...to have the lasting literary impact of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. From its publication in 1845 to its present status in the American literary canon, the Narrative has become one of the most highly acclaimed American autobiographies ever written. Published seven years after Douglass' escape from his life as a slave in Maryland, the Narrative put into print circulation a critique of slavery that Douglass had been lecturing on around the country for many years. Yet while the Narrative describes in vivid detail his experiences of being a slave, it also reveals his psychological insights into the slave/master relationship. What Douglass realizes that day is that literacy is equated with not only individual consciousness but also freedom. From that day, Douglass makes it his goal to learn as much as he can, eventually learning how to write, a skill that would provide him with his passport to freedom. What gives the book its complexity is Douglass' ability to incorporate a number of sophisticated literary devices...
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...north, and calling for action against the cruel institution of slavery. Employed as a teacher by Pace University in 1968, Jean Fagan Yellin wrote and published her dissertation. While re-reading Incidents in the 1970s as part of the project and to educate herself in the use of gender as a category of analysis, Yellin became interested in the question of the text's true authorship. Over the next six-years, Yellin found and used historical documents including the Amy Post papers at the University of Rochester (Post was a close friend of Jacobs), state and local historical societies, and the Horniblow and Norcum papers at the North Carolina state archives, to establish both that Harriet Jacobs was the true author of Incidents, and that the narrative was her autobiography. Her edition...
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...The documentary uses Baldwin’s prophetic voices as a tool of narration and places archival videos and soundbites of Baldwin into the backdrop of present-day Black Lives Matter rallies to highlight the continuity of Black protests. On the Dick Cavett Show (1968), James Baldwin stated that “the question [of the future of race-relations] is not what is going to happen to the Negro, but what is going to happen to this country and I must repeat that” (Peck1). The ideal of progress, touted by pundits and politicians alike in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, created an illusion of equality and racial reconciliation. In the televised interview, pundit Dick Cavett argued that “we have Black mayors, athletes,...
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...think that was the worst thing … I felt like they were kind of wrong to, you know, to stereotype everyone. (Maxine, 18-year-old mother) Teen mothers' unique perspectives on teen pregnancy can contribute much to our understanding of this issue, including family and individual experiences. In this article, teens' narratives provide insight into processes and contexts of family caregiving they received during their pregnancies as one type of resource they relied on to work toward a new and positive identity. Consistent with scholarship on identity construction, teenagers described their relationships with others as critical to this development, and attention to the processes of caregiving illuminates this connection. The stigmatized status of teen pregnancy, when viewed as a master narrative (such as that articulated by Maxine above), renders teenagers' own narratives a counter story that facilitates narrative repair. Analysis of teenagers' narratives illuminates how processes of identity transformation connect one to the care of others, empowering individuals to resist threats to a positive sense of self or a damaged identity (Nelson, 2001). In their narratives, teenagers describe largely negative initial reactions to their pregnancies, both their own and those of the individuals closest to them. These negative reactions provide the initial context for identity change and are emphasized through themes of loss and struggle. Despite these initial reactions that cause disruptions...
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...Harlem Renaissance At the turn of the twentieth century, not all Americans held equal chance at making a name for themselves. Unequally is the only term that appropriately describes the way African Americans were treated during this time. Although their ancestors had endured suppression and struggle for years, those African American men and women associated with the Harlem Renaissance era would come to find new hope for their race. These artists such as Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, although having differentiating views, both played major roles in uplifting the black culture. I was responsible for researching these two writers, and I will show how they made giants steps for African Americans while establishing a place in American Literature forever. After consulting my the textbook, I was able to find an article in which the story of an African American soldier from World War I was told. A Blakely, GA relative, Wilbur Little was lynched by a group of white men after returning from the war. He was slain simply because he wore his uniform in public after being threatened not to previously. Instances like this one involving Wilbur Little are what inspired the writers of the Harlem Renaissance era (Davis 477). Years of racism pushed the black culture into a corner that must have seemed dooming for many, but as the Great Migration ensued hope was restored in the hearts African Americans. Blacks during the early 1900’s caught trains northbound in hope of freedom and equality...
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...Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates covers the American struggle against the Barbary Pirates on the North African coast that harassed shipping that went through the vital Strait of Gibraltar. Brain Kilmeade and Don Yaeger team up to write the book, having previously worked together on another American historical book, George Washington’s Secret Six. Both writers have experience writing various books including a 9 New York Times bestsellers. Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates begins in 1785, with the newly established United States trying to maintain peace, grow the economy, and promote the state of the American power across the world. American ships, the Dauphin and the Maria were captured sailing in the Mediterranean Sea by the Barbary Pirates from the North African Coast to enslave crews and the ships and contents within as prizes. Thomas Jefferson and John Adam, key individuals in early foreign policy and United States politics differed on their stances on how to solve the situation; Adams preferred to pay the ransoms and negotiate peace, whereas Jefferson wanted to solve the problem by force. The young United States government struggled to pay expensive tributes that the Barbary States demanded in exchange, but the crews of the Dauphin and the Maria were released after a decade of enslavement. Yet the failed policies of George...
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...gather in the Marshall kitchen after their days of working in low-paid jobs to chat, gossip, and “tackle the great issues of the time” including the economy, politics, war, and their nostalgia for home. They discussed their adopted home, America—acknowledging both the racism they endured, and also the wealth of possibilities that the country offered. These women and their stories were, for Marshall, the origins of her fiction. She asserts that a writer’s ability to render everyday speech is derived from close listening, and the talk that “filled the kitchen” additionally functioned as a kind of therapeutic catharsis, a release of creative energy. The special kind of language used between certain groups of people gives writers their own narrative and unique language: “The principle means by which a character in a novel or story reveals himself and gives voice sometimes to profound feelings and complex ideas about himself and the world.” Although Marshall ultimately transitions from the kitchen table to the library, she states that something was missing...
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...“Has Black Lives Matter Had an Impact?” Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility, www.morningsidecenter.org/teachable-moment/lessons/has-black-lives-matter-had-impact. Heim, Joe. “How a Rally of White Nationalists and Supremacists at the University of Virginia Turned into a.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 14 Aug. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/local/charlottesville-timeline/?utm_term=.6e0adff68920. McClain, Paula Denice, and Steven C. Tauber. “Chpt. 12.” American Government in Black and White: Diversity and Democracy, Oxford University Press, 2017. Miller, Ryan W. “Black Lives Matter: A Primer on What It Is and What It Stands For.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 8 Aug. 2016, www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/07/11/black-lives-matter-what-what-stands/86963292/. “Timeline: The Black Lives Matter Movement.” ABC News, 22 July 2016, www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-14/black-lives-matter-timeline/7585856. Williams, Joseph P. “What Does the Black Lives Matter Movement Really Want?” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, 24 Aug. 2015,...
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...with Arizona State University (ASU). This curriculum would help students learn techniques to assist them in making the most informed decisions by following a four step process. To keep it REAL students would refuse, explain, avoid, and leave situations that promote negative life choices. Building best decision making practices, kiR focuses on 5 specific elements that are important for adolescents: communication competence, narrative knowledge, motiving norms, social learning, and resistance skills (Kulis et al., 2005). Using cultural diffusion, the beliefs, attitudes, and actions toward substance use differ from one culture to the next. Acknowledging the role cultural understandings play, the curriculum relies heavily on a cultural competency component to help students self-identify within the subject material (Kulis et al., 2005) . The seventh and eighth graders receive ten 45 minute lessons with specific narratives based on the population that is being taught. The narratives stem from the beliefs of Mexican-Americans, European Americans, and African Americans (Hecht et al., 2003). In this additional layer of cultural awareness students are exposed to 5 videos with students like themselves who speak on drug resistance and awareness. Post the interactive videos the students participate in lesson extensions such as homework, discussions, projects, presentations, and school-wide assemblies (Hecht et al.,...
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...A Call for Further Research: Afro-Chinese Marriages in 20th Century Cuba Katie Wang UCLA Professor Wright-Dixon I. Introduction Coalitions through marriage is a long understood concept. Kingdom alliances through marriages are ones that first come to mind. Often fictional portrayals of real pressures for pressures to gain resources or military alliance for a capital or imperial need involve young princes and princesses who are forced to marry. However, in a nonfictional example for this paper, Chinese indentured laborers or former indentured laborers and African slaves or former slaves married in 19th century Cuba both romantically and strategically. I argue that there needs to be further research around Afro-Chinese marriages in Cuba and a recentering on women. I had originally planned to center this paper around African slave women who married Chinese men in Cuba in the 19th century but was not able to because of the lack of literature available. However, I aim to focus on a reading against the grain for indications of women’s agency and voice in this set of literature. My personal stakes in this topic are two-fold. First, my mother’s side of my family lived in Cuba for a few decades from the late 1920s to 1960 as a part of an entrepreneurial endeavor and as refuge from persecution from the Communist Party of China. Because of my personal tie to Chinese in Cuba, I seek to uncover untold stories and hidden transcripts. Second, this paper is a part of a larger project...
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...The United States has a disappointing history of treating minorities, or non-whites, with apathetic behavior. The Civil Rights Movement, which has roots in the 19th century and peaked in the 1960s, reversed the trend and granted African Americans with anti-discriminatory legislation. Because of this, almost every minority within the country has followed the Civil Rights Movement as a guide for achieving equal treatment. In her essay, “Speaking in Tongues”, Zadie Smith outlines the differences of those with a single voice, or the native dialect, versus people who utilize a multitude of voices. Furthermore, this relates to the Civil Rights Movement because the leaders who were “lettered” had their own voice in addition to other voices which provided...
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...Essay on African American History Introduction In the essay “On the Evolution of Scholarship in Afro- American History” the eminent historian John Hope Franklin declared “Every generation has the opportunity to write its own history, and indeed it is obliged to do so.”1 The social and political revolutions of 1960s have made fulfilling such a responsibility less daunting than ever. Invaluable references, including Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Evelyn Brooks Higgingbotham, ed., Harvard Guide to African American History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); Arvarh E. Strickland and Robert E. Weems, Jr., eds., The African American Experience: An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001); and Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, eds., Dictionary of Afro- American Slavery (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1988), provide informative narratives along with expansive bibliographies. General texts covering major historical events with attention to chronology include John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000), considered a classic; along with Joe William Trotter, Jr., The African American 1  Experience (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001); and, Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold, The African American...
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...autobiography was “a simple, straightforward story, with no attempt at embellishment,” readers for nearly a century have found it richly rewarding. Today, Up From Slavery appeals to a wide audience from early adolescence through adulthood. More important, however, is the inspiration his story of hard work and positive goals gives to all readers. His life is an example providing hope to all. The complexity and contradictions of his life make his autobiography intellectually intriguing for advanced readers. To some he was known as the Sage of Tuskegee or the Black Moses. One of his prominent biographers, Louis R. Harlan, called him the “Wizard of the Tuskegee Machine.” Others acknowledged him to be a complicated person and public figure. Students of American social and political history have come to see that Washington lived a double life. Publicly he appeased the white establishment by remaining cautious in his charges and demands. Privately he worked tirelessly to undo the effects of institutional and cultural racism. Although he seemed to have made a grand compromise, first with the white south and then with white America, he worked in deepest secret to undermine the compromise and advance the social and economic position of blacks. No doubt exists as to his greatness....
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...documentaries as CITIZENFOUR, An Inconvenient Truth and Food, Inc. and feature films including Lincoln and Spotlight. FOLLOW US Takepart Share Facebook Twitter Email App Google +1 Tumblr Your Reach Take Action A U.S. Special Forces service member and a soldier with the Uganda People's Defence Force search the area near Pambayamba, in the Central African Republic, for indicted war criminal Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, on March 30, 2016. (Photo: Andrew Craft) takepart #longform Hunting Joseph Kony U.S. Special Forces searching for a rebel leader indicted for war crimes discover a different mission could prove even more important. May 6, 2016 Kevin Maurer is a journalist and coauthor of No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That...
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...Race, and the African American Student: An Annotated Bibliography Bernstein, Susan Naomi. “Writing and White Privilege: Beyond Basic Skills.” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture 4.1 (2004): 128-31. Evaluating the relationship between white, middle-class privilege and both standardized testing and standard conventions of writing, Bernstein offers a classroom strategy for underprivileged students (either from racial or class position or both) to counter the negative effects of academic standards in relegating them to remedial positions in order to acquire basic writing skills before being granted access to the university at large. Encouraging her students to explore their previous educational experiences related to both testing and writing through a workshop format, as well as to evaluate their own imaginative writing and the reading of creative texts, Bernstein found that these can be used as means of critical resistance to their remedial designations. Ultimately, though, she concludes that it is not the student’s responsibility alone to resist relegation but also educators as well, who need to address and seek to resolve the conditions that produce “basic writers” even before their arrival at the university, and this, according to the author, will produce an awareness and restructuring of white privilege in determining academic success. Campbell, Kermit E. “ ‘Real Niggaz’s Don’t Die’: African American Students Speaking...
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