Analysis Of Joel A. Rogers

During the 19th and 20th century African Americans faced Discrimination in the United States. Three African Americans took roles of leadership and began trying to uplift the lives of blacks in society. Those who took control of this movement were Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey and W.E.B Dubois. These activists wanted the same result and implemented different techniques to follow their similar hopes for blacks in America. Each of these leaders has allowed America to develop in extensive ways for several years and those yet to come. Alternate pathways were taken by each leader to resolve the overall issue of racism. These issues include things such as not having the right to vote,own property and prevent lynchings. This paper will argue that had Garvey's theory of the new negro and Dubois’ ideas of education been implemented, racism in America would have been reduced because the allocation of education would allow for their to become a new negro. The application of Marcus Garvey's theory including thoughts of W.E.B Dubois’ on racism would have brought white power to an end.

The black race has faced many hardships throughout American history. The harsh treatment is apparent through the brutal slavery era, the Civil Rights movement, or even now where sparks of racial separation emerge in urbanized areas of Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit. Black Americans must do something to defend their right as an equal American. “I Am Not Your Negro” argues that the black race will not thrive unless society stands up against the conventional racism that still appears in modern America. “The Other Wes Moore” argues an inspiring message that proves success is a product of one’s choices instead of one’s environment or expectations.

Slavery was abolished after the Civil War, but the Negro race still was not accepted as equals into American society. To attain a better understanding of the events and struggles faced during this period, one must take a look at its' literature. James Weldon Johnson does an excellent job of vividly depicting an accurate portrait of the adversities faced before the Civil Rights Movement by the black community in his novel “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.” One does not only read this book, but instead one takes a journey alongside a burdened mulatto man as he struggles to claim one race as his own.

Authors have changed people and their views continually throughout time. Authors Zora Neal Hurston and Langston Hughes both drastically effected peoples’ views on African American people. Their most profound time was during the Harlem Renaissance, where they wrote several novels and poems about the lives of African Americans. These authors used their African American heritage and life experiences to compose these works about their communities and widen many peoples’ thoughts and actions towards the African American race. The timing of these authors’ stories, their very diverse lives, and their literature skills all helped them to accomplish their goal of change for their race and bring the races closer.

One such author, poet Langston Hughes, wrote “Let America Be America Again.” Hughes is known for his portrayal of the African American life in America during the early to mid 1900’s. Hughes was born in 1902 in Missouri where his parents divorced when he was a young child. He was raised by his grandmother until his teenage years before he moved to live with his mother and her new husband. He was a college graduate from Lincoln University and was an award winning novelist. Another author, Edward McClelland, we don’t learn as much about. We know he grew up in an auto making town in the 1970s, a time during which middle-class America was strong and prosperous. McClelland tells us his ideology through personal experience, examples, and the use of some statistics. With our last author, meet D. Watkins, a college professor who has a master’s degree in education from John Hopkins University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Baltimore. (3) We

The dominant white male of the story speaks the following statement, "Now I like the colored people, and sympathize with all this reasonable aspirations; but you and I both know, John, that in this country the Negro must remain subordinate and can never expect to be equal of white men" (373). This is a fundamental sentiment that white people in the American society during that time held on to. In this essay W.E.B DuBois shows how this black man, John, was treated in his hometown after returning home with a college education. Both blacks and whites reject his new views. However, to whites the black John represents a devaluing of the college education. If a black person can have a college degree, then having a college degree must not have value. After this reaction from society John started to think, "John Jones, you're a natural born fool" (369). This behavior from society kept the average black person stagnant, and unmotivated.

Carter G Woodson, the oldest of nine in a poor coal mining family found his love of learning early. Earning a Masters’ degree only one year after earning a bachelor’s degree, he quickly followed in the footsteps of great minds and earned his PhD from Harvard University. He had a very well rounded and multifaceted educational journey according to the text, but felt most connected to furthering the pursuit of excellence for all African Americans through the creation of journals, organizations, and eventually continuing on in higher education with the African American in mind. He is credited with Black History week. In light of the time in history wherein he flourished, it is fitting that he was part of the movement that resulted in the creation of the NAACP (iv-v). In short, he objectively appears to single handedly be the father of the African American social awareness movement.

Imagine a situation where one is walking down an empty street and a woman gives one a glance and begins running, or one is told to leave a public restaurant simply because of the family one was born into. This is the reality for two African-American authors in the 20th century. Over the history of the United States minorities have faced a numerous amounts of racism. The types of racism that was expressed to these minorities has evolved as time went on. Two authors decided to write about their experiences and they occurrences vary vastly. The details that really set one essay apart from the other include the time of day the racism took place, time period of the occurrence, and type of racism witnessed.

As African Americans ' spot in American culture has changed through the hundreds of years, thus, has the center of African-American writing. Before the American Civil War, the writing fundamentally comprised of journals by individuals who had gotten away from subjection; the class of slave stories included records of life under subjugation and the way of equity and recovery to flexibility. There was an early qualification between the writing of liberated slaves and the writing of free blacks, who had been

Robert F. Williams was a man to remember, not only for his incredible accomplishments in society but his character as a whole. He sought for social equality rather than being satisfied with freedom from chattel slavery. “We have the right and duty to raise our voices in protest against the forces of oppression that seek to crush free people” (P. 242). Personal relations amongst genders in opposing races brought up serious turmoil in the 1950’s South. Timothy Tyson’s views on the battle for African American civil liberties create a vivid window into some of Americas past successes and failures.

In the fictional story, “Of the Coming of John”, DuBois rebukes Washington’s ideas of subordination to whites in order to obtain support for black education. The dominant white male of the story speaks the following statement, “Now I like the colored people, and sympathize with all this reasonable aspirations; but you and I both know, John, that in this country the Negro must remain subordinate and can never expect to be equal of white men” (373). This is a fundamental sentiment that white people in the American society during that time held on to. In this essay W.E.B DuBois shows how this black man, John, was treated in his hometown after returning home with a college education. Both blacks and whites reject his new views. However, to whites the black John represents a devaluing of the college education. If a black person can have a college degree, then having a college degree must not have value. After this reaction from society John started to think, “John Jones, you’re a natural born fool” (369). This behavior from society kept the average black person stagnant, and unmotivated.

During a time period when slavery had finally come to an end, African Americans still struggled as their opportunities for equality were next to nonexistent. In this time of hardship and unfair treatment, not many of those facing these adversities had the courage to speak out on their beliefs for change; Booker T. Washington and WEB Dubois, however, did not possess such fears — both thoroughly articulated their opinions and stood for what they believed was right. Booker T. Washington and WEB Dubois shared a few commonalities — both men were highly educated, for example, as well as they both expressed strong opposition against segregation. Washington’s Up from Slavery: An Autobiography and Dubois’

Racial discrimination, political, social and economic inequality during the late 19th century and early 20th century led various leaders within the black community to rise up and address the appalling circumstances that African Americans were forced to endure. Among these leaders were Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois whom possessed analogous desires as it pertained to the advancement and upliftment of the black race. While both individuals were fighting for the same cause and purpose they embraced contrary ideologies and approaches to African American struggle. In Booker T. Washington’s book “Up from Slavery” African Americans were encouraged to be passive and focus on vocational education whereas in W.E.B. DuBois book “The Souls of Black Folk”, African Americans were encouraged to fight for their merited rights and focus on academic education. However, although Washington was convinced that his ideologies would sincerely uplift the black race, they actually proved to be detrimental, leaving DuBois ideology to be the most reasonable and appropriate solution for the advancement of the black race.

The history of the black race in Africa and America was documented in Black Folk, Then and Now: An Essay in the History and Sociology of the Negro Race. Echoing in the Saturday Review of Literature, H. J. Seligmann noted that nobody can neglect the role of the blacks in the making of the world history. Another compliment was made by Barrett Williams. In the Boston Transcript, Williams pointed out that Professor Du Bois had overlooked one of the strongest arguments against racial discrimination. In it, a man of color has proved himself, in the complex and exacting field of scholarship, the full equal of his white colleagues (Gale schools, 2004).

The Harlem Renaissance sought to revitalize African American culture with a focus on arts and literature and creating socioeconomic opportunities (Harlem Renaissance). This temporal setting, predominantly the influence of the Harlem Renaissance, of Hughes’s life explains the purpose of Hughes’s writing: to express the oppression of African Americans and the imperfections of Hughes’s America and to heighten African American morale during his life through his writing.