...Definition Essay: Final Draft Kristopher Kirkpatrick September 19, 2011 English 002 Kris Kirkpatrick Definition Essay Where would the African-American community be today if they were all still living in the south? America would not be the country that it is today if people did not immigrate here from their respective countries, or migrate here from their respective areas. Due to immigration and migration, the culture in heavily populated cities, such as Harlem, Cleveland, Chicago, and Philadelphia, has given African-Americans, and European-Americans an identity and sense of belonging in the United States. Immigration is defined as the action to come to a country of which one is not a native, usually for permanent residency. Migration is defined as the action to move from a country, place, or locality to another. Why do Economist and Politicians seem to define blacks moving from the south to the north immigration? Certain groups of people still called the action of blacks moving from one part of the country to another immigration, instead of migration, because they didn’t see African-Americans as United States citizens. Economist believes migration has turned out to be a great strategy for the poor to make their lives a little better. African-Americans have migrated to the North for better opportunities, and the economy has boomed because of them. Economist can view the Great Migration and say that it resembles immigration in many ways. When foreigners immigrated...
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...poet—not a Negro poet” (Hughes 348). In his essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” Langston Hughes covers many important points but his hook is one to mention. This hook focuses a lot on the main issue of the essay itself. The issue is that the negro poets want to write like the white poets implying that colored artists want to be white. This then leads to the fact that the white audiences turned to the artists of color and saw them as stereotypical entertainment mainly because these black artists were afraid of being themselves. Langston Hughes’s poem, “The Weary Blues” engages with themes of the Harlem Renaissance and the content of the poem expresses various issues Hughes discussed in “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” The poem, “The Weary Blues” is a powerful poem because it highlights the cultural traditions of the African American descent during a time of the Harlem Renaissance. The audience is able to...
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...Bibliographic 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...
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...African American's Journey Essay Below is a free essay on "African American's Journey" from Anti Essays, your source for free research papers, essays, and term paper examples. “African American’s Journey to Freedom” Charity Johnson HIS204: American History since 1865 Instructor: Leslie Ruff February 11, 2013 “African American’s Journey to Freedom” To some African Americans it may seem ironic that The United States of America is known as “the land of the free” considering that majority of their ancestors entered the US as slaves. African Americans were brought to North America via the middle passage which originated during the fifteenth century. They were enslaved for approximately 400 hundred years until the end of the Civil War in 1865. Although African Americans were enslaved in America, they were determine to survive and one day be freed in this great country. During The African American’s journey to freedom several significant events took place which was inclusive of but not limited to: The Civil Rights Movement of 1865-1877, Separate but Equal Legislation (Plessy vs. Ferguson court case) in 1896, The Harlem Renaissance of 1920, Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, The March on Washington Movement of 1963, and The Black Power Movement of the late 1960s and 1970. I will discuss the significance of these events in relation to the African American journey to freedom and how they have help shape American society today. THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT OF 1865-1877 Frequently when...
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...What is reconstruction? Its the period after the Civil War in which the states that were previously a part of the confederacy were brought back into the United States. (1865-1877) The South did not want the African Americans in office because they believed they weren’t very astute, or intelligent enough. The Northerners believed that the African Americans had the right to be in office, and were trying to aid them. Towards the end of reconstruction the North started caring less about the African Americans that they brought up from the South, and they stopped trying to help them, which in my opinion gave the South an advantage to slide in and finish the job they started. The North inevitably lost and the south demolished the Norths hope, therefor causing the end of reconstruction....
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...In their, James H. Dormon and Robert R. Jones refute many different misconceptions that they believe other people have about slave life and culture. One of the people that they believe to have misconceive some parts of slave’s lives and culture is Stanley Elkins. The materials found within the book African American Voices, edited by Steven Mintz, confute many of the views found in both essays written by Elkins and Dormon and Jones. While Dormon and Jones and Elkins considered the institution to be a “closed” system, Dormon and Jones did not see it to be as “closed” as Elkins did. Elkins believed that the system in North American slavery was “closed”, meaning that a mass majority of slaves were restricted from having contact with the free...
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...Essay The essay gives you the opportunity to go in-depth into an issue in American culture. Your three possible topics are: (1) relations between blacks and whites; (2) the status of women; and (3) relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world. You pick one of these topics and, using only our textbook, write 1800-2000 words on how you have seen that topic throughout the course, from the beginnings to the present. How has it changed? What were the big events or people involved in it? What analysis can you bring to the topic, in order to assess it critically? The essay is to be critical and not just a summary of sections in which your topic is mentioned in the textbook. The essay should be double-spaced, with one-inch margins, and a 12-point font. Frequent citations (probably one or two per paragraph) to the textbook are essential for each point you find from the textbook. Use Turabian or MLA for your citation format and be exact in your citations, including page numbers for each one. No title page or works cited page are needed. In the beginning of the African American history, there were many obstacles and struggles that the colored people had to face. They were being mistreated, sometimes even less than a white man’s dog. It all began in 1619, the first African slaves were brought to Virginia. Once a person becomes a slave, they were slaves for life and so were the next generation. The majority of the slaves worked in rice or tobacco plantations in dangerous...
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...This is shown in "Race, Memory, and Masculinity: Black Veterans Recall the Civil War," by W. Fitzhugh Brundage. He tells how African Americans veterans of the civil war fought hard to keep their involvement in the civil war a part of National memory to keep their sense of pride. Brundage tells that sometimes the real truth of events were silenced by those who held more power than those involved in the story. We see this exemplified in today’s society with our government not telling the whole story due to their immense ways to silence individuals. Martha Creighton details an important new viewpoint of the Battle of Gettysburg that is rarely talked about. She details the emotional map of the battle detailing how even though slaves were free, soldiers would go into the territory in the border region and take free slaves and reprimand them, turning them back to slavery. This is a tough spot for african american civilians as far North, their freedom was safe, and far south, they were enslaved. Right in the border region where newly freed African Americans were trying to live out their lives, they had to worry about being taken back to slavery (209-213). African Americans also fled and hid in attics and churches so as not to be taken back. This is an account rarely told not only because of the...
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...letter to you with the beginning of the story. My people had a very rocky start. In the mid 1500’s European mariners started to bring African Americans to America as slaves. They were forced to migrate. African Americans were captured and brought to be sold. Two out of five of the African Americans died on the move from the Atlantic seacoast to where they were sold to Europeans as slaves. When they were on board the vessels they were chained below decks in racks the size of coffins. They were sold to people who wanted them primarily for plantation workers. Slave owners had no rules as to what they were allowed to do to them. They could use very harsh punishments if they saw fit. A lot of times families were broke apart family members would be sold to different families. Even through this really hard time for these poor people slaves still managed to develop a strong cultural identity. When children were separated from their parents adult slaves at the plantations would take care of all of the children not just their own. Even though they faced separation daily slaves would quite often get married. The north had less slavery then the south. So a lot of times slaves who escaped would go to the north. The civil war brought an end to it being legal to own slaves but there were many other problems that came about after the Civil War. African Americans were able to vote, start their own schools and churches, and they even were able to purchase land. Many of the people in the south were...
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...was indeed a distinctive and varied "negro/black American" culture and it was centered here in Harlem of New York City. It was a culture movement that began around 1920s. Before it was called the Harlem renaissance it was known as the "New Negro Movement", that was named after the anthology edited by Alain Locke in 1925. The Harlem Renaissance grew out of the changes that had taken place in the black community since the abolition of slavery, and which had been accelerated as a consequence of the First World War. It can also be seen as specifically African-American response to an expression of the great social and cultural change taking place in America in the early 20th century under the influence of industrialization and the emergence of a new mass culture. This movement impacted urban centers throughout the United States. Across the cultural spectrum (literature, drama, music, art, dance) and also in social thought (sociology, philosophy), artists and intellectuals found new ways to explore the historical experiences of black America and the contemporary experiences of black life in the urban North. Challenging white superiority and racism, African-American artists and intellectuals rejected merely imitating the styles of Europeans and white Americans and instead celebrated black dignity and creativity. Asserting their freedom to express themselves on their own terms as artists, they explored their identities as black Americans, celebrating the black culture that had emerged...
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...Rape During The Antebellum Period The first African slaves arrived in Virginia, North America in 1619. As the plantations of the antebellum south flourished, the African slave trade gained momentum. Between the 16 and 19th centuries, America had an estimated 12 million African slaves (Slavery in the United States, Junius P. Rodriguez ). Enslavement of the African Americans formally commenced in the 1630s and 1640s. By 1740, colonial America had a fully developed slavery system in place, granting slave owners an absolute and tyrannical life-and-death authority over their slaves or 'chattels' and their children (Slavery in the United States, Junius P. Rodriguez ). Stripped of any identity or rights, enslaved black men and women were considered legal non-persons, except in the event of a crime committed. Documents and research on the slave era in the antebellum south are awash with horror stories of the brutal and inhuman treatment of slaves, particularly women (Slavery in the United States, Junius P. Rodriguez). Considered 'properties' by their masters, enslaved black women endured physical and emotional abuse, torture, and sometimes even death. By the 1800s, slavery had percolated down mainly to the antebellum south. While a majority of enslaved men and women were designated as 'field servants' performing duties outside the house, a smaller percentage, particularly women were employed as domestics or 'house servants', mammies and surrogate mothers. In the absence of any security...
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...Charles Waddell Chesnutt is an important, but not well recognized, American Author because he the main inventor of Afro-American fiction. Chesnutt was an African-American lawyer and author in the 19th century. He mostly wrote short stories that were collected in in his two most famous books, The Conjure Woman and The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line. The Conjure Woman is a collection of Stories where slaves mainly escape to the north by using the powers of voodoo. The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line is a collection of stories that explored slave behavior and culture. Chesnutt and his works are important because Chesnutt was the first recognized black American author, he used slave diction and culture, and he wrote about social problems from the different races. Chesnutt was the first recognized African-American author. His short story “The Gophered Grapevine” was...
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...Who Killed Reconstruction ? Both the north and the south were responsible for killing reconstruction after the civil war. The north did not agree that slavery should be allowed but really just had given up on trying to convince the south. The south on the other hand simply refused to give into what the north was saying. To clarify reconstruction was the rebuilding of the united states after the civil war , this was a very tough time period that lasted up to 14 years. Though reconstruction occurred after the civil war many considered it just as painful as a war for many reasons. The northerners wanted to punish the southerns because of their ways of life and how they treated the african americans. My argument is that both the north and the south are responsible for killing reconstruction. The north may have wanted to end slavery and many other things that the south were doing but had given up on taking action. The northers weren’t so focused on fixing the situation and founded themselves being distracted from the leading situation. They also didn’t have great attitudes but seemed more racist which contributed to the end of reconstruction. “ Although political violence continue in the south”. The south would refuse any change that was...
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...Ta-Nehisi Coates argues in his essay, “A Case for Reparation” that the enslavement of African Americans is closely linked to the development of white democracy. He says, “to proudly claim the veteran and disown the slave holder is patriotism a la carte. A nation outlives his generations” (Coates IV). He is saying that veteran get to be recognized for their service in the military but refuses to acknowledge the fact about slave owners. By acknowledging one and disowning the other, the nation is picking out the only what best fit for the country and completely forgetting what slave owner have brought to this country. Americans cannot ignore the terrible history of slavery and racism that had happen hundreds of years ago. Slavery dated back thousands of years ago and black people was discriminated because of the color of their skin. Racism is exemplified this article when Ta-Nehisi Coates talks about contract seller do business in North Lawndale. For Instance, He says “The men who peddled contracts in North Lawndale would sell homes at inflated prices and then evict families who could not pay—taking their down payment and their monthly installments as profit....
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...of disdain for the white people on the opposite side of the veil reveals another point about the concept of the veil. DuBois’ veil concept not only refers to the whites’ view of African-Americans as obstructed by the veil. The opacity works two ways. Just like the little white could not clearly see DuBois for who he was beyond the color of his skin due to her veil, Dubois could not properly see the entire white race because of this one encounter with this little white girl that he then projected onto all white people. The same is true in the case of Cain who sued the Pullman Company for his...
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