Black American Narrative

American history was radically changed when President Abraham Lincoln gave the very famous Emancipation Proclamation. This lead to the freedom of millions of African Americans who sought the same liberty and equality that was promised to everyone under the United States constitution. These liberties, of course, were not achieved right away. During the Reconstruction era, which is the decade right after the Civil War, many of the recently freed slaves did not have money, property, or credit. They could not buy the necessary things to enjoy their freedom, which lead to sharecropping, a glorified form of slavery. Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner lets a tenant use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on their portion of land (Sharecropping).. Added on to this, facilities were segregated to prevent the black man from enjoying the same things as the white man due to Jim Crow laws which were enacted after the Reconstruction era. The struggle for equality and rights continued during the Gilded Age (1873-1900), the Progressive Era (1900-1920s), the Great Depression (1930s), WWII (1939-1945), the beginning of the Cold War (1947), up until the Civil Rights movement (1954-1968). At this point in history, African Americans fought for their rights and changed the course of American history. Music was a very important tool used by African Americans that helped achieve this. Ever since the slavery times, music was a big part of their culture

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.

In the 21st Century, during a period of racial discrimination, a political African American activist, Ta-Nehisi Coates, presents Letter to My Son to insist that the government system needs to be changed so that African Americans could be granted a chance in their community to not be abused and violated by the government. In an attempt to support his claim about injustice of African Americans, Coates reminds his readers that the government system and federal laws contributed to the abuse of a black person’s body and mind in their community. Thusly, Coate’s underlined purpose of comparing the body and mind of a white and black man’s power during the slavery period was to emphasize the change in the government system to give African Americans their rights to be able to live in a society without injustice or abuse. He later adopts a critical and sympathetic tone to simultaneously scare the government to change their laws for all people of African descent in their society.

Harlem, New York became a black cultural mecca where blacks could escape the realities of the world and let their emotions run wild through music, art, literature, stage performance. The Renaissance was caused by a combination of the Great Migration during and after World War I and the social and economic boom of the “Roaring ‘20s.” Originally Harlem was meant for the upper class whites in the 1880s however, the neighborhood was rapidly overdeveloped and landlords were frantic to fill those empty buildings. So they opened the spaces up for the lower class. From 1910 to 1920 large African American populations migrated from the South to the North in attempt to be relieved of civil injustices, as they were intensified the farther south you went.

Thousands of white Americans came to Harlem to experience the night life. The nightclubs in New York appealed to the whites as they were very famous. Jazz music was thriving in the area. It originated in the Unites States among African-American musicians. It was at this time that jazz was at its most famous point. Many people would host rent parties which were very popular at the time. Apartment owners would hold a party and would charge a fee to those who wanted to enter. They used this money in order to pay off their rent (Worth). The influence of jazz also brought musical reviews. Soon white novelists, dramatists and composers started to exploit the musical tendencies and themes of African Americans in their works. Composers used the literary works of African-American poets in their songs. Negros began to merge with Whites into the classical world of musical composition (Wikipedia). Soon, the works of artists were being displayed in nationwide magazines. Their culture began to spread with great velocity.

This neighborhood lead to the flowering of African-American: culture, art, literature, and especially music. The explosion of African-American culture is known as the Harlem Renaissance. The music of the Harlem Renaissance changed African-American and American culture forever. Their music, jazz, transcended the racial divide. Jazz, created in New Orleans, traveled to Harlem, New York, marking the birth of the musical side of the Harlem Renaissance.

The last few weeks were worse than I could have ever imagined. If I had known what it this job would consist of I might not have taken it in the first place. I sailed to Africa with the crew, expecting to pick up cargo when, to my shock, it turns out we were bringing a more alive supply of 140 young African slaves. Why do people want slaves anyway? I had questioned Mr. Slater with this. “They’re better with agriculture and cattle, ” he had replied. “The Indians are no good… they’re all dead, ahahaha.” I did not have the energy to tell him why his joke was grossly unfunny. He strangely did not recognize even a slight problem with forcing people to work for us, just because they had immunities to our diseases and their government allowed it.

The history of America is one that can’t be discussed without talking about the Negro. Whether we want to admit it or not, the Negro has played an integral part in making what America what it is today. If it wasn’t for the profits generated from slavery, there would have been no way that America would have been the country that it is today. The slavery that the Negro endured has produced some positive and negatives, but it is the negatives that have been something that the Negro hasn’t been able to overcome for hundreds of years. It is these same negatives that have compelled some of the greatest black minds in history to create solutions to these problems. Minds such as Crummell, W.E.B Du Bois are some of the minds that have come up with

The abolishment of slavery has never made America Exceptional because the systematic oppression of African Americans occurred for decades after they were freed. American Exceptionalism is the belief that Americans are superior because the United States follows a different set of laws and norms that govern other countries. Supposedly, these differences account for the freedom that Americans have, which other countries lack. However, not all Americans, such as African Americans, have been able to practice this freedom. Even though slavery was abolished, African Americans never received the same rights as other Americans for decades. Even after receiving the same rights, African Americans were still oppressed. A country that

A free America cannot allow itself to be tainted by a schism between races. To change the inequality within America, the vanguard of the movement must be by White people. The article “Why White Women Should Read Ta-Nehesi Coates’ Book” explains why the catalyst must be White people. Author of the article Sally Kohn shows it is the responsibility of “Those…who, by virtue of our white skin, have benefitted from white supremacy and racial hierarchy are the ones who must destroy it (racism)” (Kohn et al.). Coates’s heavily discusses the idea of white guilt within his article “The Case for Reparations”. Coates’s knows that “What is needed is an airing of family secrets, a settling with old ghosts. What is needed is a healing of the American psyche and the banishment of white guilt.” (Coates, “The Case for Reparations”) This white guilt will help usher a new era of discussion and understanding of racism in America. In Coates’s memoir Between the World and Me he discusses the importance of not forgetting. Coates’s tells his son that “The forgetting is habit, is yet another necessary component of the Dream. They have forgotten the scale of theft that enriched them in slavery; the terror that allowed them, for a century, to pilfer the vote; the segregationist policy that gave them their suburbs. They have forgotten, because to remember would tumble them out of the beautiful Dream and force them to live down here with us, down here in the world.” (Coates, Between the World and Me: Notes on the First 150 Years in America) Coates’s emphasizes throughout Between the World and Me the importance of remembering. He stresses the point over and over that white people love to forget the suffering and the pain that Black Americans have gone through. Coates knows the system has managed “to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks

“The Harlem Renaissance was the development of the Harlem neighborhood in New York City as a black cultural mecca in the early 20th Century and the subsequent social and artistic explosion that resulted.” (Historycom, 2017). The movement allowed African Americans to receive exposure for their art, Moreover, it lasted for over 20 years. The African American Art provided a distinct perspective of creativity from the artists. The Harlem Renaissance was the focal point of African American Music, as a result of the movement was the birth of many Genres.

Known as the home of the brave and land of the free, America’s history represents one of progression, democracy, and freedom at first glance. However, when looking deeply at black history in America, the narrative changes drastically, leaving historians debating on how to explain black history in America. Since the beginning of American history, black people have been brought over as indentured servants, which gave way to slavery, lynching, the Jim Crow era, and the inherited belief that black people are considerably less than others. Nevertheless, black people persevered and challenged this belief by taking on government positions during the Reconstruction Era, expressing themselves during the Great Migration, and protesting in many ways during

Black history has been deleted from American history- discreetly but surely (Pattern #6). Those with the power and ability to include black history into the bigger scheme of reality are too disgusted or too prideful to do so, because the world doesn’t know past Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, or cotton fields. True Black history has been excluded and left unbothered. The intellect W. E. B. Du Bois once said, “that the past is present; that without what was, nothing is” In other words, without knowing where one came from, one can never know where they are going. Solving racial issues has been attempted, without understanding the core issue underlying racism-- this is a major epidemic for America.UNCLEAR As a whole, blacks and their struggles are put on hold and Benjamin Quarels decides to speak on this harsh reality, in his text “Black History’s Diversified Clientele.” In his text, Quarels makes sure to educate his audience on those he feels should absorb and be affected by black history. These groups were black academia, white academia, black rank and file, White rank and file, and Black Revolutionary Nationalists. These groups relate two texts:CHOICE OF WORDS IS AWKWARD They came before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America and The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro. Both texts can appeal to groups mentioned by Quarels. Black history is vital for people of color trying to find their true identity.

Taking place from the 1920’s to the 1940’s, a well-known period of time where black people’s ideas, morals, and customs were adapted and developed was known as the Harlem Renaissance. The main focus of the era for the African Americans was to establish some sort of identity and self-expression through literary, musical, theatrical, and visual arts. The story behind this began in 1890 when African American slaves migrated from the rural South to the urban North as they thrashed their way to freedom. Most of them migrated to New York, particularly in the district of Harlem (Bolarinwa). Harlem was characterized as “not merely the largest Negro community in the world, but the first concentration in history of so many diverse elements of Negro

For many years, African Americans lived as slaves with no rights and no freedoms to develop their talents. Thus, African Americans desired a change. They were in search of a place that provided them possibility and power. Therefore, during the period of 1910-1930, many African Americans embarked on the community of Harlem in New York City. Harlem had become an elegant African American community of great strength and sophistication. So, newcomers considered Harlem the ideal place to prosper. Many individuals came here with a goal to receive equal rights. These equal rights would provide African Americans with opportunities to expand their culture in areas including literature, the arts, theater, and music. Since Harlem was rapidly developing