Reading Mumbo Jumbo

During the twentieth century, many African American writers wrote several texts that tell the story of their lives and experiences in the society that they had lived. This includes the author, Richard Wright who often wrote gruesome poems, criticisms of other African American writers, and short stories. Many of Wright’s text, like “Between Laughter and Tears,” “Between the World and Me,” and “The Library Card,” has challenged and reflected the brutal discrimination of African-American, socially, politically, and philosophically.

The Jazz Age was a period of radical behavior and care free living. This new music structure started the crazy decade that would change American life. “In the US during the 1920s, jazz was far more than a new musical style or genre”. A Focus on culture, fashion, and mostly freedom became huge. “The Jazz Age became a touchstone for a wide range of social and cultural issues.”1 Also the freedom during the period allowed for many different ethnicities, including African Americans, to gain freedom within society. This new music

In its broadest dimensions Afrofuturism is an extension of the historical recovery projects that black Atlantic intellectuals have engaged in for well over two hundred years (sdonline). Black authors such as Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler, Charles Saunders, and Jewelle Gomez of the past fifty or so years have collaborated with the sci-fi world “because it so effectively captures the experience of living in a high-tech world (Yaszek 2002: 97)” which is our world today. Coupling that with a political mission, creates the activist genre of Afrofuturism. In Eshuns Further Considerations on Afrofuturism he talks about how everything we do and have is built upon the slaves and their oppressed history. Every school, bank and restaurant we have were all possible by the capital gain from the slavery era. Afrofuturism writers and works make these truths know and force readers to look into the future to see what could become. The way these works incorporate the truths of the past and possible realities for the future, categorizes it as more than just science

Furthermore, Biman Basu’s The Black Voice And The Language Of The Text: Toni Morrison’s Sula, investigates what he calls “one of the most significant developments in African American tradition…the formation of a class of intellectuals” (Article). More precisely, Basu is speaking of individuals like Morrison, who have not only broken down barriers for herself as a woman writer, but the others whom have followed in her footsteps to publish a rich tapestry of African-American literature. Furthermore, Basu’s investigates the conflict that arises when one class overtakes another stating that the conflict “on one hand, is between African-American and American Culture, and on the other, between this class of intellectuals and the ‘people’”(article).

“Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.” –Richard Wright, Black Boy. The author suffered and lived through an isolated society, where books were the only option for him to escape the reality of the world. Wright wrote this fictionalized book about his childhood and adulthood to portray the dark and cruel civilization and to illustrate the difficulties that blacks had, living in a world run by whites.

“JAZZ” is a documentary by Ken Burns released 2001 that focuses on the creation and development of jazz, America’s “greatest cultural achievement.” The first episodes entitled, “Gumbo, Beginnings to 1917” and “The Gift (1917-1924), explain the early growth of jazz as it originates in New Orleans and its expands to Chicago and New York during the Jazz Age. In assessing the first two episodes of Ken Burns' 2001 documentary, "JAZZ," this essay will explore the history of jazz, the music's racial implications, and it's impact on society. In doing so, attention will also be given to the structure of the documentary, and the effectiveness of documentary film in retelling the past.

expanding, sharing it’s enthusiasm throughout the world. The evolution of jazz aroused the curiosity of the nation. As Blacks received their freedom, they were able to

In the 1920s the expanding culture of African Americans was wildly represented by the Harlem Renaissance. It happened after the Great Migration, when they started to develop new styles of literature, art, and music (doc. 6,7). The 1920s were called the “Jazz Age” because musicians recombined blues, European- based music, and ragtime. The Harlem Renaissance changed the way African Americans were looked at by other people in the U.S. and how they lived. It did this by giving them the chance to overcome the things they had gone through in the past. The Harlem Renaissance also allowed them to express how they feeled and show their talents.

One such fad that was considered immoral would be the ‘swing kids’. Since jazz had become a major part of the cultural war that was raging along side the literal war, it's African

Richard Wright uses language in his novel, Black Boy, as a source to convey his opinions and ideas. His novel both challenges and defends the claim that language can represent a person and become a peephole into their life and surroundings. Richard Wright uses several rhetorical techniques to convey his own ideas about the uses of language.

The film Boyz ‘N the Hood, deals with the life of two young African Americans named Tre and Ricky. They are trying to make it out of South Central Los Angeles but face many obstacles due to poverty, crime, and violence. There are many theories that present themselves throughout the film. For example, labeling/stigma theory is a very frequent theory because it happens not only with the law and authority stigmatizing the African Americans living in South Central Los Angeles, but also with own members of the community stigmatizing others in the same community as well. Other theories that are also very frequent, are strain theory and social disorganization.

The jazz music of the 1920’s is one example of the scandalous lives of the elite and their elaborate parties that broke barriers for the innovation of American culture.

Voodoo is a religion rich in heritage and founded in faith and community. The religion has been villainized by western culture and has been wrongly portrayed as malignant and dangerous. The religion is not founded in any of the (known) "black magics" or fear popularized by Hollywood films, but rather it is based on balance and tradition. The religion is not something that should be encountered with inhibition or fear induced from childhood horror stories, but embraced for its strength and history.

Mumbo Jumbo is Ishmael Reed?s third novel and by many critics, it is considered as his best. The novel is about a large set of characters, and in the center there is a neo-hoodoo practicer, Papa LaBas. The book is in fact about the struggle between the Christian Ethics and Afro-American

The African-American literary period of Realism, Naturalism, and Modernism, also referred to as the Age of Wright, was when the writers and artist would expose the realities and identities of living in America and the harshness of society. This African-American literary period would begin around the time the Great Depression ends and would end the year in the death of Richard Wright, which was 1960. One of the most notable writers of this period was, of course, Richard Wright. By his way of thinking and the way he wrote literature, “Wright [had] effectively executed his own blueprint by rejecting what Locke termed the ‘decadent aestheticism’ of Harlem Renaissance writers and by drawing on the presumably more ‘nourishing’ elixir of Marxism and social protest” (Gates, 97). Richard Wright’s Blueprint for Negro Writing appeared in the journal New Challenge that he and other African-American writers had published in 1937. Although Richard Wright’s Blueprint for Negro Writing was written before 1940, this literature work makes an excellent representation of Urban Realism. This text represents this literary period because it tells about the reality, but also the promotion of success in African-American literature by criticizing black culture and nationalism in literary works.