Montseratt Perez Ms. O’Bryan English 3P 27 February 2023 Civil Rights Then and Now The social issues discussed in American literature remain similar to the ones we know and fight for today. Writers like Langston Hughes and Claude Mckay who wrote stories like If We Must Die, I Too, and Let America be America Again used their status as notable writers of their respective eras as platforms to speak of social issues like racial inequality as well as the black experience in this country. Racial inequality has been and continues to be fought for by many in this country. It has been relevant to minority groups in the past and today. The fight for racial equality remains today and has not lost its significance despite its setbacks. The state of civil …show more content…
Langston Hughes’s “I, Too,” tells of the black experience during the early 1920s and can still connect to what it is today. An expert from his poem reads, “they send me to eat in the kitchen /when company comes /but I laugh and eat well/ and grow strong.” I have not held black Americans in the same regard as their white counterparts since the early days of this country. As the fight for civil rights continues, pieces of literature such as Hughes’s serve as a beacon of hope to the black community and other minority groups in the country that one day they too will have a seat at the table. The civil rights movement remains ongoing and prevalent in today's …show more content…
In his poem, If We Must Die, Claude speaks of the cost of the struggles and the payoff they bring if accepted. “If we must die, O let us nobly die / So that we may not shed our precious blood/ In vain; then even the monsters we defy / Shall be constrained to honor us though dead.” The basis of this poem was resistance, and it was Claude McKay's way of appealing to minorities who remain silent. It is a more aggressive form of hope compared to other civil rights activists but still keeps the same passion and drive for equality and an equal shot at freedom. Oppression is still felt today at a large scale by millions of people living in this country. The reaction to oppression has transformed through the years and, to this day, can vary from person to person. Regardless of people’s views, many can agree that the importance of standing up for what they believe is right has been and will continue to be necessary. In The Obligation to Resist Oppression, author Carol Hay says, “Because one has an obligation to prevent harm to one's rational nature, and because oppression can harm one's capacity to act rationally, one has an obligation to resist one's