African American Journey Essay

1467 Words3 Pages

The African American Journey: How Far We Have Come Slavery. Many people today would like to forget that part of America 's past but, for African Americans, it is not so easily forgotten. For African Americans, life in America has been tumultuous to say the least. Since those first few horrendous centuries, African Americans have been making strides towards a better existence. Things are better now because of the countless African Americans who strived and believed that things could be better for their people. Even though African Americans still have a ways to go, African Americans have come a long way over the course of 100 years because the foundation of the NAACP, the Harlem Renaissance, the "I Have A Dream" speech, and the fact that an …show more content…

“The movement is often described as a state of mind or attitude shared among writers and intellectuals who lived and worked in Harlem... a new awakening of African American culture” (Barnes & Bowles, 2014). It could be argued that the movement began when African American soldiers returned from the war with a more assertive attitude. “Popularly known as the New Negro, in the 1920s many African Americans expressed an outspoken advocacy of their rights and dignity and a refusal to submit to segregation or second-class citizenship” (Barnes & Bowles, 2014). When they returned from World War I, the African American soldiers realized that they fought and died for democracy when they were not receiving democratic treatment back at home; they were treated more like equals in a foreign country than they were back at home in the United …show more content…

That movement produced some of the most innovative African American artists the world has ever seen. The NAACP journal, Crisis, was a big part of the Harlem Renaissance because it published the works of African American writers. The Harlem Renaissance is historically significant because, for the first time in America, African American art was celebrated and becoming popular even with white Americans. The Harlem Renaissance was the incubator for so many amazing things like Jazz music and the works of influential writers like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston which are still important today. This cultural awakening lead to the nest step in the African American journey, civil

Open Document