What Was African American Literature Analysis

803 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Stereotypes within the black culture

Kenneth Warren’s What Was African American Literature? is a book that manages to completely counter the consensus of what African American Literature is. Warren claims that “African American literature itself constitutes a representational and rhetorical strategy within the domain of a literary practice responsive to conditions that, by and large, no longer obtain.” In other words, Warren goes against the agreement that Jim Crow has not ended as discrimination and segregation is now more covert. He does manage to mention that it would be absurd to claim that “[…] the beliefs and attitudes that sustained segregation have disappeared [with the end of Jim Crow]” (96).
What I want to focus on however is this: Warren states that “In a society that no longer sanctions Jim Crow, there could not be a literature structured by its imperatives. When …show more content…

In her concept of “re-memory” exemplified in her novel Beloved, she asserts that history can be experienced. Through Sethe, she points out that the legacy of historical events is in the emotional as well as mental being and even if we choose never to think about it, it makes part of our own experience. It happened and it is not only in our memories but also out there and if someone else went to the place where all this happened, they could experience it as well. However, in my opinion, this concept of “re-memory” is absurd because while I am in that space, there is no way that I can manifest the emotions that was felt at the time. There is no relationship between myself and the event save for the color of my skin. Therefore, by focusing on race, I am forcing an experience that I actually cannot experience in totality. I am distracting myself from the issues of the present day to try and feel how people of my race in the past felt. What does that do for

Show More
Related

  • Analysis of C. Van Woodward´s The Strange Career of Jim Crow

    737 Words  | 2 Pages

    C. Vann Woodward, who died in 1999 at the age of 91, was America's most Southern historian and the winner of a Pulitzer Prize, for Mary Chestnut's Civil War. He’s also a Bancroft Prize for The Origins of the New South. In honor of his long and adventurous career, Oxford is pleased to publish this special commemorative edition of Woodward's most influential work, The Strange Career of Jim Crow. The Strange Career of Jim Crow is one of the great works of Southern history. The book actually helped shape that historical curve of black liberation; it’s not slowed movement; it’s more like a rollercoaster.

    Read More

  • Gender & Jim Crow: Book Review

    1309 Words  | 3 Pages

    Glenda Gilmore’s book Gender & Jim Crow shows a different point of view from a majority of history of the south and proves many convictions that are not often stated. Her stance from the African American point of view shows how harsh relations were at this time, as well as how hard they tried for equity in society. Gilmore’s portrayal of the Progressive Era is very straightforward and precise, by placing educated African American women at the center of Southern political history, instead of merely in the background.

    Read More

  • Vann Woodward's The Strange Career of Jim Crow

    2031 Words  | 5 Pages

    The book, the Strange Career of Jim Crow is a wonderful piece of history. C. Vann Woodard crafts a book that explains the history of Jim Crow and segregation in simple terms. It is a book that presents more than just the facts and figures, it presents a clear and a very accurate portrayal of the rise and fall of Jim Crow and segregation. The book has become one of the most influential of its time earning the praise of great figures in Twentieth Century American History. It is a book that holds up to its weighty praise of being “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” The book is present in a light that is free from petty bias and that is shaped by a clear point of view that considers all facts equally. It is a book that will remain one of the best explanations of this time period.

    Read More

  • Book Of Negroes Literary Analysis

    1166 Words  | 3 Pages

    Laurence Hill’s novel, The Book of Negroes, uses first-person narrator to depict the whole life ofAminata Diallo, beginning with Bayo, a small village in West Africa, abducting from her family at eleven years old. She witnessed the death of her parents with her own eyes when she was stolen. She was then sent to America and began her slave life. She went through a lot: she lost her children and was informed that her husband was dead. At last she gained freedom again and became an abolitionist against the slave trade. This book uses slave narrative as its genre to present a powerful woman’s life.She was a slave, yes, but she was also an abolitionist. She always held hope in the heart, she resist her dehumanization.

    Read More

  • Analysis of the New Jim Crow by Professor Michelle Alexander

    761 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ty and their survival as a group in society because of restraint from the federal government in the ability to litigate their plight in Court. The Author transitions the past and present signatures of Jim Crow and the New Jim Crow with the suggestion that the New Jim Crow, by mass incarceration and racism as a whole, is marginalizes and relegates Blacks to residential, educational and constitutionally endowed service to Country.

    Read More

  • C. Vann Woodward's The Strange Career of Jim Crow

    1733 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the field of history, it is rare that an author actually comes to shape the events discussed in their writing. However, this was the case for C. Vann Woodward and his book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow. First published in 1955, it discusses this history of race relations in America, more specifically the Jim Crow laws he equates with the segregation of races. Woodward argues that segregation itself was a fairly new development within the South, and did not begin until after Reconstruction ended. He further argues that since the South has seen so much change, citing the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the development of the Jim Crow laws, it is possible for more changes to occur in a movement away from segregation. Though to a modern reader this seems like a logical argument following the events of history as they occurred, it must be remembered that Woodward was writing during the time period in which all of this was happening and nothing was certain. As William S. McFeely states in his afterword, what Woodward “so modestly stated, was, in fact, a call for the overthrow of what was perceived to be the very grounding of Southern society.” Unlike most historians, Woodward wrote about segregation and the Civil Rights Movement with such proximity that he came to affect public opinion of the time period as well as the final outcome of events. Furthermore, Woodward wrote with what we can now see to be accurate foresight as well as with a clear understanding of historical writing and the challenges it can pose.

    Read More

  • Dangerous Liaisons: Sex and Love in the Segregated South

    784 Words  | 2 Pages

    When writing the book, Robinson used various sources. He examined legal cases from across the South, U.S. Supreme court decision, debates in state legislatures, comments in the U.S. Congressional Record, newspaper editorials, anti-miscegenation laws, private correspondence, and some personal writings by African Americans.

    Read More

  • Social Issues In A Red Record, And The New Negro

    1156 Words  | 3 Pages

    Over historical progression, African Americans have faced a surfeit of injustices that are addressed throughout numerous works of literature. One of the most frequently discussed themes in African American literature related to these injustices is social issues in an interracial community. With various literary techniques, the central topic of social issues due to race portrayed. Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s A Red Record and Alain Locke’s The New Negro address the social issues of racial brutality, inferiority and social controversy in an interracial society.

    Read More

  • The Theme Of African American Literature In Zora Neale Hurston

    1784 Words  | 4 Pages

    African American literature has evolved a tremendous amount over the centuries. The core themes have continued to grow with the African Americans and their fight for equality. A core theme throughout the works of African Americans has been freedom, and I believe this theme has evolved from wanting freedom, to getting freedom (yet still being segregated), to fighting for their freedom, to finally acting free and coming into their own. This progression would also be used to describe the evolution of the theme of equality as well. The African Americans wanted their equality, they fought for it, and soon began to write of themselves as true equals. These themes of freedom and equality, whether it be of African Americans in general, or even African

    Read More

  • John Brown Analysis

    1592 Words  | 4 Pages

    The first passage is an excerpt from W.E.B Du Bois ' biography of John Brown written in 1909. Du Bois who was an activist and founder of the NAACP presents Brown as the hero who initiated the end of the horrors of slavery. Du Bois ' descriptions paint Brown as the positive light that helped get rid of the darkness that African Americans faced. He describes Brown as "exasperatingly simple; unlettered, plain, and homely," and calls him an "eternal truth" (232). Du Bois believes that there are truths we can learn from Brown 's life and actions. He explains that Brown 's intense hate of slavery was a result of his love and sympathy for the "poor, unfortunate, or oppressed" (233). Brown believed and acted on the fundamental truth that "all men are free and equal" according to Dubois (233). He also argues that Brown 's violent actions and the consequences of those actions are the price that needs to be paid for freedom. He concludes in the biographical passage that "John Brown was right," and that violence or war was necessary to destroy slavery. On the other hand, the second passage from Robert Warren 's 1929 biography of John Brown casts Brown in a negative and unsympathetic light. Warren, an American writer who was associated with the Southern Agrarians focuses on the cruel nature and consequences of Brown 's actions. He describes the "bloody heap" of innocent lives that resulted from the Pottawatomie murders committed by Brown and his men. Warren labels Brown as a thief, a cruel murderer, and insane religious extremist. There 's nothing normal or right about Brown 's motives and actions for Warren, since they classify under insane

    Read More

  • The Importance of African-American Studies

    1857 Words  | 4 Pages

    The aspect of African-American Studies is key to the lives of African-Americans and those involved with the welfare of the race. African-American Studies is the systematic and critical study of the multidimensional aspects of Black thought and practice in their current and historical unfolding (Karenga, 21). African-American Studies exposes students to the experiences of African-American people and others of African descent. It allows the promotion and sharing of the African-American culture. However, the concept of African-American Studies, like many other studies that focus on a specific group, gender, and/or creed, poses problems. Therefore, African-American Studies must overcome the obstacles in order to improve the state of being for African-Americans.

    Read More

  • Racism And Inequality In Zora Neale Hurston

    852 Words  | 2 Pages

    Racism and inequality with African Americans have been prevalent in the U.S. for a long time. Specifically, during the Harlem Renaissance, this struggle of discrimination had arguably the greatest impact on the writers of this time period. Zora Neale Hurston is just one example of a writer who was affected by this. She was faced with discrimination, a harder lifestyle, and publication issues.

    Read More

  • Coming Of Age In Mississippi By Anne Moody

    840 Words  | 2 Pages

    Regardless the assigned reading’s time period is in Mississippi during WWII (1941-1945) and the Postwar Era (after WWII), chapters 21 to 23 does not primarily reflect Black’s discrimination WWII job opportunities in the military and war industries during or Postwar Era deindustrialization of labor and housing condition. But, historically reflecting on the extension on two time periods: 1) segregation of Jim Crow’s laws (1877-1950s) and the Post-Reconstruction tactics ranging from abuse to murder and 2) Civil Right Movement (1954-1968). The first example is at the bus station where a drunken white man told the Black woman and her children to sit at the Black side in the bus referring Jim Crow laws and performing a minstrel show satirizing the

    Read More

  • Comparing Poems 'I, Too And' Theme For English B

    973 Words  | 2 Pages

    The civil rights movement may have technically ended in the nineteen sixties, but America is still feeling the adverse effects of this dark time in history today. African Americans were the group of people most affected by the Civil Rights Act and continue to be today. Great pain and suffering, though, usually amounts to great literature. This period in American history was no exception. Langston Hughes was a prolific writer before, during, and after the Civil Rights Act and produced many classic poems for African American literature. Hughes uses theme, point of view, and historical context in his poems “I, Too” and “Theme for English B” to expand the views on African American culture to his audience members.

    Read More

  • Black Poetry

    2173 Words  | 5 Pages

    Over the course of the century chronicling the helm of slavery, the emancipation, and the push for civil, equal, and human rights, black literary scholars have pressed to have their voice heard in the midst a country that would dare classify a black as a second class citizen. Often, literary modes of communication were employed to accomplish just that. Black scholars used the often little education they received to produce a body of works that would seek to beckon the cause of freedom and help blacks tarry through the cruelties, inadequacies, and inconveniences of their oppressed condition. To capture the black experience in America was one of the sole aims of black literature. However, we as scholars of these bodies of works today are often unsure as to whether or not we can indeed coin the phrase “Black Literature” or, in this case, “Black poetry”. Is there such a thing? If so, how do we define the term, and what body of writing can we use to determine the validity of the definition. Such is the aim of this essay because we can indeed call a poem “Black”. We can define “Black poetry” as a body of writing written by an African-American in the United States that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of an experience or set of experiences inextricably linked to black people, characterizes a furious call or pursuit of freedom, and attempts to capture the black condition in a language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. An examination of several works of poetry by various Black scholars should suffice to prove that the definition does hold and that “Black Poetry” is a term that we can use.

    Read More

More about What Was African American Literature Analysis

Open Document