Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe without researching the details of the case is fairly elementary. A student council chaplain delivered a prayer before each football game. A Mormon, as well as a Catholic family, filed suit under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. With just an overview of the case, you wonder what drove those families to file suit. After reading chapter five of God on Trial it gave me more understanding behind the families and the main individuals that were apart of the case.
W.E.B DuBois, Civil Rights activist, journalist, and educator, in his book “Black Reconstruction”, he researched the role African Americans played during America’s Reconstruction period. DuBois targets an audience of any open-minded reader that is willing to read about history from the lens of an African American. In the chapter titled “The Propaganda of History”, as the title suggests, DuBois argues that history is intentionally mispresented in order to influence the beliefs of the generations to come. “The Propaganda of History” analysis why the post-Civil War history remains manipulated and how that affects the African American community. One of his main claims is that the history of African Americans is subjective and belittling, that it
In the third chapter of The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, the author uses diction, symbolism, and imagery to foreshadow the Joad’s family journey to California through the connection with the turtle’s minutest movement. The turtle’s every movement portrays several circumstances that the Joad’s family have to overcome, in order to reach their goal to find reasonable jobs. Both the turtle and Joad’s family is traveling towards the southwest with different levels of obstacles waiting ahead of their journey, thus will provide discomfort with the lack of speed they have to succeed each and every problem. Also we can infer that the Joad’s family is moving really slowly and cautiously, because turtles are meant to be slow on land. So the author uses numerous rhetorical devices to correspond with the endurance of the turtle and the Joad’s family.
Emotion has a way of worming through shields and walls, penetrating even the most guarded heart. No matter how stubborn and unrelenting one may be, emotion is even more stubborn and unrelenting. “There are those… like a mighty stream,” (MLK, pg. 263). The way MLK phrases what he wanted to say thunders loudly, rings clearly and boldly. Delving into detail of how the Negro is specifically suffering a loss of dignity and self importance by the segregation that treats them like petty animals, being herded, speaks much more loudly than simply stating that Negroes are degraded and treated poorly.
African-American historian W.E.B Dubois illustrated how the Civil War brought the problems of African-American experiences into the spotlight. As a socialist, he argued against the traditional Dunning interpretations and voiced opinions about the failures and benefits of the Civil War era, which he branded as a ‘splendid failure’. The impacts of Civil War era enabled African-Americans to “form their own fraternal organizations, worship in their own churches and embrace the notion of an activist government that promoted and safeguarded the welfare of its citizens.”
In the analysis of the abundance of wonderful leaders who made a difference in the African American community since emancipation, W.E.B Du Bois made a special impact to advance the world. From founding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to his influential book The Souls of Black Folk, he always found an accurate yet abstract way of verbalizing the strives of African Americans as well as making platforms for them to be known. Although he had less power than most of the bigger named African American leaders of his time, W.E.B Dubois’ overweighing strengths verses weaknesses, accurate and creative analogies, leadership style, and the successful foundations he stood for demonstrates his ability to be both realistic and accurate in his assessment since emancipation. Though Du Bois did have a beneficial impact
Born February 23rd 1868 DuBois spent his life caught between two extremely unsettling times in the history of African-American culture. Living in the time after slavery but before the boom of the civil rights movement in the 1960’s Debois situated himself in such way that he was able to bring awareness about the unique experience felt by many African Americans during this time period. As an African American writer Sociologist, Civil Right Activist and a Pan -Africanist Dubois communicates the reality of his and his people’s struggle in the his paper Double-Consciousness and the Veil. He argues that “ there is a sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others”(Dubois,1903,pp.164). Defining what he would essentially coin as the powerlessness felt by many African Americans when they must decide subjectively and objectively weather to be African or American in a given situation.
W.E.B Dubois famously stated, “ Awful as race, prejudice, lawlessness and ignorance are, we can fight time if we frankly face them and dare name them; and tell the truth; but if we continually dodge and cloud the issue, and say the half-truth because the whole stings and shames; If we do this, we invite catastrophe. Let us then in all charity but unflinching firmness set our faces against all statesmanship that looks as such. I find W.E.B Dubois thoughts to be true based on my upbringings and the lessons that I have been taught in school. Last week I attended the 1619 Conference in McGrew Towers about this particular year, 1619, which establish African American place in America. The 1619:
The problems that came after this were caused by the Vietnam War. Because all of the US resources needed to go into funding the war, African Americans were left out to dry once again by the government. This is shown when Martin Luther King Jr. says, “The promises of the Great Society have been shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam” (Painter 305). In the drafting of the war, more black people were drafted which caused problems because now Blacks were dying in larger numbers than whites and that was yet another inequality that enraged African Americans. This time period was one of success and defeat in the eyes of the African American people.
In How It Feels To Be Colored Me by Zora Neal Hurston well as in The Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr both authors convey what it feels like to be face with race issues. The two essays shed light on the social issues in different ways. The essays show the struggles of life when those around the two authors do not fully grasp the concept. Both Hertz and King use tone, their audience, and point of view to get their point across with the goal of bringing a better understanding to their audience.
The black folk were freed by the abolition of slavery, yet this new freedom was not so. Ther identity was forever fractured between black and American, and even after they internalized the whites’ perspectives of them, they still wanted to be both without the disadvantages and racism. They were degraded, dehumanize, and shamed for their lack of education and job skills. In 1865, the Freemen’s Bureau was established by Congress to provide them with aid after living in slavery and not owning tools, homes, or land.
Web Du Bois’s novel the Souls of Black Folk describes the racial discrimination that separated African Americans and whites in the United States. After the civil war, Du Bois suffers the racism and segregation of the twentieth century. He wanted to be viewed and respected equally by people from any society. He faced the daily struggles of a divided nation and being inferior to a white race. He believed that a man could be born Negro and American but should be offered the same opportunities and rights as a white and American man.
Another issue that the NAACP and Dubois had was with lynching. Through “The Crisis”, Dubois was able to expose many of the horrors of lynching and have it out there for the general public. Through his many anti-lynching pieces, Dubois was able to garner a significant amount of support against lynching and this eventually led to an anti-lynching law. This was a huge win for all African Americans. In addition, Dubois also helped African Americans culturally through his pieces promoting black creativity.
Black skin, black culture, and black people are perceived as some earth-shattering exhibition. Whether the instance be discharged of fascination: “All of the physical characteristics of the Negro…were nothing less than miraculous… in the eyes of the village people,” or maliciousness: “…which had caused me, in America, a very different and almost forgotten pain…” the very
Being black in America for most people means you have to face discrimination, and live the hard life at slums. However, as time goes on, there are more and more successful African
