Analysis Of Mary Mcleod Bethune's Essay 'Working For Democracy'

815 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Role of african americans in ww2

This week in class we discussed the topic of the Black Freedom struggle and the theme was “Black Women’s ‘Double V’ Campaign” and we talked about Mary McLeod Bethune and her essays, one being “Closed Doors and author Megan Taylor Shockley and her essay “Working for Democracy: Working-Class African-American Women, Citizenship, and Civil Rights in Detroit, 1940-1954”. Both women talk about the struggles that Black women dealt with at the beginning of World War II and how they fought back against the Jim Crow laws. During 1939, World War II has just started and black people are not only fighting overseas to defend the United States from the likes of Hitler but before African Americans fight Germany, they have to still fight at home to gain the equality that they deserve, with black women still being on the front line. Mary McLeod Bethune shows her white audience the struggle that all black people go through on a daily basis. Bethune uses a quote …show more content…

Although America has won overseas, black still hasn't won at home. She talks of Louise Thomas, who was turned away from a job at Ford’s Willow Run because of the color of her skin and that other black women would never be able to work there because they aren’t fit for it. Thomas and many other black people chose to fight back against the racial prejudice in many different ways. Shockley talks about one the ways when she says, “Detroit's African-American community had various possible ways to challenge the city's racial hierarchies. For example, African Americans contested strict neighborhood color lines by moving into Detroit's white neighborhoods”. Black people used ways like this to get under white people’s skin and fight against the hierarchies. Shockley engages in the freedom struggle by showing another view of how black people had used different tactics to fight back against racial

Show More
Related

  • Ida B. Wells and Mary Mcleoud Bethune

    1617 Words  | 4 Pages

    The history of The Black Civil Rights Movement in the United States is a fascinating account of a group of human beings, forcibly taken from their homeland, brought to a strange new continent, and forced to endure countless inhuman atrocities. Forced into a life of involuntary servitude to white slave owners, African Americans were to face an uphill battle for many years to come. Who would face that battle? To say the fight for black civil rights "was a grassroots movement of ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary things" would be an understatement. Countless people made it their life's work to see the progression of civil rights in America. People like W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, A Phillip Randolph, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many others contributed to the fight although it would take ordinary people as well to lead the way in the fight for civil rights. This paper will focus on two people whose intelligence and bravery influenced future generations of civil rights organizers and crusaders. Ida B.Wells and Mary Mcleod Bethune were two African American women whose tenacity and influence would define the term "ordinary to extraordinary".

    Read More

  • Gender & Jim Crow: Book Review

    1309 Words  | 3 Pages

    Glenda Gilmore’s book Gender & Jim Crow shows a different point of view from a majority of history of the south and proves many convictions that are not often stated. Her stance from the African American point of view shows how harsh relations were at this time, as well as how hard they tried for equity in society. Gilmore’s portrayal of the Progressive Era is very straightforward and precise, by placing educated African American women at the center of Southern political history, instead of merely in the background.

    Read More

  • I Am A Man by Steve Estes Book Review

    732 Words  | 2 Pages

    The book then shows different ways of how manhood has always played a part in black freedom struggles. Estes starts to explore the participation of black men in World War II, and where the beginning of the civil rights movement began. The World War II used a language of masculinity to increase different ranks of the military, “the notion that are men are more powerful than women, that they should have control over their own lives and the authority over others” (page 7). They were posters that said, “Man the guns”, or “What did you do during the war daddy?” these posters were used to say that man is a protector of the home. World War II also started man power shortages which opened up new advantages for women and minorities, there was less white men. Estes sees this challenge as a white man supremacy, which surfaced around the 1950’s and...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of What Has Happened Here? By Elsa Barkley Brown

    524 Words  | 2 Pages

    This reinforces a traditionally biased historical narrative, where white, middle-class women are the “norm”. It can be said that African American history has been shaped by systematic inequality and oppression, encouraged by a racially prejudiced system.

    Read More

  • Hiram Hillburn Character Analysis

    799 Words  | 2 Pages

    African-Americans aged 12 and up are the most victimized group in America. 41.7 over 1,000 of them are victims of violent crimes, compared with whites (36.3 over 1,000). This does not include murder. Back then during the era of the Jim Crow laws, it was even worse. However, during that time period when there were many oppressed blacks, there were many whites who courageously defied against the acts of racism, and proved that the color of your skin should not matter. This essay will compare and contrast two Caucasian characters by the names of Hiram Hillburn (The Mississippi Trial, 1955) and Celia Foote (The Help), who also went against the acts of prejudice.

    Read More

  • Racism In Warriors Don T Cry By Melba Pattillo Beals

    797 Words  | 2 Pages

    Racism is an attribute that has often plagued all of American society’s existence. Whether it be the earliest examples of slavery that occurred in America, or the cases of racism that happens today, it has always been a problem. However, this does not mean that people’s overall opinions on racial topics have always stayed the same as prior years. This is especially notable in the 1994 memoir Warriors Don’t Cry. The memoir occurred in 1957 Little Rock, Arkansas and discusses the Melba Pattillo Beals attempt to integrate after the Brown vs. Board of Education court case. Finally, in Warriors Don’t Cry, Melba Pattillo Beals discusses the idea that freedom is achievable through conflicts involving her family, school life, and friends.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Anne Moody's Coming Of Age In Mississippi

    1178 Words  | 3 Pages

    Anne Moody’s memoir, Coming of Age in Mississippi, is an influential insight into the existence of a young girl growing up in the South during the Civil-Rights Movement. Moody’s book records her coming of age as a woman, and possibly more significantly, it chronicles her coming of age as a politically active Negro woman. She is faced with countless problems dealing with the racism and threat of the South as a poor African American female. Her childhood and early years in school set up groundwork for her racial consciousness. Moody assembled that foundation as she went to college and scatter the seeds of political activism. During her later years in college, Moody became active in numerous organizations devoted to creating changes to the civil rights of her people. These actions ultimately led to her disillusionment with the success of the movement, despite her constant action. These factors have contributed in shaping her attitude towards race and her skepticism about fundamental change in society.

    Read More

  • The Civil Rights Movement and Bombingham

    1169 Words  | 3 Pages

    What has been described here has kept African Americans proud of where they came from and how they can overcome any problem that they are faced with. The phrase “Strength in numbers” comes to mind when reading what they had to endure especially the families of the four little girls that died in the devastating bombing of the 16th street church. They will always be remembered and missed dearly.

    Read More

  • Moynihan Negro Family

    1321 Words  | 3 Pages

    Beale, Frances. "Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female." An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought. New York: New, 1995. 146. Print.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of To Joy My Freedom

    1504 Words  | 4 Pages

    Tera Hunter througly analyzes in To Joy My Freedom the experiences of the working black women after the civil war in the south. She focuses on the hopefulness and positism of the hard working African American women through the termination of the civil war all the way to the strife and struggles they had to go through laboring . She also focused on the demanding and defining of freedom for the african american women.

    Read More

  • Was World War II A Turning Point For African Americans?

    1141 Words  | 3 Pages

    Those studying the experience of African Americans in World War II consistently ask one central question: “Was World War II a turning point for African Americans?” In elaboration, does World War II symbolize a prolongation of policies of segregation and discrimination both on the home front and the war front, or does it represent the start of the Civil Rights Movement that brought racial equality? The data points to the war experience being a transition leading to the civil rights upheavals of the 1960s.

    Read More

  • Role of Blacks in the American Revolutionary War

    2182 Words  | 5 Pages

    The quote above is from the British governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore who proclaimed freedom for African American slaves who fought for the British, after George Washington announced there would be no additional recruitment of Blacks in the Continental army in 1776. For numerous free blacks and enslaved blacks, the Revolutionary War was considered to be an essential period in black manifestation. Many public officials (like Dunmore), who initially had not expressed their views on slavery, saw the importance of African Americans and considered them an imperative tool in winning the war. Looking back, it almost seems like an inherent paradox in white America’s desire of emancipation from England while there still enslaving blacks. This concept has different grounds in white’s idea of liberation in comparison to that of the African-Americans. To white Americans, this war was for liberation in a political/economical tone rather than in the sense of the privatized oppression that blacks suffered from. But what started this war and what would this mean for blacks? How did these African Americans contribute to the war effort? What were there some of their duties? How did the white communities perceive them? How did it all end for these blacks? The main topic of this paper is to show how the use African Americans helped the control the outcome of the war while monitoring their contributions.

    Read More

  • Sojourner Truth: A Voice for the Oppressed

    1967 Words  | 4 Pages

    Since the beginning, the United States` government, racial slavery had conquered various American identities. “Racism sprung early colonial times due the slavery riot incidence misinterpretations, leading full men, women, and children racial slavery of all different ethnic backgrounds” (Hooker 1). African-Americans held a life long work and Caribbean island shipment originating and affective progression to American colonies. “An importation of 4,000,000 Negroes were held in bondage by Southern planters” (Webstine).Advanced time went, and Northern states nurtured a rapid industrial revolution; Factory introduction, machines, and hired workers replaced any agricultural need of existing slaves. Southern states, however, maintained their original work, continuing the previous circular agricultural system. This suited the firm economic foundation of United States government. However, even continuing economic growth, some Americans still recognized moral rights. The moving disagreement era, America’s Antebellum period grew a deep internal struggle within the American society’s families. “Abolitionists, anti-racial discrimination groups, demanded an end to dehumanized labor treatment in the Southern states” (James 94). However, during this time, women discrimination was also another hot topic taking place. These movements pursued, and women joined numerous groups, and became more society perceived, standing with the thousands African-Americans, immigration workers, and women’s rights, demanding their societal rights. One particular woman advocating her own level in society, gender, race, and all, bringing her standing beliefs was Sojourner Truth. A former run away slave, Sojourner Truth, who originally contemplated no Ameri...

    Read More

  • From Slavery To Jane Crow To Say Her Name Thesis

    768 Words  | 2 Pages

    The article focus on how African American women are often not mentioned or forgotten for the things they have done. Namely, historical moments that were accomplished by women of color are often not mentioned in textbooks. The article also mentions how women often were not recognized for their work ethic. During and after slavery African American women were not noticed for the work they provided. For instance, African American women were not noticed for completing their work in a timely manner and to the best of their ability.

    Read More

  • The Role of African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement

    2574 Words  | 6 Pages

    Standley, Anne. "The Role of Black Women in the Civil Rights Movement." Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers, 1941-1965. By Vicki L. Crawford, Jacqueline Anne. Rouse, and Barbara Woods. Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Pub., 1990. 183-202. Print.

    Read More

More about Analysis Of Mary Mcleod Bethune's Essay 'Working For Democracy'

Open Document