Students,
I hope this post finds you well--and that you were able to find it. For today's discussion, you were to have read selections from Marcus Garvey, and "The Criteria of Negro Art" by W.E.B. Dubois.
The post that follows this one contains some information and a video concerning Garvey. It is entitled "Marcus Garvey: Pan-Africanism and the Rise of the New Negro Movement." You can follow the link to the right to reach it. I hope you will read and enjoy.
Choose one of the items below to answer in a comment to this post. Give some thought to what you write, and be sure to answer thoroughly the question you choose:
1. Explain what the speaker here means by his comment, "We who are dark can see America in a way that white Americans cannot"? Think about his positioning as a philosopher, writer, and leader of African American arts.
"What do we want? What is the thing we are after? As it was phrased last night it had a certain truth: We want to be Americans, full-fledged Americans, with all the rights of other American citizens. But is that all? Do we want simply to be Americans? Once in a while through all of us there flashes some clairvoyance, some clear idea, of what America really is. We who are dark can see America in a way that white Americans cannot. And seeing our country thus, are we satisfied with its present goals and ideals?" (W.E.B. Dubois).
2. Choose from Marcus Garvey's selections and identify a line or passage that for you demonstrates a changing tide in the way African Americans thought of themselves and their positioning in American society. How does Garvey's words build upon, extend, or continue the projects of iconoclasts like David Walker and Ida B. Wells before him? How might he represent a "new tide" of African American thought?
I look forward to reading your thoughts and responses to this reading, and I will see you Monday! Have a lovely weekend.
