...Student Name: Lecturer’s Name: Date: Southern Contemporary Fiction and the Issue of Race Thesis: Southern contemporary fiction contained a lot of truths about the race relations between Black and White Americans in the twentieth century. Introduction Since the beginning of the twentieth century, there has been a significant shift in the focus of southern literature, both fiction and nonfiction. In the nineteenth century, most Southern fiction works were mainly on the Civil War and the Reconstruction. However, as that generation died away, the new crop of authors who had never experienced the civil war or the Reconstruction became more objective in their writings about the South. Contemporary Southern writers such as Harper Lee, Tennessee Williams and William Faulkner wrote fiction, but the stories written had a lot of truth about the way communities in the American South lived like in the twentieth century. As a result, one cannot fail but notice that there is one recurring issue in almost every novel in contemporary Southern fiction; the issue of race. (Sundquist 1994) Authors usually write stories which are a reflection of the attitudes and the norms of their time and contemporary Southern fiction reflects this. The southern part of the United States has always had a large percentage of people of African descent living there. At the beginning of the twentieth century, two states actually had an African-American majority; South Carolina and Mississippi...
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...Women, Slaves, and Free Blacks in the Civil War Inez Williams-Jones U.S. History to 1865 HIS/110 October 15, 2012 Women, Slaves, and Free Blacks in the Civil War The Battle of Gettysburg was a major turning point for the Civil War (Civil War Academy, 2010). It turned the tide of war from the South to the North, pushing back Lee’s army that would never fight again on Northern soil and bringing confidence to the Union army. What Roles did Northern Women play in the War Effort on the Union Side during the Civil War Clara Barton, a Northerner, had the skills of helping people, especially in the American Civil War. During the war, she collected and delivered supplies to Northern troops in the Washington, D.C. area, used her medical skills to aid Northern troops, and later organized The Ladies Aid Society as well as The American Red Cross where she dedicated the remaining of her life. Northern women organized fundraising projects, county fairs, which were beneficial in raising money for medical supplies and other necessities. Inspired by Florence Nightingale, the women put forth efforts to work on the front lines aiding injured and wounded soldiers by establishing a Preventive Hygienic and Sanitary Service for helping the union soldiers called the United States Sanitary Commission which were to combat preventable diseases and infections (Chang, 1991). One of these famous Army nurses was Louisa May Alcott, who traveled from hospital to hospital ...
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...Civil War, American women lives were based on a set of ideals that historians call "the Cult of True Womanhood." While men work moved away from the home and into shops, offices and factories, the household became a new kind of place: a private, feminized domestic sphere, a "haven in a heartless world." Women devoted their lives to creating a clean, comfortable, nurturing home for their husbands and children. During the Civil War, however, American women turned their attention to the world outside the home. This was the first time in the history of United States that Women actively participated during the Civil War, and the best part is that the participation of the women from the northern and southern side. Northern women played a significant role on the Union side of civil war while Southern War played a significant role on the Confederate side of the Civil War. Although there is not much difference as how actively women from north and south put themselves on the war from as it was almost equal but the major difference was the percentage of participation on the northern front was much more from women as compared to the southern end. Unfortunately, the economy in the south would be the falter to its defeat. However, even though it was wrong and immoral, the South had the upper hand by having slaves do the work that the women did in the north. During the Civil War of 1861, women and men came together to help fight for the cause. In the Northern states, women organized ladies' aid...
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...Women of the Civil Rights Movement: The role of women in the Civil Rights Movement In The American Journal of Legal History, Bernie D. Jones reviews the work of Legacies of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Grofman (2000), and describes the ends to the means. The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act indisputably were effectual for altering the framework of the questionable American life, for the most part in the southern states. As a consequence, both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were accountable for the stoppage of vast opposition to the civil rights movement and the fitting fusion into the American Society by African Americans. By way of the Acts, public facilities that avidly participated in segregation became outlawed. Throughout the nation, as a result of the enforcement of the Acts, the former, not so easily attainable education opportunities and employment prospects that consistently had been refused, now, awarded African Americans impressively large supporting political control. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 pioneered immeasurably. Women were given distinctive safeguarding subject to employment discrimination law. Emphatically, invigorating the women’s movement, consequently, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 served movements of other ethnic civil rights. (p. xvi) VOICE OF OMISSION No other group in America has so had their identity socialized out of existence as have black women. We are rarely...
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...the lack of respect and rights of black people. Mayella, a white and southern woman, claims that Tom Robinson, a black man, has raped her and gets him killed. Mayella uses her power through race and gender to overcome Tom’s power and ultimately wins her the case and Tom’s death. Overall, Mayella has so much power through race and gender that it makes her more powerful than Tom in spite of her lack of class power. Mayella is a white woman fighting against a black man which gives her racial power. Reverend Sykes says that “I ain’t ever seen any jury decide in favor of a colored man over a white man…” (Lee, D)....
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...In “Invisible Black Women Leaders in the Civil Rights Movement: The Triple Constraints of Gender, Race, and Class,” by Bernice McNair Barnett, Barnett explores the intersectionality of race, gender, and class and its effects on African American women and their unique experience in the Civil Rights Movement. During the Civil Rights Movements, women were allowed to participate, and they even played essential roles that helped to further the movement. From helping to organize the famous Bus Boycott, raising money, and initiating protests, black women in the Civil Rights Movement had a significant hand in creating one of the social movements. However, because of their gender, African American women weren’t allowed to receive any recognition for...
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...Women in southern history were truly great people. They made a huge impact on traditions, laws, and people's overall perspective of women. From the time of Reconstruction to Second Wave Feminism, the women were considered to be politicians, suffragists, and some would even classify them as heroes to other women in the world. They played major roles in stopping the segregation and discrimination against African American people, helping women gain the right to vote, and helping the men of that era gain progress. The women that were determined to make a change also made an impact on other women that thought there was no chance of women gaining any rights in the United States, including African American women. After women were exposed to such...
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...North Carolina is one of the northern states that has similar practices of the southern states legal systems and have lessened African American. The white mobs, in North Carolina, continue to believe in racism. The white mobs believe they are superior to black people, and fear that the black voters would lead to miscegenation concluding that “black men threatened white southern women” (Roark, 538). So the white mobs practice lynching (executing black men by white mobs) such as hanging them on trees out in public and dragging them on roads. During the 1890s after the African escape from segregation and persecution in the North, the white southerners start the Jim Crow’s systems plus lynching African American men. Jim Crow system is the law...
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...The Basics on the Civil Right Movement Because large segments of the populace--particularly African-Americans, women, and men without property--have not always been accorded full citizenship rights in the American Republic, civil rights movements, or "freedom struggles," have been frequent features of the nation's history. In particular, movements to obtain civil rights for black Americans have had special historical significance. Such movements have not only secured citizenship rights for blacks but have also redefined prevailing conceptions of the nature of civil rights and the role of government in protecting these rights. The most important achievements of African-American civil rights movements have been the post-Civil War constitutional amendments that abolished slavery and established the citizenship status of blacks and the judicial decisions and legislation based on these amendments, notably the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision of 1954, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Moreover, these legal changes greatly affected the opportunities available to women, nonblack minorities, disabled individuals, and other victims of discrimination. The modern period of civil rights reform can be divided into several phases, each beginning with isolated, small-scale protests and ultimately resulting in the emergence of new, more militant movements, leaders, and organizations. The Brown decision demonstrated that the litigation...
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...In Tera W. Hunter’s “To Joy My Freedom,” Hunter discusses the lives of southern black women once the civil war ended. After the civil war, many black women were able to create new identities for themselves, as it related to their freedom. They were now able to pursue a new life and not have to worry about the reparations that came with their freedom. However, many black women realized that life after the civil war didn’t give them the life they dreamed for. Instead, black labor made them resemble the lives they lived when they were enslaved. The struggle of resisting systematic oppression points out how black women in the south had to fight for their dignity. Constantly being looked down upon, black women were still being seen as inferior,...
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...union. It would prove that free people could govern themselves democratically (The Yawp,). He reduced taxes and cut the government’s budget, he also made the Louisiana purchase in 1803 which effectively doubled the size of the US. He was a president that said “all men are created equal”, but yet enslaved more than hundred people over the course of his life. He did attempt to change some legislatives against slavery and had regret for its existence. At one point he wrote that he suspected black people to be inferior to white people in his Notes on the State of Virginia. But later conceded that servitude may have had an impact on black Americans abilities. He tried to advocate allowing private...
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...Women, Slaves, and Free Blacks in the Civil War History/110 25 Feb 2015 1. What roles did Northern women play in the war effort on the Union side during the Civil War? What roles did Southern women play in the war effort on the Confederate side during the Civil War? How did the war affect each group? Northern women contributed greatly to the Civil War effort for the north. As the north was more industrialized, women took on jobs that were traditionally done by men. They worked in manufacturing, worked in retail, and took care of more things around their homes. Northern women took care of the homes and children and often did things around the house that the men mainly use to do. Some women decided to take a more serious support of the war effort by becoming nurses and tending to the wounded men as they returned from the front lines. Some women attached themselves to various units and took on support roles for the units. These support roles included cooking, laundering, clothing repair and nursing. All of these duties were in an effort to alleviate extra efforts on the men’s part. A few women even volunteered to take on intelligence gathering roles and conducting clandestine operations to gather information from confederate units. These would infiltrate confederate units and create rapport with influential members of a unit in order to solicite and gather intelligence that could be used against them. Information such as troop movements, troop strength, current operations...
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...taking the beating, they decided to focus their violence on the women. 4. The difference between the Presidential Reconstruction and the Radical Reconstruction was that the president allowed states to entitle a constitutional convention to set up a new government and by the end of the war; the president permitted the reconstruction of the Border States such as (West Virginia, Maryland, and Missouri). Whereas, the radical reconstruction found and supported their achievements through Republican allies to command complete citizenship rights and access to land. Therefore, the radical Reconstruction had a downfall due to the escalation of racial violence. 6. Blacks joined forces to demand full citizenship rights when southern whites reclaimed profitable and political power. Although blacks were hindered by republicans and so forth, African Americans expressed their feelings through the convention, newspapers, and mass meetings. 7. The reason why so many White female Abolitionists failed to support the Fifteenth Amendment was that it enraged women suffragists because the draft favored the men by including the word male into the constitution. Although, black men could become masters over their women if they were supported by them with votes, black women decided to vote no less than white women due to racial terms. 8. Black women participated in the political process by helping the men assemble the black electorate, as well as taking part in political meetings, rallies...
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...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, and with laws granting owners full power over their slaves, these women in bondage were frequently harassed, sexually abused and used as long term concubines by their masters. Enslaved men were powerless to challenge or intervene on the woman’s behalf because the consequences of such actions could lead to death or being sold to another plantation (Africans in America, Charles Johnson)....
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...attractive daughter of a former slave owner, whose cotton business had been ruined by the war, is stalked by a menacing looking black soldier, named Gus. He is shown with his shirt wide open and bare-chested. Flora, the stereotypical southern belle, notices the voyeur and is visibly shaken. Flora tries to hide from Gus, but Gus corners her and tells her that he wants her and that he is not married. Since the end of the Civil War, Flora has noticed several black soldiers in the area in the past few months harassing her family and other upstanding families. Gus forces Flora closer and tries to kiss her. In a panic, Flora slaps him and pushes him away. Flora flees into the woods. The ensuing pursuit shows Gus as a sex-crazed maniacal troll chasing down the seemingly innocent virginal fairy. Gus follows her absorbedly intent on raping her. Flora winds up on a cliff overlooking a series of jagged rocks. She stares at Gus and motions for him to leave her alone. In a silent ultimatum, she gesticulates that if he doesn’t leave then she’ll leap from the cliff to the rocks below. Gus is exposed as a beast, sweating and pulsating lustful desires. He moves closer to Flora to stop her from leaping. Unwilling to give herself to a black man and death being the only alternative, Flora jumps from the cliff. Thus, the quintessential portrayal of the black man was born into the psyche of American culture. The Birth of a Nation was just but one movie of the early era of Hollywood...
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