Go There To Know There

  In 2017, the world lost one of the most important and influential writers, poets, and essayists of African American--and American Literature. Maya Angelou passed away today in her Winston-Salem home at the age of eighty-six. Marguerite Johnson was born in 1928, and "before she and her brother [Bailey] were old enough to start school, her parents divorced. Angelou and her brother grew up in Stamps, Arkansas," and were cared for by "their grandmother, Annie Henderson." In the autobiographical text that has been recognized as Angelou's finest,  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings , the author recounts the events of her first seventeen years, and the methods of surviving the Jim Crow South taught to her by her benevolent and resilient grandmother. However, a traumatic event she endured at age ten drove her into a state of silence that was broken only by her love of literature (Hill). I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings could easily be located in a feminist genre, ins...

 "All art is a kind of confession" (Gates, et al.). James Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York, in 1924 at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. Religion had come with many African Americans from the Deep South into storefront churches along the main drags of Harlem. Born to an unmarried mother, however, James had a troubled childhood that was defined by poverty and want. When his mother married, it was David Baldwin, a lay preacher, who expounded on a gospel of a jealous and angry god. Though the boy did have a run at street preaching in his youth, he would ultimately renounce Christianity and find peace in books. The library was a quiet respite for the child whose home life had become chaotic.  The time he spent with books in his youth would pay off, as he began a promising career as a teen. He wrote for a church newsletter, as well as for his school. He would later establish relationships with such notable figures as Countee Cullen and Richard Wright, who would help cu...

Hoodoo Priestess Marie Laveau ( photo credit ). "In African American literature, the vernacular refers to the church songs, blues, ballads, sermons, stories, and, in our own era, hip-hop songs that are part of the oral, not primarily the literate (or written-down) tradition of black expression. What distinguishes this body of work is its in group and, at times, secretive, defensive, and aggressive character: it is not, generally speaking, produced for circulation beyond the black group itself (though it sometimes is bought and sold by those outside its circle)" As Gates' definition suggests, the Vernacular encompasses the cultural creations of African Americans not simply as a form of catharsis or self-expression, but as a means of resistance. African American folk expression has been defined by scholars as "double-voiced," indicating that folk songs, sermons, jokes, and other modes of expression retained a meaning for the culture--and a separate mean...

The Cult of Domesticity--or, more pejoratively-- The Cult of True Womanhood , to the codification of social, sexual, and moral behavior for women in the 19th Century from 1820 until 1860.  It was Catherine Beecher, sister to Harriet Beecher Stowe, who identified the four pillars of virtue that would hold women to behavioral convention and keep them under masculine control.  By referring to this set of beliefs as pertaining to a "cult" reveals the depth of its impact on women's lives. Below are the four pillars of modest behavior, expected of all women of the middle class.  Piety : As Victorian society was divided into separate spheres--that of men (exterior world of business and work); and that of women (the home), 19th century women were thought to represent the 'heart' of the Victorian home, and therefore were believed responsible for embodying Christian asceticism, faith, modesty, and were entrusted with the religious instruction of children. Purity :...

" The engendering impulse of African American literature is resistance to human tyranny. The sustaining spirit of African American literature is dedication to human dignity. As resistance to tyranny and dedication to human dignity became increasingly synonymous with the idea of America itself in the latter half of the eighteenth century, early African American writers identified themselves as Americans with a special mission. They would articulate the spiritual and political ideals of America to inspire and justify the struggle of blacks for their birthright as American citizens. They would also demand fidelity to those same ideals from whites whose moral complacency and racial prejudices hand blinded them to the obligations of their own heritage" (Gates et al. 151). In his introduction to "The Literature of Slavery and Freedom" (Norton), Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. points out many of the key issues facing the earliest African American writers of the eighteenth ...

When William Wells Brown wrote Clotel: Or, The President's Daughter in 1853 , it appeared he had a goal in mind: to expose the tyrannies, cruelties, and bare-faced hypocrisy of slavery as an institution. In a land of churches, there on an auction block stands Clotel, the radiant daughter of a slave mother and an unnamed white father (presumed to be Thomas Jefferson). She is so near-white that the white persons in the room could mistake her for one of their own daughters. Yet, she is a slave by virtue of "one drop" of African American blood. "Why stands she near the auction stand, That girl so young and fair?  What brings her to this dismal place, Why stands she weeping there?" ( Clotel , Chapter One) The "Tragic Mulatta" as a term has understandably fallen into disrepute of late, in light of Critical Race Theory, and of many other identity-based dialogues involving biracial, or individuals of mixed heritage. It has been labeled a "stereotype,...