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Alice Paul has changed American society by being an American suffragist, feminist, and women's rights activist. Alice Paul dedicated her life to fighting for women's equality. She created the National Woman’s Party in the year 1916. Also cofounded in the Congressional Union. Alice Paul’s actions encouraged the passage the 19th amendment.
As stated earlier, blues music grew out of post-Reconstruction African American communities. It was the black proletariat from the Southern United States that was the economic force behind performers such as Ma Rainey (Springer 34). While discussing Ma Rainey’s latest record sales, Sturdyvant reveals that he is disappointed by the sales data. Although Ma’s records are popular in Memphis, Birmingham, and Atlanta, they did not sell well in places such as New York City (Wilson 19). As a result, Sturdyvant expresses to Irvin his desire to began a career in a more “respectable” industry (Wilson 19).
Women’s Blues music in the 1920s and early 1930s served as liberation for the sexual and cultural politics of female sexuality in black women’s dissertation. Hazel V. Carby explores the ideology of the white feminist theory in her deposition, "It Jus Be 's Dat Way Sometime: The Sexual Politics of Women 's Blues", and critiques its views by focusing on the representation of feminism, sexuality, and power in black women’s blues music. She analyzes the sexual and cultural politics of black women who constructed themselves as sexual subjects through songs in blues music and explains how the representation of black female sexuality in black women’s fiction and in women’s blues differ from one another. Carby claims that these black women
Beginning at the Seneca Falls convention in 1848, American women mobilized to advocate for their civil rights. Following a lull during the civil war, the women’s rights campaign began again in earnest at the turn of the century. An organization called the National American Woman Suffrage Association (henceforth NAWSA) proved successful in gaining grassroots support in their hopes to earn women’s suffrage. However, after years of unsuccessful agitation, a radical movement was needed; with no revolution, there can be no real change. Alice Paul, a young Quaker from New Jersey, proved herself to lead this radical revolution.
This main claim of this article is that the sexual legislative issues of women’s blues singers of the 1920s and relates it to African American women’s ' fiction around that same time frame. Carby also claims that great soul vocalists such as Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Ethel Waters had more insight to contest society led by men and uncover the disagreements of African American women’s ' experience than African American essayists. As Hazel V. Carby has illustrated, women blues artists were for the most part disregarded by the black middle classes, particularly women who saw blues as a declaration of the most corrupted or regressive parts of African-American life. With the National Association of Colored Women and the Black Women movement,
The genre of blues exploded into the blues craze during the 1920’s. During this time, white record producers saw the untapped goldmine that was blues music performed by people of color. Ma Rainey was one of them, and to some, one of the first, giving her the title, ‘The Mother of Blues’. The 1920’s was not only an era of continuing homophobia from the past (although that would change, briefly, into a mild form of acceptance until the more conservative 1930’s), but also of harsh racism. And yet, one singer, Ma Rainey’s, broke these restrictions.
This journal Blues, History, and the Dramaturgy of August Wilson, by Jay Plum, provides a comprehensive analysis of August Wilson’s dramatic project, focusing on his exploration of African American history and culture through the lens of the blues. Wilson’s plays, including Fences, are placed within a broader context of the Civil Rights Movement. The author draws on Houston A. Baker Jr.'s ideas about blues music to explore how August Wilson’s plays bring attention to African American struggles. For Wilson, “the blues are the African American community's cultural response to the world; they are a music that breathes and touches. That is what connects us.
In “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, she symbolizes heritage and the struggle of its definition and how it is portrayed as. Alice Walker is a renowned novelist, poet, and feminist was born in 1944, in Eaton Georgia. In “Everyday Use” the reader encounters an African American family living in a small home and struggling financially. Dee is a well-educated woman who understands the definition of heritage, but she does not comprehend her own heritage. Dee’s mother and sister do not have the same educated background, they understand where they come from and they are proud of their background.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Or: A Closer Look At The Form and Construction Of Storytelling To The Tune Of The Blues Throughout history, many cultures have passed down stories through oral tradition. Though the manner in which spoken word is delivered has changed over time, the fundamental core of the timeless tradition has stayed the same; Words have power. They can be used to spread joy, hope, and keep entire cultures alive. August Wilson’s play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, focuses on the power of the blues to tell the stories of numerous African-American individuals, as they struggle to find meaning and justice in an unfair society dominated by a hateful majority.
Family Heritage Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” is a story about a mother and her two daughters conflicting thoughts about their heritage, pride, and identities (433). The story is set in rural Georgia in 1973. Dee always got everything she wanted because Mama neglects Maggie (Walker427). Mama soon realizes this and tells Dee that she cannot get everything she wants. The setting, the climax, and theme work together to create a story that reveals the meaning of culture and family heritage.
The Blues are a much discussed topic in Wilson’s drama, taking center stage in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, yet also playing an equally important role in The Piano Lesson and Seven Guitars. From the first time Wilson heard a recording of Bessie Smith, singing “Nobody in Town Can Bake a Jelly Role Like Mine,” the Blues “had a profound influence on the Wilson; it was a cultural medium that helped define him and his race.” He recalls upon listening to the record, “For the first time some one was speaking directly to me about myself and the cultural environment of my life. I was stunned. By its beauty.
In the short-story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, Dee is portrayed as a conformist. The author uses “a dress so loud it hurt my eyes” to show how the dress is so bright that Maggie could feel the warmth it radiates, “bracelets dangling and making noise” to show the amount of jewelry she was wearing (Walker 2). The details convey the idea that she is obsessed with fashion and new trends. This obsession affects her relationship with Maggie and her Mother because she believes that she is above them. When Dee was arguing with her mother about how she should get the quilts she states that her mother doesn’t know anything about heritage.
This sense of pride continued into 1970s but also expanded into mainstream literature. Black writers began to earn a high place in American writing and were recognized through many awards, achievements and best- selling novels. Today, African American writers continue to address many of the same societal concerns but are accepted outside of their community, as well. "Winning as an American is very special but winning as a black American is a knockout" writer like Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and James Baldwin often represent " black literature" to contemporary audiences. James Baldwin was a civil rights activist, writer and essayist.
Dariana Mota Mrs. Viscosi AP English Language and Composition 16 October 2017 Alice Walker Alice Walker was a famous author born on February 9th, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia, to Willie Lee Walker and Minnie Lou Tallulah Grant (Biography Editors). She was an activist for radical civil rights, women’s equality, and peace among other causes that brought black women’s lives into primary focus (Mulready). She had countless pieces of writing which included short stories, novels, essays, and poems.
Dee was shown to fluctuate between interest and disdain for her culture. When she does appreciate her culture, she only wants it for the wrong reasons. Dee wants the butter churner her uncle had made but only to use it for decoration purposes. She gets mad when she hears that Maggie was just going to use the blanket for “everyday use” and not appreciate it for its past. She even renames herself believing that she’ll be more in tune with her culture ignoring the fact that she was named after her aunt and her great grandmother.
