Analysis Of The Piano Lesson By August Wilson

The Civil War did not successfully give African Americans freedom. One purpose of Reconstruction was to guarantee rights for African Americans in spite of the prominent racism in the South. To accomplish this the federal government passed several laws during to assure the rights and equality of African Americans in the law. One African American author, August Wilson, describes the perspective of most African Americans living in the time after Reconstruction in his writing. His play, The Piano Lesson, follows multiple characters of different backgrounds and depicts the problems they have in society. Despite many attempts to guarantee equal rights August Wilson’s play The Piano Lesson describes a large lack of political progress due to Jim Crow laws and Black Codes. There was some

After putting up with political discrimination for decades, many African Americans were willing to “raise the terrible weapon of self-defense.” (The New Negro) Although they should have received equality promised to them after the Civil War, they were left empty handed and instead struggle against biased laws. Their demand for political progress itself is a step forward because white people supporting political equality were uncommon and groups such as the Ku Klux Klan intimidated them out of doing it. Their peaceful protests, and reasonable pleas were often overlooked and ignored. With their demands neglected and scoffed at they wanted to prove they were serious. By refusing to accept their problems forcefully they would not be thought of as bluffing. The problem with this is that even though there were African Americans demanding it, they were a minority and many white people did not want to help them because they benefitted from it and racism was still rampant. One evidence of white people benefitting from racism was when Wining Boy tells a story of how after an African American buys land with berries growing, the former white owner would “go and fix it with the law