Emma Akin's Book Report

The memoir “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston, was first published in 1928, and recounts the situation of racial discrimination and prejudice at the time in the United States. The author was born into an all-black community, but was later sent to a boarding school in Jacksonville, where she experienced “race” for the first time. Hurston not only informs the reader how she managed to stay true to herself and her race, but also inspires the reader to abandon any form of racism in their life. Especially by including Humor, Imagery, and Metaphors, the author makes her message very clear: Everyone is equal.

“We are not makers of history, we are made by history,” once said by Martin Luther King Junior. Black history has impacted all of our lives, regardless of our race or the color of our skin. Therefore, it is imperative that we all explore black history. In modern society, most adolescents can’t even begin to fathom what it was like to live in the 1950s as an African American. Moreover, they don’t recognize the colossal sacrifices African Americans made in order to obtain equality. Many juveniles find it difficult to wrap their heads around what life was like prior to all of these pivotal icons that paved the way for our contemporary lifestyle. Icons much like Ineria Hudnell who revolutionized academia in Florida.

Frances Ellen Walker Harper published a wealth of short stories, poetry, essays, and novels in the middle to late 1800s. She was born into a politically active, free black family, attended her uncle’s school, and became the first female teacher at the Union Seminary. Harper’s unusually comfortable class-status and extensive education allowed her to become a skilled writer on topics that interested her, such as politics, civil rights, feminism, and religion. Harper used her skill and passion to become economically and emotionally independent. In fact, much of her work echoes her identity as a middle class woman of color who supported herself through writing. However, this nature of independence was unusual for a woman in the 1800s, especially a black woman. Though Harper’s portrayal of strong, independent womanhood is a much needed depiction of women, Harper is unqualified to establish expectations for black women in the 1800s.

Percival Everett’s novel, Erasure, was published in 2001, in a 21st century that is far removed—if only temporally—from the abolitionist movement, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow laws. The representations of African-Americans that were ubiquitous during those times, such as Sambos, Zip Coons, and Mammies, are now tangible only as collector’s antiques. While these specific representations of African-Americans may no longer be prevalent in American society, the form of racism that they embodied remains. Although the representations may have changed, American society’s insistence on maintaining such a narrow representation of black life has not. Everett has written Erasure to expose and combat this racism with his

   In an era where "knowledge is power," the emphasis on literacy in African American texts is undeniable. Beginning with the first African American literary works, the slave narratives, through the canon's more recent successes such as Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and Sapphire's Push, the topic of literacy is almost inextricably connected to freedom and power. A closer investigation, however, leads the reader to another, less direct, message indicating that perhaps this belief in literacy as a pathway to the "American Dream" of freedom and social and financial success is contradictory or, at least, insufficient in

The first cover design that I felt would represent the students and staff at Marysville Middle School best was A Year in Color. This design could carry the themes out throughout our book, stay organized in the process, and fit our school. I chose Jada’s cover design/theme- A Year in Color as my first pick for the 17-18 book because I think that her ideas about how to carry out the theme are very unique. Jada had a way to show the feelings of our students and staff in the school. Her theme could fit Marysville Middle School very well because the theme would support her ideas of having colors to show emotion. From what Jada explained, her theme seemed to be very organized so it would make it less complex to keep the theme carried out.

A number of black women writers forged their way into classrooms to teach us. “Historian Gerda Lerner edited Black Women in White America in 1973 which further revised the understanding of African American roles in U.S. history as both the victims

In the short story “Drenched in Light” by Zora Neale Hurston, the author appeals to a broad audience by disguising ethnology and an underlying theme of gender, race, and oppression with an ambiguous tale of a young black girl and the appreciation she receives from white people. Often writing to a double audience, Hurston had a keen ability to appeal to white and black readers in a clever way. “[Hurston] knew her white folks well and performed her minstrel shows tongue in cheek” (Meisenhelder 2). Originally published in The Opportunity in 1924, “Drenched in Light” was Hurston’s first story to a national audience.

By the end of Wallace Thurman’s novel, “The Blacker the Berry,” the main character Emma Lou has a revelation about herself. Her whole life she thought her dark skin color prevented her from good opportunities. She was hyper-sensitive towards her color and tried to make up for it by fitting in with the right type of people. She has economic freedom and have fit in with the right type of people. Emma was desperate to fit in with type of people that treated her inferiorly, but once she came to terms with the strength of her African American background, she is able to identify with who she is, a black woman.

The early 1900s was a very challenging time for Negroes especially young women who developed issues in regards to their identities. Their concerns stemmed from their skin colors. Either they were fair skinned due mixed heritage or just dark skinned. Young African American women experienced issues with racial identity which caused them to be in a constant struggle that prohibits them from loving themselves and the skin they are in. The purpose of this paper is to examine those issues in the context of selected creative literature. I will be discussing the various aspects of them and to aid in my analysis, I will be utilizing the works of Nella Larsen from The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Jessie Bennett Redmond Fauset,

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The story captures the turbulent trials that she faced as she sang her way from the segregated streets of a shantytown in East St. Louis to the glittering stages of Paris all the way to Carnegie Hall. Reading and experiencing books within the biography genre provides the learner with an authentic glimpse inside history and encourages them to understand historical events from the perspective of the people who lived it. Paired with the relationship to and relevance of past events to current events, this provides the opportunity to address the segregation of the past relative to the issues of racial bias and racism today that are distinguishable to even the young reader as a part of our society and culture. Children’s books provide an avenue for students to learn about their own cultural heritage and the cultures of other people. It is crucial for young learners to learn and understand these values in the early learning process to ensure that they develop positive attitudes toward their own culture and the cultures of others to

As a young child growing up in Eatonville, FL. Zora never really had to worry about her race, she was always confident in who she was, that’s was until she turned 13yrs old and moved to Jacksonville, FL for school, she encountered a obstacle she never had before, that obstacle was racism. Five years from now the story I will remember the most is Zora Neale Hurston’s “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” this story is such a stand out and really drew me in because of the conflict regarding race that she faces when reaching her teen years, and the connections from Zora’s life then, until my life on present day.

The introductory line of Harriet Jacob’s preface to Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, “Reader, be assured this narrative is no fiction”, is short yet serving (Jacobs 224). Although brief in its nature, this statement manages to encompass two major aspects that characterize African-American literature: audience and truth. In all writing, understanding the target audience and how to arrange an argument or essay to appeal to that specific crowd is paramount. However, it is especially important for African-American authors, who typically need to expose injustices or call for social change in their works. In particular, two African-American authors who understood their audience and how to manipulate that understanding were Charles W. Chesnutt and Marcus Garvey. Although they were born only twenty-nine years apart, Chesnutt and Garvey technically wrote for different time periods. While Chesnutt’s work is associated with “Literature of the Reconstruction”, Garvey was grouped with authors and activists from the Harlem Renaissance (Gates and Smith 580 ). The separation of their literary epochs drove Chesnutt and Garvey to write for contradistinctive audiences that demanded unique written techniques and rhetorical strategies, but that both asked for utmost honesty.

There are numerous works of literature that recount a story- a story from which inspiration flourishes, providing a source of liberating motivation to its audience, or a story that simply aspires to touch the hearts and souls of all of those who read it. One of the most prevalent themes in historical types of these kinds of literature is racism. In America specifically, African Americans endured racism heavily, especially in the South, and did not gain equal rights until the 1960s. In her renowned book The Color Purple, Alice Walker narrates the journey of an African American woman, Celie Johnson (Harris), who experiences racism, sexism, and enduring hardships throughout the course of her life; nonetheless, through the help of friends and