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Melissa Faye Greene, wrote the book “Praying for Sheetrock”, this story is about a small southern community in the late 1970’s thriving civil rights struggle. Throughout the book it has indicates the important roles in the McIntosh community. The book was written to portray time in the civil rights, which often guaranteed the right of individuals to receive equal treatment. For instance in the book, the African Americans and Caucasian were still treated as two different types of humans. The town was held down by the Sheriff, Tom Poppell, a Caucasian male who earned his position from his father. Tom position was so powerful that he was able to convey the people living there. He used methods to preserve his position as Sheriff and …show more content…
control the county’s citizens. On the other hand, the African Americans were still treated way differently. As an example, they were separate places for eating areas as for each race. There was also a white fountain which one gave cool fresh water from a machine for the Caucasian citizens. A black fountain which gave hot water was provided for the African Americans. This racial separation was coming to an effect after an event. A Police shot an African American male in the face. The male was sent to jail and denied medical attention until an uprising black throng forced the county commissioners, and even the Sheriff, to issue the male to the hospital. Thurnell Alston an African American factory worker arrived in a mission to become the first commissioner that is elected fairly in McIntosh County to overthrow Poppell’s totalitarian rule. This book shows many strengths throughout each chapter given. One of the strengths showed in this book is when Thurnell Alston led a mob of two hundred so armed African Americans to the City Hall. This has never occurred in McIntosh County. This caused the African Americans to find their strength in themselves on what they dreamed of. Another one of the strengths shown in the book is how Thurnell Alston proposed to be someone to change citizen’s lives. Mr. .Alston dreamed of being someone in life who can help others. Lastly Alston did it, even though he lost all three times he ran, he didn’t give up. Finally with the help of a lawyer and two of his friends changes were made and Alston was established at the ballot box. The last strength showed is when they released Ed Finch out of jail and sent him to go see a doctor. Guy Hutchinson was suspended and the excitement of the African Americans citizens rose as if everything was going to be perfect. Horribly, things occurred in this book with the ending concerning Thurnell Alston. Thurnell Alston, someone who emerged for the role of a hero ended up disbelieving many. His happiness ends with a tragedy because he ends up getting thrown into jail for his ignorant role in a drug-smuggling operation. Disappointment flew for the reason that someone who’s struggled hard to get in a spot would be stupid enough to ruin it. In the book, the Author Melissa Faye Greene describes how the racial division arose. “We had white water fountains and black water fountains, white bathrooms and black bathrooms, white cafeteria and black cafeteria” (Greene). This separation made it seem that African Americans and Caucasians must be separate because the world knows that they won’t be able to get along with each other. Another horrific event that occurred in the book is when an unprovoked man was shot in the face. The Chief of Police was annoyed by an African American that it occurred him to shoot a man who was groundless in broad daylight. The man who was shot was sent to jail and was denied medical treatment until further notice. This is such a horrific event due to the fact that the African American male was unarmed and was not causing a distraction to cause the event of being shot. In this book, many facts can be learned.
The title foreshadows the prayer of a women who prayed for sheetrock in order to finish her piece meal home. The confrontment started out for the reason that Mr. Alston didn’t want to drink out of the black fountain that offered dirty tap water. He wanted to be able to drink out of the refrigerated fountain that delivered pure cold water because the hard work he was putting into shouldn’t be rewarded with hot water. The African Americans were given outdated supplies and textbooks that not even Martin Luther King could change the engrained condition of the both societies to get the same tools. From the late 1940s through the late 1970s, McIntosh County was a mini-Las Vegas… where white men came looking for, and found, women, gambling, liquor, drugs, guns, sanctuary from the law, and boats available for smuggling” (Greene). The Sheriff, was the one involved in illegal drug deals, prostitution rings and gambling and was supported by the government he reigned over. In order to get support Poppell used his command of the highway to lift various goods from commercial trucks that either crashes or breaks down in the county. He distributes the stolen goods to the poor residents of the county’s large backwoods African American community, ensuring their
support. This book which is nonfiction seems to have a hint of fiction added to it. Starting with the shooting. A man flirting with his girlfriend and was making a bit of commotion. Chief Hutchinson spontaneously and viciously shot the African American male in the face. This male wasn’t armed or doing any harm to anyone but was still shot. Afterwards they threw him in jail and denied to give him medical attention. Medical attention should be reached to anyone with whatever race or gender they are. No medical assistant given may cause an outbreak in the body system causing something to fail or even an infection to occur. In doubt, no one can be cruel enough to not provide any type of attention towards a person. This story is very rare to read from beginning to end. It brings excitement with an indication of frustration and happiness. This book shows the frustration someone may go through to make a change in their race or ethnicity. They won’t give up in order to help those in need to make a difference. It also shows the frustration one may feel when they read that Mr. Alston was thrown in jail for his ignorant role in a drug-smuggling operation. This book may affect others by giving mixed emotions on how they view the situation of the discrimination happening in McIntosh County.
On page 6, Lauren Tarshis writes that in the Southern Plains, “nature had existed in balance” for thousands of years. What role did prairie grass play in maintaining that balance? (key ideas) The prairie grass supported the ground. It kept the dirt and dust together so that it didn’t blow away and cause dust storms. What Tarshis means by this is that the nature had kept everything in balance by keeping it in place.
Despite the tough environment around the Ida B. Wells, people who live there are still faithful in God. However, some of them also question God for ignoring the black community. Based on this ambiguity, I think the gospel jazz “Is God a three letter word for Love” by Duke Ellington precisely portrays the complex emotion of the residents.
The poem “Southern Road” by Sterling Brown is about a man in prison contemplating his life. On either side of the jail fences, his life is depressing, and the blues tone sets the mood. Two prominent characteristics of the poem is the low language dialect and onomatopoeia. Brown uses these literary devices to paint a picture. He does not mention that the protagonist is black or that he is from the south, but from his dialect, the readers are able to tell his ethnicity. The literary devices used in the poem reveals the story of the protagonist and captivates the hardships of African American.
In her work, “This is Our World,” Dorothy Allison shares her perspective of how she views the world as we know it. She has a very vivid past with searing memories of her childhood. She lives her life – her reality – because of the past, despite how much she wishes it never happened. She finds little restitution in her writings, but she continues with them to “provoke more questions” (Allison 158) and makes the readers “think about what [they] rarely want to think about at all” (158).
Although there were numerous efforts to attain full equality between blacks and whites during the Civil Rights Movement, many of them were in vain because of racial distinctions, white oppression, and prejudice. Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi recounts her experiences as a child growing up in Centreville, Mississippi. She describes how growing up in Mississippi in a poor black family changed her views of race and equality, and the events that took place that changed her life forever. She begins her story at the tender age of 4, and describes how her home life changed drastically with the divorce of her parents, the loss of her home, and the constant shuffle from shack to shack as her mother tried to keep food on the table with the meager pay she earned from the numerous, mostly domestic, jobs she took. On most days, life was hard for Anne, and as she got older she struggled to understand why they were living in such poverty when the white people her mother worked for had so many nice things, and could eat more than bread and beans for dinner. It was because of this excessive poverty that Anne had to go into the workforce at such an early age, and learn what it meant to have and hold a job in order to provide her family. Anne learned very young that survival was all about working hard, though she didn’t understand the imbalance between the work she was doing and the compensation she received in return.
would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper
Calloway-Thomas, Carolyn, and Thurmon Garner. “Daisy Bates and the Little Rock School Crisis: Forging the Way.” Journal of Black Studies 26, 5 Special Issue: The Voices of African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement. May, 1996: 616-628. JSTOR. 10 April 2004
Throughout Hughes’ Not Without Laughter, we see the long-term effect of generations of prejudice and abuse against blacks. Over time, this prejudice manifested itself through the development of several social classes within the black community. Hughes’, through the eyes of young Sandy, shows us how the color of one’s skin, the church they attend, the level of education an individual attained, and the type of employment someone could find impacted their standing within the community and dictated the social class they belonged to. Tragically, decades of slavery and abuse resulted in a class system within the black community that was not built around seeking happiness or fulfillment but, equality through gaining the approval of whites.
depression that the narrator suffers from. What these analyses of The Yellow Wallpaper lack is a
Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes wrote the poem “Ballad of the Landlord” in 1940, a time of immense discrimination against people of African descent. The poem details an account of a tenant, later found out to be an African American, who is dissatisfied with his rental property. The tenant is politely asking the landlord to make the needed repairs on the realty, but instead the landlord demands to be paid. The tenant refuses to pay the rent, and the police are called after a threat is made towards the landlord. The police arrest the tenant; he is jailed for ninety days with no bail. Langston Hughes’s “Ballad of the Landlord” is a startling poem that underlines the discrimination African Americans had to cope with in the nineteen-forties by illustrating an account of an African American tenant’s troubles with a Caucasian landlord through the use of theme, dialect, tone and multiple speakers.
This poem is written from the perspective of an African-American from a foreign country, who has come to America for the promise of equality, only to find out that at this time equality for blacks does not exist. It is written for fellow black men, in an effort to make them understand that the American dream is not something to abandon hope in, but something to fight for. The struggle of putting up with the racist mistreatment is evident even in the first four lines:
Growing up in the early 1900’s, Dave struggles to find his identity because of the reality of poverty with his family. This is seen when his mother says, “Waal that’s good. We kin use it (the Sears Catalogue) in the outhouse” (368). Being an African American family they had no stability and struggle to make ends meet. Each family member has chores or work for wages to contribute to the household. This is one reason why Dave, feels that he is equal to an adult. Though Dave feels this way, his mom thinks otherwise, “Yuh ain ganna toucha penny of tha money fer no gun! That’s how come Ah has Mistah Hawkins t pay me, cause Ah knows yuh ain got no sense” (370). Dave’s mom does not trust him with his own money; she seems to think that Dave is a frivolous spender. As a result, Dave feels like he is treated as a boy rather than a man. Dave sees that this treatment diminishes his manhood and makes him realize that he needs something to give him authority. Though Dave’s mother just wants him to realize that every penny counts around the house; she just wants him to spend his money on something else rather than a gun.
In Langston Hughes, "On the Road" the Sargeant is a homeless Black man that is desperate for food and shelter. In his desperation, Sargeant goes to the church to refuge, but there is no one at the Church to help him get refuge. Although Sargent is living in a time where the depression is in existence amongst all people, Black and White, he finds no one to help him. Sargent goes to the Church because the Church helps people. However, because Sargeant is Black and the Church is populated by a White congregation, he is rejected. In the story " One the Road", one of the people: A big black unemployed Negro holding onto our church... "The idea"! This represents that Sargent wants the benefits of the white society, but because of racism he was not allowed the opportunity to acquire the benefits. When Sargent was holding on to the Church, this represents his relentlessness and striving that he had to endure to live in a society in which discrimination and racism existed. He held on to the Church's doors because he was holding on to the American dream in which all people have the right to receive the same treatment regardless of color. Sargent knew he was no longer a slave, so when he was holding on to the Church's doors to be let in. He wanted to be fed and accepted into a society that did not want him.
“It is perfect houses with nice lawns. It is memorial day cookouts, block associations and, driveways”. Coats often finds himself wanting to “escape into the dream”. However, he is never able to because the dream “rests on the backs” of African-Americans. As
The poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” symbolically connects the fate of the speaker of the poem and his African American community to the indestructible and powerful force on Earth- the river. The river embodies both power and dominance but also a sense of comfort. The poem is a prime example of the message of hope and perseverance to anyone who has suffered or is currently suffering oppression and inequality in their lives and in society. The speaker in the poem pledges to the reader that with hard-work, determination, and willpower to succeed, he will get where he is going regardless of the obstacles and challenges he may face on his path of reaching his goals in life.