African American Identity

This paper discusses the definition of “black” identity in U.S. history and culture with reference to two primary texts from the course: the novel Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and the speech ”A more perfect union” by Barack Obama. The novel discusses the narrow perception of exquisiteness in African society, which is deeply influenced by Western, especially American, ideals and how black people are represented in today’s society and culture. The means of what it means to be black in America today lies within race and class, even though it can be argued that there was a loss of identity centuries ago, in spite of America being a melting pot of culture. Ira Berlin observes in the epilogue to “The Making of African America” that during

One of the greatest impacts could be seen in the American election in 2008, where Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan goat herder, speaks directly to the changes set in motion by the legislation that President Lyndon Johnson signed four decades earlier in 1965. The changes in politics and people created a new African America and a new America. The Civil Rights Act permitted African Americans to participate fully in the electoral arena from which they had been excluded almost a century earlier. The act had origins in centuries of struggles capped by a decade of intense, and often violent conflicts. Black leaders gathered in the nation’s capitol in the summer of 1965 to witness President Johnson signing the historic legislation, armed with fresh guarantees of the franchise. This affirmed its special significance. The Immigration and Nationality Act allowed people of African descent from all over the world to enter a nation from which nearly all had been excluded for almost two centuries. The acts changed America into a new country and to an African America. After the Civil Rights Act had been signed, black men and women, refusing to be intimidated by legal

Due to the large scale of diverse people of African descent, some newly arrived and some deeply rooted in America, there was a remake of the way African Americans saw themselves collectively and a new society was created. The old story of movement and rootedness was about to play itself out yet again. The image of black immigrants began to have a more influential role in politics and the culture of African America, where they have earned their rights, rather have them being given. The newcomers’ focus was access to visas, the treatment of asylees, and other matters, which revealed a greater occupation with their homeland rather than their new one. This changed during the presidential campaign in 2006, as the newly arrived found a candidate who not only looked like them but also shared many of their experiences. Obama came of age in a society shaped by the changes initiated by the Civil Rights and Immigration Acts. The interplay between them propelled him to a position that suggested how the fourth great migration had begun to redefine the lives of African Americans and then American life, at the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century. The new circumstances demanded a new narrative. Obama struggled to define a sense of self as many children of immigrants have, and he