Hayes is narrating the poem as if it is based on a true story or a possible story that could have happened. In the first stanza he paints us a picture that him and his white friend, M, were in the locker room alone. Hayes impersonated M.L.K and Ronald Reagan, which gave M the idea that it was alright for him to say "Talk like a nigger now. " Reading that line the reader may think that an altercation would occur but the narrator didn 't react that way.
Although most Americans believe that all the promises of the Civil Rights Movement have been realized based on Obama’s speech on Selma, after analyzing a Langston Hughes poem, Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter, and the article “A Letter To My Son” it is clear that we still have a long way from truly ridding America of racial tensions and progressing toward becoming a more integrated America. If you were to look at the world through the eyes of an African American back in the 1950’s, you would notice that everything is in black and white rather than color.
I never heard the name George Washington Williams until this very class, and I find that discouraging, to be honest. George Washington Williams was a well-educated man. During the time George Washington Williams had the most influence, was a time of deep oppression and racism toward the Black community. People actually believed that these African Americans did not possess any social or intellectual qualities that would make them writers of substance. (Franklin, 1978).
The poem could be considered as patriotic. The poem talks about how the speaker has darker skin, and how he is usually sent to the kitchen to eat while there is people over. He then imagines a day where he can eat at the table with others and that they will see how beautiful he is and how “ashamed” (Hughes, 17) they were for their previous thoughts of him.
At the school, Grant is very verbally abusive to the children and ridicules them every chance he gets. Meanwhile, Jefferson just spends every day sitting quietly in his cell, with no emotion or ambition to do anything else. The contrast of the jail and the church contributes to the work by demonstrating the different lifestyles of the two men once Jefferson is thrown in jail. Grant is at first extremely opposed to trying to teach and reach out to Jefferson. He does not want anything to do with it.
He is the school teacher of the Quarter, so he is not only looked down on for being black, but educated also. As an educated man, he demands respect from even the white men, so he has a hard time playing into the role of an obedient black man. When Tante Lou makes Grant go “up the quarter” with her and Miss Emma to visit Henri Pichot, they have to go in through the side entrance to get to the house for it’s the only entrance that leads from the quarter to the house. They then had to go in through the back door like slaves had before the war years before. After university, he felt above it all.
Antoine convinces Grant that his only options are to run away from his problems and attempt to create a new life for himself, or to stay in the South and be continually beaten up by the white racists. When Grant visits Mathew Antoine on his deathbed, Grant asks him for advice as a teacher, and he responds with, “'It doesn’t matter anymore,' he said. ' Just do the best you can. But it won’t matter'" (Gaines Chapter 8).
Malcolm acknowledges his fellow people by saying “All of us have suffered here, in this country, political oppression by the hands of a white man, economic exploitation at the hands of a white man, and social degradation at the hands of the white man". Malcolm X's integrity and propaganda regrading every black male and women's issue. Malcolm's speech in fact did pave the way for blacks to have that freedom. The Ballot or the Bullet rather insinuates ethos logos, and pathos throughout the speech with creditability, logical evidence, and Malcolm's tone.
There are so many writers and people who do not write also that look up to him. He accepted the challenge of expressing the heart and soul of African Americans. Keenly aware of racism, Hughes visioned a nation where domestic problems could be realized. Hughes in his poetry, expressed his own reactions to incidents in his life and in the world at large. Langston Hughes left such a lasting impression on poetry , black culture, and the people in his life, that he changed the way they lived with the spirit and soul he put into his
Langston Hughes is an African American Poet who is very closely connected to his culture and expresses his feelings very thoroughly through his poetry in a jazz style. Langston Hughes is a modern poet who ignore the classical style of writing poetry and instead, in favor of oral and improve traditions of the Black culture. In majority of Langston’s poetry, many of his audience seems to take away a very strong message that many can apply to themselves or to others or his poems gives you an educational background of what’s going on in the African American community right now. For example, Langston Hughes writes a poetry piece called Afro American Fragment, which gives you a great breakdown of what an everyday African American person goes through considering that their whole history is basically taken away from them. Langston seems to show his audience that in books we never hear much about what contributions a African American person has done except for being brought to America and being a slave.
King was disappointed in the biased and distorted views of his fellow religious colleagues and the fact that they showed no concern for the brutality endured by the black community. The exigence of it is Dr. King felt the necessity to defend and justify his nonviolent actions and responded to their accusations and disapproval by writing a Letter from Birmingham Jail. In his letter King wrote about racial discrimination and the struggles and inequalities faced by the black community and he intended for it to encourage and promote desegregation and equality among all nations.
“Black Men and Public Space” by Brent Staples Stereotyping can have serious affects on those afflicted. Staples writes about how a move away from his hometown changed his view of himself in seeing how others viewed him. He wants people, white people and women in particular, to stop presuming the worst in black men.
Response to Question 2: Education In the story of a young black man, Mark Mathabane conveys the significance of an education in Alexandra. He grows up under his father 's disbelief in going to school by reason that no black man would need to learn how to read and write to take care of his wife and children. Here is a quote from the book that provides evidence of Mark 's realization of the value of education. “‘He shunned school and, instead, grew up to live by the knife.
The Jim Crow Laws were seen in this book, and as a part of the Harlem Renaissance, were made fun of. “Each and every white man think he know all de GOOD darkies already. He don’t need tuh know no mo’.(p. 172)” Tea Cake is forced into cleaning up the dead from a hurricane and was discussing the treatment from the white enforcers while also making fun of them. This shows that Hurston was not afraid to make fun of white people and the idea of racial superiority.
The poems that we have read in class all have different meanings, but they can be very similar in ways as well. Langston Hughes was a big deal during the civil rights movement and his poem spoke to Americans about equality. I, Too, Sing America talks about the how black men are also Americans and should be treated like they are equal to the white man. Maya Angelou spoke more to women and blacks about equality as well. In Still I Rise, she talks about no matter how much people try to put someone else down, they should not let it bother them.