasis is placed on narratives that reflect plantation ideas and are, within the text, linked to classroom spaces. In addition, she argues that pedagogy and aesthetic appreciation affect the culture of the text’s society, resulting in the creation of objectification and the enforcement of knowledge and power’s inseparability in the racially divided society (176). To support her argument, Hinrichsen points to moments in which narratives about being, having, and
James was the pastor of one of the largest African-American churches in their town. The family’s friendship with the Raglans was inspiring and opened up many doors across racial lines. Displacement in this essay was defined as being in a culture
Even after the abolition of laws to protect African Americans from slavery it has proven to be only but a false promise to protect them against discrimination and racism, and leaving them with doubt in their hearts of future suffering for generations to come. Furthermore, the subject of slavery is subject that the author want to use to make one understand what suffering an African American person continue to experience. In addition, Austin Wilson has been a great historian towards the suffering of African Americans. Moreover, Austin Wilson’s play make us comprehend the severity of the discrimination and racism.
John Guare is legendary for his exploration on the theory of six degrees of separation: the entire world population is tied in a chain of connection, which everyone is somewhat a friend of a friend. Additionally, Guare provided audiences with another distinctive approach to the study of African Americans during the late twentieth-century, via his 1990 play: “Six Degrees of Separation”. The play revolves around a young black protagonist, Paul, who untruthfully imagined himself as part of the upper socio-economic class. His actions and thoughts are undeniably influenced by the effects of racial discrimination against blacks during his time period that have been rooted for centuries.
Though public attitudes towards miscegenation and interracial marriage have improved in the last several decades, the practice of these concepts was not tolerated in the early 20th century. In Nella Larsen’s Quicksand, this stigma explains the situation of Helga Crane, a half white, half black woman living in the American South. Struggling to find her place in society, she settles down as a teacher at Naxos, an all-black institution. However, as she realizes her circumstances, she decides to leave her job and fiancé. She moves to Harlem, and then to Denmark, only to find that the people around her continue to treat her differently.
Set in the year of 1911, Joe Turner Come and Gone seems like it would be a play past the rhetoric of slavery and struggles of African Americans. However, August Wilson’s, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, speaks of the vivid history of many African Americans post slavery days and powerfully displays the themes, images, and language of newly free slaves interactions in the North. The play explores the reality of a troubled history, memories forgotten and remembered, and the idea of personal struggles. Furthermore, many of the characters in the play are searching for something in their life. The search for answers from the past, hope for the future, and struggles of everyday life bind the characters together in this short play.
In Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” and her essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” the African American social group is being represented in many ways. The texts have similar ways that African Americans are represented for the time period. The African Americans or “colored people” are represented in an aspect that comes from the author's point of view. The African Americans are represented as being unbothered, growing up in a closed community, playing the game with whites, and optimistic.
In 1971, Alvin Ailey choreographed Cry, a three part work solo dance set to gospel music that describes an emotional journey filled with struggle, hardships, defeat, survival and joy. It was intended as a birthday present to Alvin’s mother and a dedication to all black women everywhere. The first part of the dance is the struggle of trying to maintain pride irrespective of the opposition faced from outside. The second part reveals the sorrow within after the woman’s pride has been shattered into pieces and finally the third part is a spirited celebration of finding strength and joy in God. Even though cry was dedicated to only black women, i argue the notion that all women both black and white of the nineteenth century could relate
Self-sufficiency can be attained by acknowledging who we are for ourselves because doing so strengthens our character. Identity is essential for an individual. It can help people know who they are and where they fit in life. People often think identity is found in someone or something else, but it is within us. In Joe Turner's Come and Gone by August Wilson, the character Herald Loomis struggles with the inner conflict of having lost his identity, which interferes with his life.
Nella Larsen’s Passing is a novella about the past experiences of African American women ‘passing’ as whites for equal opportunities. Larsen presents the day to day issues African American women face during their ‘passing’ journey through her characters of Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry. During the reading process, we progressively realize ‘passing’ in Harlem, New York during the 1920’s becomes difficult for both of these women physically and mentally as different kinds of challenges approach ahead. Although Larsen decides the novella to be told in a third person narrative, different thoughts and messages of Irene and Clare communicate broken ideas for the reader, causing the interpretation of the novella to vary from different perspectives.
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is a play by American playwright August Wilson which depicts the lives of a few freed former enslaved African Americans in the North and deals with the conflict of racism and discrimination. This journal does not seem to fall into one singular genre, but is a collaborative of already existing ones including tragedy, melodrama, classic comedy, and farce. In my opinion, this journal falls under the category of melodrama. It is because it tries to make something sensational in the viewers explaining about the past African American culture.
The development of Huston’s awareness of her black self as she moves from one community to another. From community to community, Hurston not merely comes to know her black self, but learns