Double Consciousness Dubois

As the African Americans “freedom” is setting into everyone’s mind, the freedmen start to develop their own path. Foner states that the newly freed slaves wanted whites to understand that they no longer had authority over them and make their status as free Americans known by economic power, religion, self-defense, and political action that were some of the systems among their desire to leave black communities but were heavily altered by a lack of protection but continued and looked for other ways to pursue. With African Americans seeking different approaches, Foner argued that the efforts put in were brought together by a desire to gain independence from white control. Even before the war, Foner believes that the blacks had gathered other institutions even before the war has started and the emancipation enhanced the blacks resources. Though these resources were made available to the African Americans, Foner also discusses that because of the cultural intuitions did not free blacks from privations that which then led to Reconstruction to fail.

Although reconstruction brought essential changes for African American slaves it ultimately failed its purpose of unifying the nation. However, in order to comprehend why reconstruction failed it is important to understand the two phases it underwent. In addition, it is also crucial to look at the different plans that were propose in order to reunify the nation and if they were successful or not. First, phase one the presidential reconstruction was very complex due to the fact that it was carried out by two very divergent presidents and lacked unification. On one hand we had Abraham Lincoln 's plan which consisted of reconstructing and unifying the nation again.

Chisholm This means that she feel `uncomfortable that many people don’t accept females and black to do a certain job. In addition, this also proves that she is forthright when it comes to her speeches. Another example comes from Listen a speech from Howard University by Shirley ‘’While nothing is easy for the black man in America, neither is anything impossible. Like old man river, we are moving along and we will continue to move resolutely until our goal of unequivocal equality is attained. We must not be docile, we must not be resigned, nor must we be inwardly bitter.

These laws oppressed black people and restricted their freedom. Because of the poor treating of African Americans and the Black Codes, The Reconstruction period was a failure. Some people were very unhappy when slavery was abolished. Southerners were frustrated that their property would be taken from them and turned into citizens.

It all depends how you look at it. Laws that were set up weren’t always followed correctly, but laws were still being set up to protect African Americans rights. It must have been a success because now today, they are known as citizens and have the right to vote. But then again, the rise of the Klu Klux Klan and other white supremacy groups, in combination with the Black Codes, began to intimidate freed slaves and push back their civil liberties. For me, the Reconstruction was a

African Americans according to Jeffersons work are mentioned to be ‘inferior’ to whites. That means they are not on the same status as whites. Jefferson describes African Americans as “ in memory they are equal to whites; in reason much inferior, one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous’. He seems to be stating that many African American Slaves are less because they do not understand common scholarly stories. This can be considered an regional belief that is common throughout most of the colonies.

Although slavery was declared over after the passing of the thirteenth amendment, African Americans were not being treated with the respect or equality they deserved. Socially, politically and economically, African American people were not being given equal opportunities as white people. They had certain laws directed at them, which held them back from being equal to their white peers. They also had certain requirements, making it difficult for many African Americans to participate in the opportunity to vote for government leaders. Although they were freed from slavery, there was still a long way to go for equality through America’s reconstruction plan.

The goal of the reconstruction politically was to integrate Southern states/rebel states back into the U.S., and socially was to integrate the freed slave population to the society. However, ex-confederates of the South resisted this because of the fear of complete turnover of their lives, and to maintain the social hierarchy, where African Americans remained at the bottom by default due to their race. Several organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan were formed to resist reconstruction and preserve white supremacy. Congress responded to the resistance by establishing the Freedmen 's Bureau, whose aimed was to build public schools and universities, provide food and medical care, political equality between blacks and whites and equal access to the judicial system. Lincoln planned to be lenient

For example, in The Help the relationships between African-American maids and their white employers are unequal relationship. Initially, Stocett asserts the stereotyping throughout the Leefolt household. One of the discrimination against Aibleen leads to

Some critics felt that the issue of blacks in America addresses an obsessive national concern, especially concerning the ambiguity of relations between whites, on one hand, and blacks or Indians, on the other. Therefore it was considered that the main theme of American Gothic is slavery. Tennessee Williams, born in 1911 and grew up in the American South, came to see it as being hopelessly corrupted by racism. His plays offer a devastating portrait of the prejudices of his native region. Even if racism is not often met in his works, at least compared with other major Southern writers, we can observe Williams's strong social conscience.

The primary objective of the Reconstruction was to reunite the North and the South; however the South gave backlash to the integration of African Americans into their society. They viewed it as a compromise of their ideology. The reconstruction failed to reunite the nation because of the nation’s differences in opinion towards integration. This proved to be a large enough obstacle for the Reconstruction to not achieve its goals and be deemed ineffective. The era of the Reconstruction was a struggle for integration where legislation promoting persecution of African-Americans, polarizing the nation and increasing tensions in the south.

After the Underground Railroad, moral code came into question, and with the Constitution demanding all people be equal, the people in the North could no longer bear to uphold slavery. The Underground Railroad was risky and dangerous, but it furthered racial equality by creating a coalition against slavery and by freeing African

Imagine living in a world where you are treated differently and regarded as less than human and do not have the same opportunities as your counterparts. This is the world Malcolm X and countless African American knew. Blacks in America were discriminated against in many areas of society from housing, employment, and education. Malcolm X was tired of blacks pleading to be part of white’s society, Malcolm wanted the American dream for Blacks as the constitution of the United States of America promised its citizens ‘By Any Means Necessary’. When Malcolm X was a child, he experienced racism at an early age.

Double consciousness is a theory first mentioned by W.E.B. Du Bois in his book “The Souls of Black Folk” which primarily focuses on the idea of double consciousness and analysis of “Black folk” in America during Jim Crow laws. Double consciousness was the theory of “a source of inward “twoness” putatively experienced by African-Americans because of their racialized oppression and disvaluation in a white-dominated society. ”(Pittman). Jim Crow laws--legalized segregation--kept African Americans from expressing their identity as Americans proudly when they were treated lesser than their white counterparts. In double consciousness many African Americans could not be able to choose one identity but rather a split of identities.

1. What does Du Bois mean by the “double consciousness” of African Americans? What Du Bois meant by the “double consciousness” of African Americans is that they look at themselves through the eyes of others. “This double consciousness, this sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others, of measuring one soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” African Americans know that the rest of America see them as a lowly and controversial group of people because they were once viewed as a piece of property and not a human being. Now that they are freedmen, America doesn’t know what to think about them.