Summary Of In The Spirit Of Martin By Nikki Giovanni

The protagonist of the poem is Rosa Parks, a seamstress and an active member in the local NAACP, who refused to give up her seat for a white man. Parks was arrested, which led to a boycott against Montgomery bus system. As a result of more than one year of boycott, the segregation law was announced unconstitutional.

“He was a quiet , soft-spoken man who wore old-timey clothes, fedoras, button-down wool coats, suspenders, and dressed neatly at all times, regardless of how dirty his work made him” (Mcbride 6).“His father was a black man, a railroad brakeman, and his mother a Native American, so he had a lot of indian in his face: brown skin, slanted brown eyes, high cheekbones and a weather-beaten outdoor look about him..” (Mcbride 120).The writing is figurative by the use of similes and metaphors. “In running from her past, Mommy has created her own nation, a rainbow coalition that descends on her house every Christmas and Thanksgiving.” (277)“Her grits tasted like sand and butter, with big lumps inside that caught in your teeth and suck in your gums.”(McBride 67) . “Ma cried, and she wailed and wailed, the sound of her cries circling the house like a spirit and settling on all the corridors and beds where we ay, weeping in silence.”(McBride 128) Allusions are used to give a timeframe of the time period by talking about issues.“She actually liked Malcolm X. She put in nearly the same category as her civil rights heroes, Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson, Eleanor

In the first couple of lines in Hughes’s poem he speaks upon past African American struggles and encourages them to move forward from them with the use of his refrain lines, ‘that day is past,’ and ‘bitter was the day.’ He makes various references “responding to the early days of depression, moreover…having a range of tone, language, and insight…” (Shulman 295), to speak upon slavery and inequality. For example, he awakens the memories of slaves being lynched, whipped, and

Nikki Giovanni's "Poem for Black Boys" is a poignant literary work that addresses several issues concerning the young black male in America and the conflicting views taken by members of the African-American community during the Civil Rights Movement with an inclination towards the peaceful movement perpetuated by the likes of Dr. Martin Luther king, Jr. and his non-violent contemporaries. Giovanni's use of allusion, imagery and the sardonic humor of the speaker blend effortlessly to denounce all of the negative connotation of the young African-American male and to sound the battle-cry to black male youths that while society-at-large may place them in a box, it is up to them to prove society wrong.

Alliteration and metaphors are two major elements of this poem. The repetition of consonant sounds and alliteration occurs throughout the poem. All of the lines strongly use the repetition of consonants and alliteration except for lines two and seven. In addition to that, the controlling figure of speech in this poem is a metaphor. It is strongly articulated in the first line, and as the one continues to read, it is amplified and extended throughout the rest of the poem. The metaphor compares mask of Line 1 to the fabricated emotive facades that African-Americans had made use of in order to avert provoking their oppressors.

In conclusion, the poem was used as a key to unlock some of the thoughts the negro had concerning Africa. The negro in this poem was a representative of all negroes during this time; their thoughts and the their feelings toward Africa. Cullen’s usage of the literary devices allow for an effective expression of the meaning of this poem. Poems are intensified language of experience, so the devices assured the connection of the reader to the poem and the experience. This applies to many issues in society today because as beautiful as our country is there are still dark clouds that cover the very essence of what the states once stood

Poems are built with tradition, but in his case, the speaker wants to end tradition just as he wants to end racism. In line two and three, they both end with the same word which is called symploce. Symploce is a combination of anaphora and epistrophe which implies that these two lines are an important point of the figure of speech. The poem was written by stating a cause and effect. The line beginng with by is the cause and I being the effect. Its an explination of how he will fight social injustice. It also helps readers to use and understand the most effective way to fight social

In the year of 1963, Martin Luther King was imprisoned for peacefully marching in a parade as a nonviolent campaign against segregation. In Martin Luther King’s essay “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” the paragraphs that have the most emotional appeal are, just as the critics say, paragraphs thirteen and fourteen. King tugs at the reader’s emotions in these specific paragraphs using very detailed examples about the difficult, heart-wrenching misfortunes that have happened to the African American society and what they had to endure on a daily basis in Birmingham by using metaphors, contrasts, alliteration, anaphora, and imagery. As taken from an excerpt of “MLK - Letter From A Birmingham Jail,” In paragraphs thirteen and fourteen of Letter

Allusion is one of the main literary devices used to portray the theme that resistance engenders eventual change. John Legend and Common alluded to other peaceful demonstrations that have called attention to social issues, that have slowly been resolved due to resistance of unfair treatment. The first example can be found in the lyric, “That’s why Rosa sat on the bus”(line 17) is referring to the resistance of blacks. Rosa Parks is one of the most renowned civil rights activist, she refused to render her bus seat to a white male in 1955. During her resistance, she remained peaceful. She did not fight the white male, nor did she fight the white law enforcement officers when they forcibly removed her from the bus. Therefore, due to Rosa Park’s peaceful resistance, in 1956 buses were desegregated. By not following unjust laws of society, Rosa’s resistance was able to enact change. The second allusion references a more recent protest; the protest in Ferguson, Missouri in which a black, unarmed teenager was killed by a white law

     There were a few interesting lines in the poem that were particularly well written. When the mother is denying her kid the right to march, she says “For I fear

In order to occupy her child, the mother dresses her daughter up to go sing in the children’s choir at church in the fifth stanza. She brushes her hair, bathes her, and puts on her gloves and shoes. Randall appeals to the senses in this stanza; he uses a metaphor here to inform the reader a visual that the family is African American. She has “night-dark” hair and small brown hands. She is dressed in white and smells of sweet rose petals. The mother takes the girls mind off of the Freedom March and fixes it on the children’s choir. The tone is one of content. The sixth stanza is a

Another poem that discusses inequality is “I, Too, Sing America”; however, this poem takes a slightly more positive perspective. This poem begins on a somber note as the narrator states that he is forced to eat in the kitchen rather than at the dining table with the white people. Still, the narrator keeps in positive spirits because he believes that he will one day be accepted. He says “tomorrow” he will sit at the table with everyone else and they (white people) will be abashed by how they treated African Americans. Though he is mistreated now, the world we eventually see his beauty (the beauty of all African Americans) and change will

The angry and aggressive tone displays the attitudes and aggression towards the tenant for being African American. The tenant begs for repairs and his denied by his cruel landlord. The hostility of the poem can be seen in “You ain’t gonna be able to say a word / If I land my fist on you” as the tenant threatens the landlord for not repairing the home(19-20). The landlord is aggressive as well; for instance when he calls the police he says “He’s [the tenant] trying to ruin the government / And overturn the land,” which shows the landlord’s distaste for the tenant (23-14). The excerpt displays the landlord’s thinking that African Americans are ruining the United States and shouldn’t even be part of the

and Uncle Bobby (Robert) was going to look for a job when Uncle John told him

In my understanding, the poem pre-dominates the theme “horrors of slavery”. The poet, in a clear tone, illustrates the lives of slaves and the challenges they go through. “And the mother’s shriek of wild despair”, “And I saw her babes torn from her breast” and “If I saw young girls from their mother’s arms” are some examples of indignities that the poet describes. The persona states that she could not rest in a place where people were forcefully subjected to any form of indignities. She uses statements such as; “I could not rest if I heard the tread”, “Of a coffle gang to the shambles led” and much more to elaborate her dislike against slavery; the abuse and terror.