African Americans In The Piano Lesson By August Wilson

The shackles of the white man chained African American’s social potential to the ground. As a result of the vast amount of social obstacles in the South, African Americans were socially inferior to white people and unable to make social progress. following the American Civil War, America has entered reconstruction and former African American slaves have been freed. The play The Piano Lesson, by August Wilson, takes place during this time period. The Piano Lesson depicts the hardships that African Americans had to endure during the Jim Crow Era. Characters in the play, such as Lymon, experience some of the different types social struggles that most African Americans were faced with. Throughout August Wilson’s play The Piano Lesson, African Americans have

While Lymon was in the south, the sheriff “rounded him up and put him in jail for not working.”(37). Lymon’s treatment symbolizes the unfairness that was going on in the South during the Jim Crow Era. Many African Americans, such as Lymon went north in the Great Migration to escape the discrimination of African Americans in the South. During the Jim Crow Era, “in a time of massive unemployment among all southern men,” the charge of vagrancy “was reserved almost exclusively for black men” (Bricks). The Bricks We Stand On takes place in the 1900s, which is during the Jim Crow Era where African Americans faced many struggles. This quote helps demonstrate how white people wanted to keep the social status of African Americans lower than theirs because they believed that they were better than African Americans. Characters in The Piano Lesson such as Lymon were faced with the problem of social discrimination because he was charged for vagrancy and forced to work for a white man against his own will. The social discrimination between white people and African Americans cause a lack of social progress for African