The Experiences Of Black Women During The Harlem Renaissance

The United States has a long, troubled history of racism against its Black peoples and its effects are still present in modern times and felt by today’s Black Americans. According to the Pew Research Center, Black workers earned less than other American workers earning $878 weekly compared to $1,059 in 2022 (Schaeffer). Historically, the cruelest injustice against Black people was their enslavement where they faced physical, emotional and mental abuse. During this time, it was even illegal to teach Black slaves how to read or write, which meant Black people in America were uneducated for a long period, with only a few of them being taught in secret. One of the most famous former enslaved Africans was Frederick Douglas, who wrote many pieces

From this movement, art, music, and literature were created under African American influence. From these new expressions, themes of Black culture were illustrated as they were influenced by Black experiences. One of these themes continued to be liberation which was expressed in various methods, one of which was literature. After being cruelly oppressed yet still experiencing racial injustice through segregation and racial aggressions, Black literature included themes such as liberation to express the importance of such a dream. While many Black Americans experienced inhumane injustices, Black women were more troubled by them due to their added inequality based on gender. This experience is exemplified in Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. The novel, written by a Black female author during the Harlem Renaissance, follows the life of Janie, a Black woman, who desires to experience love. Throughout the story, Janie goes through different marriages that demonstrate her oppression as her husbands stifle her by controlling when she can speak, her duties as a wife, and beating

Randall’s poem is based on the atrocious 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, a bombing that killed four young Black girls in a church that had predominantly Black attendees. The bombing was only one in a series of other bombings in Birmingham that earned the city the name “Bombingham.” (Birmingham). From this tragedy, Randall wrote Ballad of Birmingham, a poem about a mother who sends her daughter to the church instead of a Civil Rights protest. In the poem, the girl asks her mother if she may go to a Freedom March to “make our country free.” (Line 12). The mother fears her daughter might get hurt, so she sends her to church instead. The mother “smiled to know her child/Was in the sacred place,/But that smile was the last smile/To come upon her face.” (Lines 21-24). With imagery, Randall later creates the picture of a mother searching through destruction for her daughter, destruction that was motivated by the desire to enforce social imprisonment on Black communities. Although Randall asks for social liberation, he also asks for emotional liberation through the mother’s