Throughout most of the 1950’s and 60’s there was a strong push by Black Americans to end their unfair treatment in America. Two main groups during this time were working on this problem. The NAACP and the Nation of Islam were two main groups working on and poised to solve this very dilemma. Despite trying to solve the same crisis their ideas on a solution were very different. Since their views were varied, people in turn had different views on which group they would become associated with. This inspired many writers to publicly display their beliefs on the issue. In “Down at the Cross,” Baldwin displays favor toward the methodology of the NAACP in the Civil Rights Movement because of their beliefs in the American system. Even though he was partial towards the NAACP he still believed in some of the teachings of the Nation of Islam especially in their views of keeping Black pride and Black values. These notions lead to the fact that Baldwin seeks a mixture of these two factions.
The NAACP made many strides in America to help integrate Whites and Blacks. This group’s main method of mixing the races was through the legal system. The path they picked caused many issues with Baldwin and one he perceived is that “very few liberals have any notion how long, how costly, and how heartbreaking a task it is to gather the evidence that one can carry into court, or how long such court battles take.” (Baldwin 320). So not only is it hard on the pocket, but Baldwin believes “there is no reason that Black men should be expected to be more patient, more forbearing, more farseeing than whites; indeed, quite the contrary” (Baldwin 321). One can see that Baldwin felt that the NAACP’s methods were slow and that the Black man should ...
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...d in this way everyone in America can become part off this greater whole. Then we can learn from each other’s mistakes and successes to become a greater family because “isn’t love more important than color?” (Baldwin 327).
Works Cited
Baldwin, James. “Down at the Cross.” 1955. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed.
Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1988. 63-84.
Barbour, Floyd B., ed. The Black Power Revolt. Boston: Porter Sargent Publisher, 1968.
“G. O. P. Picks Volpe in Massachusetts.” New York Times 12 Jan 1960.
Jones, LeRoi. “The Need For a Cultural Base to Civil Rites & Bpower Mooments.” Barbour. 119-126.
Poussaint, Alvin F. “The Negro American: His Self-Image and Integration.”Barbour. 94-102.
Wright, Nathan Jr. “The Crisis Which Bred Black Power.” Barbour. 103-118.
“Union Aides Rebut Bias Accusation.” New York Times 5 Jan 1961.
Baldwin makes certain readers understand the states of the issue at once; his essay starts by describing his father’s funeral in the aftermath of the Harlem riots of 1943. Baldwin states, “As we drove him to the graveyard, the spoils of injustice, anarchy, discountent, and hatred were all around us. It seemed to me that God himself had devised, to mark my father’s end, the most sustained and brutally dissonant of codas” (63). Yet as Baldwin mourned the death of his father, he celebrated the birth of his yo...
Fine, Benjamin. “Little Rock Faces Showdown Today Over Integration.” New York Times 7 Sept. 1957: 1.
This knowledge wasn’t achieved by all the good qualities Baldwin has it this point is discussed in a quote by Machiavelli. “On the other hand, some other qualities which seem bad will help him to increase his power”, this quote from The Prince explains how leaders use their bad qualities to gain power or a deeper understanding. “On the other hand, some other qualities which seem bad will help him to increase his power.’Baldwin has seen both sides of the Negro and white community which allows him to form his own opinions, not listen to what he is told about one another. Baldwin not listening/ joining Elijah Muhammad a young Negro leader along side of Malcolm X was look down upon in the Negro community making this a bad quality of Baldwin. But with this bad quality Baldwin was able to see that not only can Negroes change their situation they needed the help of white America. It stated that “ Now, there is simply no possibility of real change in the Negro situation without the most radical and far reaching changes in the American political and social structure.” (Baldwin , pg 84). Being that white men run those two aspects stated this was not only a message to the Negro community it was a message for everyone in this country. Without this change Baldwin describes a very hostile environment stating Negroes will create chaos and bring down the curtains on the American dream for everyone. It’s
"Histories, like ancient ruins, are the fictions of empires. While everything forgotten hands in dark dreams of the past, ever threatening to return...”, a quote from the movie Velvet Goldmine, expresses the thoughts that many supporters of integration may have felt because no one truly knew the effects that one major verdict could create. The Brown v. Board of Education decision was a very important watershed during the Civil Rights Movement. However, like most progressive decisions, it did not create an effective solution because no time limit was ever given. James Baldwin realized that this major oversight would lead to a “broken promise.”
The Civil War was fought over the “race problem,” to determine the place of African-Americans in America. The Union won the war and freed the slaves. However, when President Lincoln declared the Emancipation Proclamation, a hopeful promise for freedom from oppression and slavery for African-Americans, he refrained from announcing the decades of hardship that would follow to obtaining the new won “freedom”. Over the course of nearly a century, African-Americans would be deprived and face adversity to their rights. They faced something perhaps worse than slavery; plagued with the threat of being lynched or beat for walking at the wrong place at the wrong time. Despite the addition of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Bill of Rights, which were made to protect the citizenship of the African-American, thereby granting him the protection that each American citizen gained in the Constitution, there were no means to enforce these civil rights. People found ways to go around them, and thus took away the rights of African-Americans. In 1919, racial tensions between the black and white communities in Chicago erupted, causing a riot to start. This resulted from the animosity towards the growing black community of Chicago, which provided competition for housing and jobs. Mistrust between the police and black community in Chicago only lent violence as an answer to their problems, leading to a violent riot. James Baldwin, an essayist working for true civil rights for African-Americans, gives first-hand accounts of how black people were mistreated, and conveys how racial tensions built up antagonism in his essays “Notes of a Native Son,” and “Down at the Cross.”
From slavery being legal, to its abolishment and the Civil Rights Movement, to where we are now in today’s integrated society, it would seem only obvious that this country has made big steps in the adoption of African Americans into American society. However, writers W.E.B. Du Bois and James Baldwin who have lived and documented in between this timeline of events bringing different perspectives to the surface. Du Bois first introduced an idea that Baldwin would later expand, but both authors’ works provide insight to the underlying problem: even though the law has made African Americans equal, the people still have not.
The Civil Rights Movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s was a mass mobilization and unification of people from varying backgrounds fighting for equal rights and equal opportunity for Black Americans. Black male leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. preached about equality and challenged people to consider social injustices within society. The leadership qualities and influence of Dr. King are undeniable. His rhetoric united Black America and identified their entitlement to the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Dr. King’s inspiring speech for Black’s to “one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”, motivated White and Black
We must glimpse the past if we are to construct a better future. Many may ask themselves, “Who am I?” but it is the revelry in understanding that basically our future lies in the past, such that it can only be answered by, “Where do I come from?” Looking to great leaders from our past bridges our connection to our future. Martin Luther King and now President Obama are excellent representations of this connection. Both faced the issues that plague America’s past, even though they are a part of different time periods. There are two specific works that address these some of these issues, “Letter from Birmingham Jail” written by Martin Luther King Jr. and the speech given by Barack Obama, “A More Perfect Union.” Although “Letter from Birmingham
...as a reader I must understand that his opinions are supported by his true, raw emotions. These negative feelings shared by all of his ancestors were too strong to just pass by as meaningless emotions. Baldwin created an outlook simply from his honest views on racial issues of his time, and ours. Baldwin?s essay puts the white American to shame simply by stating what he perceived as truth. Baldwin isn?t searching for sympathy by discussing his emotions, nor is he looking for an apology. I feel that he is pointing out the errors in Americans? thinking and probably saying, ?Look at what you people have to live with, if and when you come back to the reality of ?our? world.?
Nabrit, James M. Jr. “The Relative Progress and the Negro in the United States: Critical Summary and Evaluation.” Journal of Negro History 32.4 (1963): 507-516. JSTOR. U of Illinois Lib., Urbana. 11 Apr. 2004
Malcolm X and James Baldwin were two men that played a large role in defining a people and a cause during the 1950s and 1960s. Both of these men were dynamic African-Americans who lived primarily to help their people, who were terribly persecuted in the United States for many years. The interesting thing about these two men is that they strove towards the same goal—to unify African-Americans and give them strength and confidence—but they accomplished this goal in very different ways. Malcolm X, a leader in the Nation of Islam movement, believed that African-Americans needed to acquire strength and confidence so that they could separate from the White man and live together in peace, harmony, and production. On the other hand, James Baldwin, renowned writer, believed it necessary for African-Americans to have strength and confidence so that they might coexist on the same level as whites and accomplish what whites were accomplishing. The methodology and teachings of James Baldwin and Malcolm X differed greatly, but their general belief, that African-Americans were just as good as everybody else prevailed over all else, and made these men two of the very important faces of a generation.
John A. Kirk, History Toady volume 52 issue 2, The Long Road to Equality for African-Americans
Baldwin makes people see the flaws in our society by comparing it to Europe. Whether we decide to take it as an example to change to, or follow our American mindset and take this as the biased piece that it is and still claim that we are the best country in the world, disregard his words and continue with our strive for
Throughout his essay, Du Bois challenged Booker T. Washington’s policy of racial accommodation and gradualism. In this article Du Bois discusses many issues he believes he sees
Baldwin’s constant, detailed, reflections helped me immensely in understanding this story. I feel that they served as a constant reminder of the social context in which this story takes place. It helped to have those incessant reminders because I kept thinking it takes place in recent years, versus the 1950s, before the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing. The biggest idea that I had to keep in mind was that the racism (ultimately leading to stagnation/oppression) presented in the context was “accepted” at this point in time. By “accepted” I mean that there were not yet any written laws in place to protect blacks against these acts, not that the actions were morally correct or acceptable.