Wilkins was born on August 30, 1901, in St Louis, to William D. and Mayfield Edmondson Wilkins. The previous year his parents had relocated from Holly Springs, Mississippi. Although his father was a college graduate and a minister, the only work he could find was tending a brick kiln. Wilkins's mother died of tuberculosis when the boy was four. In his book, Standing Fast, written in collaboration with Tom Matthews, a Newsweek senior editor, Wilkins revealed that his mother, knowing she was terminally ill, had written to her sister in St. Paul, Minnesota, asking her to rear her children. His father, fulfilling her last request, sent Roy and his younger brother and sister to live with the designated aunt and uncle, the Samuel Williamses. They lived in a low-income, integrated neighborhood but stressed to the children the value of an education and moral principles. Wilkins attended the integrated Mechanic Arts High School and became editor of the school newspaper.
After graduating from high school in 1919, Wilkins attended the University of Minnesota, majoring in sociology and minoring in journalism. As a student, he earned money to pay for his education by working as a porter, redcap, dishwasher, caddy, dining car waiter, and packinghouse laborer. Despite his class work and many jobs, he was able to serve as night editor of the campus newspaper, the Minnesota Daily, and editor of a black weekly newspaper, the St. Paul Appeal. At the same time, he actively participated in the local branch of the NAACP, thus beginning a lifetime struggle for social justice.
Taking on Jim Crow
While Wilkins was studying at the university, there was a brutal lynching of a black man in Duluth, Minnesota. The episode had a profound effect on the dire...
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...ime" was participating in a demonstration against U.S. Attorney General Homer Cummings, who held a national conference on crime without including lynching as an agenda item. That same year, when W. E. B. Du Bois (sociologist, black protest leader) resigned as editor of the NAACP's Crisis magazine, Wilkins replaced him, serving in that position until 1949. In addition to his duties as editor, he traveled and wrote many pamphlets and magazine articles pertaining to racial issues. He also wrote one of the chapters in the book, What the Negro Wants, published by the University of North Carolina Press. He served as a consultant to the U.S. War Department in 1941 to advise on the training and use of black troops, and along with White and Du Bois, was a consultant to the U.S. Department of State in San Francisco during the founding conference of the United Nations in 1945.
The hypocrisy and double standard that allowed whites to bring harm to blacks without fear of any repercussions had existed for years before the murder Tyson wrote about occurred in May of 1970 (Tyson 2004, 1). Lynching of black men was common place in the south as Billie Holiday sang her song “Strange Fruit” and the eyes of justice looked the other way. On the other side of the coin, justice was brought swiftly to those blacks who stepped out of line and brought harm to the white race. Take for instance Nate Turner, the slave who led a rebellion against whites. Even the Teel’s brought their own form of justice to Henry Marrow because he “said something” to one of their white wives (1).
Michael Patrick MacDonald saw hatred animated on a Friday in the early days of October. Some people were reading the newspaper in brightly lit kitchens. Some children were coloring with brightly hued crayons. Some fathers were getting into cars in front of their beautiful homes. But there were no crayons, bright kitchens, or fathers in nice cars on Dorchester Street in Southie that day. Only the cruelest manifestation of blind hatred. Michael Patrick MacDonald was an innocent child when he stood only feet away from a black man who was having the life literally beaten from his body, one kick, one punch, one rock at a time.
Four black sharecroppers (Roger Malcom, Dorothy Malcom, George Dorsey and Mae Murray Dorsey) are brutally murdered by a group of white people. The murders attracted national attention, but the community was not willing to get involved. The community was not fazed by these brutal murders but, by the fact that this incident got national attention. They were even more astounded that the rest of the nation even cared. In this book Laura Wexler shows just how deep racism goes. After reading the book I discovered that Fire in a Canebrake has three major themes involving racism. The first is that racism obstructs progression. The second is history repeats itself. The last theme is that racism can obscure the truth. This lynching, in particular, marks a turning point in the history of race relations and the governments’ involvement in civil rights. In the end this case still remains unsolved. No concept of the
In this essay, Dr. Brent Staples recounts his first time unintentionally scaring a young white women located in Hyde Park, Chicago. He recounts her worried posture, her hurried steps, and her repeated glances before she took off down the road. Dr. Staples, being a person of color, took slight offense to this. Before he had never really thought much about his skin color being a factor of intimidation, but rather just a piece of “normal” discrimination. It was the mid 1970’s after all, and it was no secret to anybody
In the months following the Brown v. Board of Education decision C. Vann Woodward wrote a series of lectures that would provide the basis for one of the most historically significant pieces of nonfiction literature written in the 20th century. Originally, Woodward’s lectures were directed to a local and predominantly southern audience, but as his lectures matured into a comprehensive text they gained national recognition. In 1955 Woodward published the first version of The Strange Career of Jim Crow, a novel that would spark a fluid historical dialogue that would continue for the next twenty years. Woodward foresaw this possibility as he included in the first edition, “Since I am…dealing with a period of the past that has not been adequately investigated, and also with events of the present that have come too rapidly and recently to have been properly digested and understood, it is rather inevitable that I shall make some mistakes. I shall expect and hope to be corrected.” Over this time period Woodward released four separate editions, in chapter form, that modified, corrected, and responded to contemporary criticisms.
In her Fire in a Canebrake, Laura Wexler describes an important event in mid-twentieth century American race relations, long ago relegated to the closet of American consciousness. In so doing, Wexler not only skillfully describes the event—the Moore’s Ford lynching of 1946—but incorporates it into our understanding of the present world and past by retaining the complexities of doubt and deception that surrounded the event when it occurred, and which still confound it in historical records. By skillfully navigating these currents of deceit, too, Wexler is not only able to portray them to the reader in full form, but also historicize this muddled record in the context of certain larger historical truths. In this fashion, and by refusing to cede to a desire for closure by drawing easy but inherently flawed conclusions regarding the individuals directly responsible for the 1946 lynching, Wexler demonstrates that she is more interested in a larger historical picture than the single event to which she dedicates her text. And, in so doing, she rebukes the doubts of those who question the importance of “bringing up” the lynching, lending powerful motivation and purpose to her writing that sustains her narrative, and the audience’s attention to it.
King’s critics wrote that he was “unwise and untimely” in his pursuit of direct action and that he ought to have ‘waited’ for change, King explains that “This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never’”. This short statement hits home especially when followed up with a lengthy paragraph detailing injustices done towards African Americans, including lynching and drowning. In his descriptions King uses familial terms such as ‘mother’ and ‘father’, which are words that typically elicit an emotional response from an audience, to picture ones family in such terrible situations would surely drive home the idea that the African American community cannot ‘wait’ anymore for a freedom that will probably never be given to them
In “ ‘It Was Like All of Us Had Been Raped’: Sexual Violence, Community Mobilization, and the African American Freedom Struggle” by Danielle L. McGuire, McGuire begins her piece with a haunting tale of the rape of Betty Jean Owens, that really illustrates the severity of racial brutality in the 1950s. She depicts a long history of african-american women who refuse to remain silent, even in the face of adversity, and even death, and who've left behind a testimony of the many wrong-doings that have been done to them. Their will to fight against the psychological and physical intimidation that expresses male domination and white supremacy is extremely admirable. The mobilization of the community, and the rightful conviction of the 4 white men most definitely challenged ideologies of racial inequality and sexual domination, and inspired a revolution in societal
The way Staples structures this essay emphasizes his awareness of the problem he faces. The essay’s framework consists mostly of Staples informing the reader of a scenario in which he was discriminated against and then following it with a discussion or elaboration on the situation. This follow-up information is often an expression stating comprehension of his problem and than subtitle, logical criticisms toward it. For example, Staples describes women “fearing the worst of him” on the streets of Brooklyn. He then proceeds to declare that he understands that “women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence.” Staples supports this statement with information about how he had witnessed gang violence in Chester, Pennsylvania and saw countless black youths locked away, however, Staples pronounces that this is no excuse for holding every young black man accountable, because he was an example of a black man who “grew up one of the good boys” coming “to doubt the virtues of intimidation early on.” This narrative structure highlights that Staples is not a hypocrite because he is not show ignorance toward the problem he is addressing unlik...
A strong message is brought forth by a piece written in the late 1980’s by Brent Staples. In his work, he details the racism that black men faced during the time period. He uses pathos and ethos to get on the side of his readers, thereby conveying his message effectively.
Lawrence Douglas Wilder was born in Richmond, Virginia on January 17, 1931. He was named after abolitionist Fredrick Douglas and poet Paul Lawrence. He was from a large family, being the second youngest of 8 children, with one brother and six sisters. His father, Robert was a salesman and supervisor of agents for a black-owned insurance company. His mother Beulah (may also be Eunice depending on the source), worked as a maid. His grandparents, James and Agnes Wilder were slaves making him the grandson of slaves. His family lived in a poor and segregated neighborhood. Mr. Wilder said he remembered his childhood as “gentle poverty.” (Source 2)
Both authors do their best to not exclude their work from a prospective white audience, as the inclusiveness of their messages opens the accessibility of their respective points. By hooking their white audiences, Anderson and Lamar have an opportunity to speak implicitly to their white audiences, which are arguably difficult for Anderson and Lamar to reach due to the aforementioned sense of guilt held by a typical white audience member. Anderson discusses the death of Trayvon Martin in depth, provides multiple hyperlinks focused specifically on this event, and states, “The traumatized teen became the scapegoat for the way that her inability to model respectability had failed the black community and, with it, any real chance at justice for Trayvon Martin’s death” (Anderson). In regards to Anderson’s purpose, her essay contains many examples of police brutality toward people of color from the past hundred years in order to bring attention to the corruption and violence within our legal systems. Likewise, Lamar provides an important soundbite from an outside source who counters his argument in “DNA:” “This is why I say that hip hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years” (Lamar 2:57-3:03). The soundbite was taken from Fox News reporter Geraldo Rivera’s comments about
In this narrative essay, Brent Staples provides a personal account of his experiences as a black man in modern society. “Black Men and Public Space” acts as a journey for the readers to follow as Staples discovers the many societal biases against him, simply because of his skin color. The essay begins when Staples was twenty-two years old, walking the streets of Chicago late in the evening, and a woman responds to his presence with fear. Being a larger black man, he learned that he would be stereotyped by others around him as a “mugger, rapist, or worse” (135).
The first social issue portrayed through the film is racial inequality. The audience witnesses the inequality in the film when justice is not properly served to the police officer who executed Oscar Grant. As shown through the film, the ind...
Through the film “In the Heat of the Night” racial tensions are high, but one character, the Chief of Police, Gillespie overcomes racial discrimination to solve a murder. The attitudes that he portrays in the film help us understand the challenges in changing attitudes of Southern white town towards the African Americans living there.