Identification and Evaluation of Sources Anne McCarty Braden, a daughter of the white South in perhaps the truest sense, was one of the greatest and most under-acknowledged civil rights activists of the 1950s and 60s. The reporter represented a changing view in the South towards segregation and social revolution beyond her time. How did Anne Braden’s perspective as a white, southern woman affect her role in the Civil Rights movement? Catherine Fosl’s Subversive Southern: Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Cold War South, is the quintessential biography of Anne Braden – and the only one. This limited scope in terms of coverage of Braden’s life is the exact reason that Fosl started the biography, but presents issues (a main …show more content…
The fact that Braden was still alive and politically active gave Fosl access to a rich source for her biography, but also makes historical objectivity more challenging. Objectivity is also challenged by the biography’s purpose: to spotlight the leadership of a woman so often left in the footnotes of history. The book was even published four years before Braden’s death. Fosl balances perspectives by writing about the world around Braden as objectively as possible, while Braden herself is written from a much more human and subjective point of view. Anne Braden’s memoir, The Wall Between, was written in response to the Rone Court incident and sedition case of 1954. Braden intended for it to be like many of her articles, letters and other material: a call to action for whites to recognize the faults of the world around them and fight to make a change. She taps into her recognition of this wall between societies when she was young and covers up until the end of the case, all while outlining her own …show more content…
Anne developed a unique writing style that relied on metaphors and dialogue, both techniques most likely developed from her literary way of looking at the world as a young girl. Braden’s memoir about the sedition case, The Wall Between, is a metaphor in itself. Braden continually refers to a wall between blacks and whites and the negative effects its division has on the people of both sides. She uses this and other metaphors as a means to simplify ideas, like that of racial unity to overcome segregation: “For it can’t be crashed through – not from your side alone” (Braden, The Wall Between 8). In “Free Thomas Wansley” and The Wall Between, Braden recounts conversations like dialogue in a novel as a way to make her writing more approachable and vivid, something that is key to impacting her
Mamie specifically wrote this book to tell her son’s story, representing hope and forgiveness, which revealed the sinister and illegal punishments of the south. She wanted to prevent this horrendous tragedy from happening to others. The purpose of the book was to describe the torment African Americans faced in the era of Jim Crow. It gives imagery through the perspective of a mother who faced hurt, but brought unity to the public, to stand up for the rights of equal treatment. This book tells how one event was part of the elimination of racial segregation.
In the book “Killers of the Dream” by Lillian smith there are several ideas that are brought forward that really demonstrate that the author exaggerates the true situation and the state of affairs in the south. In the context of the book, the south was experiencing serious crisis when the whited propagated segregation against the blacks and other low class whites. The paper contains the author’s thesis and a summary of the author’s primary points. Additionally, the paper examines whether the authors account is incomplete, questionable or cases where the account does not make sense. The social profiling that resulted was regrettable and brought serious repercussions to the society in general.
Danielle L. McGuire’s At the Dark End of the Street, “an important, original contribution to civil rights historiography”, discusses the topic of rape and sexual assault towards African American women, and how this played a major role in causing the civil rights movement (Dailey 491). Chapter by chapter, another person's story is told, from the rape of Recy Taylor to the court case of Joan Little, while including the significance of Rosa Parks and various organizations in fighting for the victims of unjust brutality. The sole purpose of creating this novel was to discuss a topic no other historian has discussed before, because according to McGuire they have all been skipping over a topic that would change the view of the civil rights movement.
Beginning in the pre-Revolutionary War period, African American writers have engaged in a visionary, yet petulant, dialogue with American letters. The result became African American literature that is prosperous; thereby developing a social insight to their personal experiences and history. Although men are predominantly recognized in history for being well educated and powerful, women have played a great part in shaping America to what it is today. Phillis Wheatley, and Maria W. Stewart, were true Christian African American women that have portrayed historical events though literature. Wheatley and Stewart hold similar ideals for African Americans, however, their personalities are profoundly different.
The novel is divided into four distinct sections: “Letters from Prison”, “Blood of the Beast”, Prelude to Love”, and “White Woman, Black Man”. The first section details Cleaver’s early experiences and background in prison. “Blood of the Beast” illustrates Cleaver’s thoughts on race relations between black and white people and his views on Black nationalism. “Prelude to Love” consists of love letters written between Cleaver and his attorney Beverly Axelrod, which emphasizes the conflict of Cleaver’s views of white women and his actions with his attorney.
The anti-lynching writings therefore enclosed a comprehensive view of the racialized sexual politics of the south; a justification of the black men as true men, a critique of white would-be protectors as just corrupt and exposure of white women as active participants to white supremacy in sexual politics together with re-centering of the black women’s experiences in the incidences of rape, sexualized racism and lynching. She documented unbiased suffering of attacks of lynching and rape on black women and girls. By so doing, she staged a claim of outraged black womanhood that was first articulated by the opponents of slavery though becoming unthinkable under the white supremacists ideology by time the nineteenth century came to an end. She also describes the black women rapes as a piece of black men
Nella Larsen, one of the major woman voices of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, when many African American writers were attempting to establish African–American identity during the post-World War I period. Figures as diverse as W.E.B. Du Bois, Alain Locke, A. Philip Randolph and Jessie Fauset, Zora Neale Hurston along with Nella Larsen sought to define a new African American identity that had appeared on the scene. These men and women of intellect asserted that African Americans belonged to a unique race of human beings whose ancestry imparted a distinctive and invaluable racial identify and culture. This paper aims at showcasing the exploration of African American ‘biracial’ / ‘mulatto’ women in White Anglo Saxon White Protestant America and their quest for an identity with reference to Nella Larsen’s Quicksand.
2) This extract is found in “The White Album” written by Joan Didion, who is the creator of many significant different literature pieces, both novels and essays. “The White Album” was published in 1979, and is the first and longest essay in the book. In this essay Joan Didion essentially uses a women as a connecting thread to describe what was happening in America at that time. I believe that the woman may even be herself to a certain extent, trying to externalize all her thoughts. What is perceived from the essay is that Didion was submerged into the focus of some big events that were happening in that year, not only as a journalist but also as a bystander and a normal Californian.
Shirley Chisholm’s Presidential Bid From the beginning, the world was a place of inequality. However, it is possible to change. Through hard work from significant individuals, the world has fought wars and created laws that have led towards equality.
1920’s society offered a prominent way for blacks that look white to exploit its barrier and pass in society. Visible within Nella Larsen’s Passing, access to the regular world exists only for those who fit the criteria of white skin and white husband. Through internal conflict and characterization, the novella reveals deception slowly devours the deceitful. In Passing, Clare and Irene both deceive people. They both engage in deceit by having the ability to pass when they are not of the proper race to do so.
Literature is often credited with the ability to enhance one’s understanding of history by providing a view of a former conflict. In doing so, the reader is able to gain both an emotional and logistical understanding of a historically significant event. Additionally, literature provides context that can help the reader develop a deeper understanding of the political climate of a time period. Within the text of The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead’s, the use of literary elements such as imagery, metaphor, and paradox amplifies the reader’s understanding of early 19th century slavery and its role in the South of the United States of America. Throughout the novel, Whitehead utilizes a girl named Cora to navigate the political and personal consequences of escaping slavery, the Underground Railroad, and her transition
Harriet Jacobs and Sojourner Truth are women who face adversity categorized in an invisible sub-group, making it difficult for black women to compete in the world. This sub-group is known as intersectionality. Black women struggle with the perception being inferior placing them at the bottom of the social class. Jacobs and Truth, however, share their experiences to other men and women allowing them to be aware of this invisible group. They willingly chose to speak out against this discrimination.
The story takes place at the height of the Civil Rights Movement in America, when desegregation is finally achieved. Flannery O’Connor’s use of setting augments the mood and deepens the context of the story. However, O’Connor’s method is subtle, often relying on connotation and implication to drive her point across. The story achieves its depressing mood mostly through the use of light and darkness in the setting.
Her tragedy reflects not only the sexism in the African American families in early 20th century, but also the uselessness
The courtroom scenes show how ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is a coming-of-age novel which I believe teaches young children and readers how extreme racism could be in the 1930’s-1940’s, but it also educates them on how racism is still very much real in the world