Go There To Know There

" 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 ...

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was perhaps one of the most prolific of the Harlem Renaissance writers, but she was also the most polarizing. To some of her contemporaries she was 'disconcerting'; to others, 'eccentric,' and even boastful and outrageous. As if a subtle critique, author Wallace Thurman cast her as  "Sweetie Mae Carr," an effete, egotistical would-be artiste in  Thurman's satiric novel, Infants of the Spring . To others, however, Hurston was a trail-blazer, an iconoclast, and later for Alice Walker, a 'spiritual mother.'  No matter her reputation among Harlem Literati, she was one of the earliest African American female scholars to venture into post-Occupation Haiti to gather invaluable cultural material for her compilation, Tell My Horse . Later she would expose African American folklife to U.S. audiences in Mules and Men. Hurston was an intrepid and rigorous preserver and conveyer of Africana folklife and folk culture. Born i...

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,...

"Naturalism tends to take the world as it is and say: this is what it is, this is how it happens, it is 'true' because we see it everyday in life that way--you know, you simply photograph the garbage can. But in realism--I think the artist who is creating the realistic work imposes on it not only what is but what is possible...because that is part of reality too" (Lorraine Hansberry). The first African American playwright to have been featured on Broadway, Lorraine Hansberry was born in 1930 to "a successful real estate broker...and a schoolteacher." When Lorraine was eight years old, her father, Carl, purchased a home in Chicago's South Side. This purchase violated a restrictive covenant that ensured the segregation of Chicago's neighborhoods and enraged their white neighbors. The conflict resulted in the court case of Hansberry v. Lee. Her father passed when Lorraine was fifteen years old, and she would later reflect that "American raci...

thefederalistpapers.org According to our text, the early twentieth century saw a momentary enthusiasm for remembering Douglass as one of the most memorable and formidable anti-slavery speakers, lecturers, and intellects. However, it was not until the 1960s, in which the nation saw a cry for Black Studies programs in colleges and universities, that the life and work of Frederick Douglass was reconsidered. In a rare instance, the African American publication, Ebony magazine published an article on Douglass. The post-modern era of Civil Rights Activism caused black intellectuals to cast a backward glance at the endeavors of their forebears. The article began: "Born a slave, he escaped to freedom while still young and devoted a long and fruitful life to the winning of freedom for all Negroes. A fervent integrationist, he was the first of the 'freedom riders' and 'sit iners.' He felt that true freedom could not com for him until all Negroes were free and equal...

The Harlem Renaissance (known then as the "New Negro Renaissance" refers to the period of artistic boon that occurred in Harlem, New York from 1919 till 1929. A number of events can be said to have led to the birth of the Renaissance: initially, the mass movement of southern blacks from the Jim Crow South to the North--or Great Migration--contributed to a population swell and competition for jobs in cities like Harlem, Boston, Philadelphia, and Manhattan. Marcus Garvey is credited with having been a major influence on the Renaissance, as he rallied African Americans around a political campaign none had ever seen the likes of before. A newly discovered sense of unity began to form, followed by an emphasis on black nationalism in politics, a demand for deeper intellectual insight into the problems of African Americans, and a growing economy that arose from black entrepreneurship. All of these developments contributed in their own ways to the emergence of the Renaissance. ...

William Wells Brown was born into slavery in Lexington, Kentucky in 1814. His mother, known only as "Elizabeth," was the slave of a prominent physician there named Dr. Young. Elizabeth had a total of seven children: Elizabeth, Leander, Benjamin, Joseph, Solomon, Milford, and William. Bought and sold several times before the age of twenty, William Wells Brown spent much of his young adulthood in St. Louis, where he was forced into work in the slave trade along the Missouri River. Finally in 1834, Brown escaped slavery and headed North. After gaining his freedom, Brown married Elizabeth Schooner and the couple had three children. Between 1834 and 1845, Brown relocated to Buffalo, New York where he served as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. He worked as a steam boatman on Lake Erie, where he would ferry escaped slaves to Canada ( 1 ). By 1849, Brown traveled abroad to England, where he became a prominent speaker on the issue of Prohibition, and later, abolition. ...