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Importance of the African American literature
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Significant African American literature
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Amber Lopez Mr. Rodriguez English III Period 7 8 March 2015 The Woman Who Made Her Voice Heard Lucille Clifton was the first African American to receive the Shelley Memorial Prize and the first author to have two books of poetry chosen as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She based her writings on African American viewpoints and would describe how life was in their shoes. She had many struggles throughout her life and still managed to work hard and make her voice heard. She was awarded many times for her writings and poems and even became the first of all colored authors to receive titles that she won. Lucille even got a good education, graduated, and even taught at Universities. Lucille Clifton made an impact on American literature by being …show more content…
As Lucille wrote many children’s books,” Clifton wrote more than twenty children’s books centered on the African American experience.” (Obituaries 1). Although Lucille cared about people seeing viewpoints on African Americans, she also believed in seeing the viewpoints of whites during the slavery times as well. She wanted to understand history throughout all viewpoints of all Americans. “Many children’s books were written expressly for an African American audience in mind.” (Beckles 2). Lucille’s children’s books would be based on how African Americans lived throughout slavery and how women would be treated. She would write poems that described the everyday life of an at home wife that only cooks or cleans for a master that does not care for them. After writing many poems base on slavery and viewpoints, Lucille won many, many titles and received many awards for her …show more content…
She inspired African Americans to express their work and be able to write how they feel. Lucille was awarded many times for all her writings and poems about how her and others lived. Lucille was even able to graduate from universities and was able to teach others. Her work made people realize how Africans were really treated and inspired many. Lucille gave Africans Americans hope to finally be recognized for their work. Lucille even wrote about America itself, not just blacks, but also history on white people. Lucille had a huge impact on American Literature by being the first of African Americans to be
Gwendolyn Brooks was born on June 7, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas, to KeziahWims Brooks and David Anderson Brooks. Brooks’ family didn’t have much income. Her father David Brooks was a janitor. Keziah Brooks, Gwendolyn’s mother was a school teacher. Soon after Gwendolyn was born her family moved away from Kansas. The Brooks family relocated to Chicago, Illinois, where Brooks remained the rest of her life. Brooks, as a child, loved to read. She was encouraged by her family and friends to do so. She spent most of her childhood immersed in her writing. Gwendolyn became a published poet at an early age. At age 13, Brooks’ poem Eventide was published. Her poem appeared in “American Childhood.” Brooks’ poems were frequently published in the Chicago Defender. At age 16, Brooks had written over seventy poems (J.Williams 28).In Brooks’ early years of writing she spoke on a lot. She talked about racial discrimination and praised African American heroes. Also, Brooks satirized both blacks and whites (A.williams1). In 1993, Gwendolyn meet poet James Weldon Johnson and writer Langston Hughes. The two influenced Brooks’ writing tremendously. The influence lead her to write over seventy poems (Bloom 12).
Zora Neale Hurston and Maya Angelou are arguably the most influential writers of the mid 20th century . Their work has inspired young African Americans to have more confidence in their own abilities. Their work has also been studied and taught countless times in many schools across the U.S. But the main reason why their work is considered classics in American literature; is because their work stands as testament to the treatment, and struggles of African Americans in the mid 20th century America.
Historically, the job of women in society is to care for the husband, the home, and the children. As a homemaker, it has been up to the woman to support the husband and care for the house; as a mother, the role was to care for the children and pass along cultural traditions and values to the children. These roles are no different in the African-American community, except for the fact that they are magnified to even larger proportions. The image of the mother in African-American culture is one of guidance, love, and wisdom; quite often the mother is the shaping and driving force of African-American children. This is reflected in the literature of the African-American as a special bond of love and loyalty to the mother figure. Just as the role of motherhood in African-American culture is magnified and elevated, so is the role of the wife. The literature reflects this by showing the African-American man struggling to make a living for himself and his family with his wife either being emotionally or physically submissive. Understanding the role of women in the African-American community starts by examining the roles of women in African-American literature. Because literature is a reflection of the community from which it comes, the portrayal of women in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain (1952) is consistent with the roles mentioned above.
This piece of auto biographical works is one of the greatest pieces of literature and will continue to inspire young and old black Americans to this day be cause of her hard and racially tense background is what produced an eloquent piece of work that feels at times more fiction than non fiction
This paper examines the drastic differences in literary themes and styles of Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston, two African--American writers from the early 1900's. The portrayals of African-American women by each author are contrasted based on specific examples from their two most prominent novels, Native Son by Wright, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston. With the intent to explain this divergence, the autobiographies of both authors (Black Boy and Dust Tracks on a Road) are also analyzed. Particular examples from the lives of each author are cited to demonstrate the contrasting lifestyles and experiences that created these disparities, drawing parallels between the authors’ lives and creative endeavors. It becomes apparent that Wright's traumatic experiences involving females and Hurston's identity as a strong, independent and successful Black artist contributed significantly to the ways in which they chose to depict African-American women and what goals they adhered to in reaching and touching a specific audience with the messages contained in their writing.
“Study the Masters”, by Lucille Clifton, focuses on the various ways of how African American women have contribute to America. Through the poem the author implores the readers to pay attention to invisible women, “like my aunt Timmie. Stating that it was her iron the smoothed out the sheets her master rested upon day to day. It states the facts of African American women talents and gifts they have been giving. It tells the story of how their gifts have been in many ways, shapes, or forms, tossed under the covers, the stories of them being dared to ever show any of what their hearts truly bestowed. One of the most important things about Lucille Clifton’s work is that she tells the stories of how African American women gifts have been taken
Sojourner: Lucretia Mott was the greatest. She encouraged me to join the women’s rights movement. There was also Frances Dana Gage who gave me the line "Ar 'n 't I a Woman?" that made me famous and was really written to get it in people’s heads that just because I am black doesn’t mean I am not a woman also. Harriet Beecher Stowe also wrote an amazing essay about me that just touched my
The south was ripe with lynching, riots, white supremacists against African Americans fighting for equality. It was through these altering moments in history Ida B. Wells made a difference in our nation. Her unparalleled circumstances and unique individuality from the other African Americans allowed her to become more aware of her social, economic and political surroundings. Through triumphs and battles, she prevailed and did not allow her hardships to diminish her ambition.
Gwendolyn Brooks once said “I felt that I had to write. Even if I had never been published, I knew that I would go on writing, enjoying it, and experiencing the challenge”. For some, writing may not be enjoyable or easy, but for Brooks writing was her life. Gwendolyn Brooks not only won countless awards, but also influenced the lives of several African Americans.
Maya Angelou was one of America’s greatest writers in history. She was known for her many writings and for her part in Civil Rights Movements. Maya Angelou went through many hardships during her childhood, the most prevalent of those, racism over her skin color. This racism affected where she grew up, where she went to school, even where she got a job. “My education and that of my Black associates were quite different from the education of our white schoolmates. In the classroom we all learned past participles, but in the streets and in our homes the Blacks learned to drops s’s from plurals and suffixes from past tense verbs.” (Angelou 221) Maya Angelou was a strong believer in a good education and many of those beliefs were described in her
To start our list, we have an African American woman by the name of Phillis Wheatley. Phillis Wheatley was kidnapped from Africa and taken to America as a young girl. She was an educated girl who wrote poetry, including one poem for Gen. George Washington. When Washington, leader of the Patriot army, heard about the poem Wheatley wrote about him, he invited her to his camp, where she read for the future president of the United States. Wheatley was the first Black woman to have a book published. She was later granted her freedom.
...tivist who spoke out against racial discrimination and called on African Americans to stand up against lynching, killing, and other violence. Zora Neale Hurston was another writer of the Harlem Renaissance. Her novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, reflect the experiences of African American women.
...try Magazine), 1949; Robert F. Fergusin Memorial Award (Friends of Literature) for selected poems, 1964; Anisfield- Wolf Award for In The Mecca, 1968; Poet Laureate of Illinois, 1969; and Shelley Memorial Award, 1976” (Israel, Page 100). She was given many awards for her poems. Her poems were awarded for being encouraging, hopeful, and the true life of a black American.
In 1942, Margaret Walker won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for her poem For My People. This accomplishment heralded the beginning of Margaret Walker’s literary career which spanned from the brink of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s to the cusp of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s (Gates and McKay 1619). Through her fiction and poetry, Walker became a prominent voice in the African-American community. Her writing, especially her signature novel, Jubilee, exposes her readers to the plight of her race by accounting the struggles of African Americans from the pre-Civil War period to the present and ultimately keeps this awareness relevant to contemporary American society.
Both women were extremely strong in their belief that they needed to be the change for African-Americans. Whether this change was in the South, or across the entire United States, these women both wanted things to be different. They used their backgrounds and experiences to be the change, and spread the word about making a difference in society. Their leadership roles might have been different in the African-American spectrum, but both women were greatly respected during their time at the top. They grew from their experiences, and used them to their advantage when being the change they wanted to see.