The Middle Passage, By Lorraine Hansberry, Africa For The Africans By Marcus Garvey

Chapter 4, Transatlantic Moment, of Reversing Sail by Michael Gomez was extremely intriguing. As the saying goes numbers never lie. The statistical aspect provided by Gomez of the transatlantic movement was effective in altering my perception of the transatlantic movement as a whole. As the text states the scholarly consensus is that approximately 11.9 million Africans were exported from Africa. Only 9.6 to 10.8 millions arrived alive to America, meaning 10 to 20 percent was loss during the Middle Passage. These numbers show how extensive and outrageous the transatlantic movement was. These numbers represent people with established lives, who were kidnapped and put into forced labor. As Gomez stated serval times and how I now view, the transatlantic

One implication as a result of the biggest known migration of human beings in history is that there is little documentation of individuals from the African Slave Trade. As such a familiar occurrence in history, there is little to be known about the individual experiences of captives during this horrific time. Randy Sparks, author of The Two Princes of Calabar, ends the silence as he provides the reader with a glimpse into an eighteenth century odyssey, and first hand account to the trading communities along the coast of West Africa. This trade not only transported people, but the exchange of ideas is also present across and around the Atlantic. The novel tells the story of two young men from Nigeria who are from an elite slave trading family. These men were captured by Europeans and sold into slavery until they were ultimately released back to their homeland. The Two Princes of Calabar offers insight into the complexities that existed in the transracial Atlantic world of the eighteenth century through the themes of privilege, gender bias, and the mistreatment of the enslaved.

The Slave Ship by Marcus Rediker is a great fiction novel that describes the horrifying experiences of Africans, seamen, and captains on their journey through the Middle Passage. The Middle Passage marked the water way in the Atlantic Ocean between Africa and the Americas. The use of slaves provided a great economy for the European countries due to the fact that these African slaves provided free labor while cultivating sugar cane in the Caribbean and America. Rediker describes the slave migration by saying, “There exists no account of the mechanism for history’s greatest forced migration, which was in many ways the key to an entire phase of globalization” (10). This tells us that African enslavement to the Americas causes a complete

One of the most interesting arguments that modern apologists makes for the practice of race-based slavery in the Americas is the fact that slavery existed in Africa during that time period and that Africans were complicit in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. What is fascinating about Olaudah Equiano's discussion of the Middle Passage is that, as a man who had been enslaved in Africa prior to being shipped as a slave to the Americas, he was in a unique position to describe slavery in Africa with his introduction to European-influenced slavery in North America. His perception was that the immense brutality of the Middle Passage foreshadowed the dehumanization of slaves in the Americas, which was more inhumane than the treatment he had received as a slave while in Africa. Furthermore, he did not suggest that this brutality was linked to the race of the traders, though that seemed to have been his initial impression, but to the nature of the Trans-Atlantic trade. Therefore, Equiano's writings suggest that shipping Africans across the ocean for slavery was part of the dehumanizing process that helped fuel the practice of slavery in America.

When placed in the right situations and circumstances, all human beings are capable of revealing a darker side of them-a side that almost everyone is afraid to show. No one will admit to having a dark side in them, until nature forces them to face it. Lord of the Flies by William Golding and A Separate Peace by John Knowles are two books that emphasize man’s savagery through their characters, themes, and plots. At first, all men have hidden savagery, then something triggers the savagery within them, and they complete the transformation.

The Middle Passage was a triangular route that was frequently used by many European nations who engaged in the Atlantic slave trade of millions of Africans. One such African slave was a man by the name of Olaudah Equiano, who 's autobiography spoke of the mortality rate on slave ships, what he and his fellow slaves thought of their European captors, and what their captors thought of them.

    Lorraine Hansberry faced many obstacles in her life which has made her  write this book A “Raisin in the Sun.” As said in Blooms Literature “She was the youngest of four children whose parents were well-educated, middle-class activists centrally engaged in the fight against racial discrimination. Early figures in the Civil Rights movement.” In the book “A Raisin in the Sun,” the first play written by an African American she made through experiences of  black people who live on Chicago’s South Side, Hansberry used members of her family as inspiration for her characters. Lorraine Hansberry life had comparisons in this book dealing with poverty

According to Janelle Collins article titled, Passgae to Slavery, Passage to Freedom: Olaudah and the Sea “The slave narrative genre is generally recognized as a text that persuasively uses autobiography to argue against the inhumanity and injustice of the institution of slavery.” This explanation begs the question of what is a slave. Slaves were very common in early American history. Slavery is not something Americans celebrate though. It caused a lot of problems and even set war between brothers. People have for a long time struggled with the thought of why and how people were able to own other people and discern differences which made one better than the other. Slaves were not just any kind of people; slaves were men, women, and children who were not English or white by nature. Slaves were made of a large population of black Africans who were forced to come to America to work for other people. How did slaves come to America? To answer that question one would need to take a look into an autobiography titled, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. As described by Olaudah and proved by other evidence, the journey through the Middle Passage was one that forced, it was horrendously dirty, and only the beginning to life as a slave.

During the late 19th century and early 20th century, America increased drastically in industrialization, consumerism, and urbanization. With these increases a “Mass Consumerism” movement began and effected the middle class more than others. From the increase in consumerism, Thorstein Veblen introduced a new phrase called conspicuous consumption. This was indicated towards wealthy Americans that the best way to prove superiority is to show off their wealth. This negatively effected Americans and their perception on others. With the massive increase in industrialization and urbanization, Americans living in poverty and with poor jobs were mostly effected negatively than others. In Jacob Riis’s book, How the Other Half Lives, and Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, it opened the eyes of Americans not living and working in these conditions. After the government and American people witness the horror some citizens must deal with, changes will occur and improve conditions.

“The Slave Ship: A Human History” written by Marcus Rediker describes the horrifying experiences of Africans, and captains, and ship crewmen on their journey through the Middle Passage, the water way in the Atlantic Ocean between Africa and the Americas. The use of slaves to cultivate crops in the Caribbean and America offered a great economy for the European countries by providing “free” labor and provided immense wealth for the Europeans. Rediker describes the slave migration by saying, “There exists no account of the mechanism for history’s greatest forced migration, which was in many ways the key to an entire phase of globalization” (10). African enslavement to the Americas is the most prominent reason for a complete shift in the

In order for an individual to effectively rebel against an established society, he or she must maintain some degree of power. If leaders or majority groups intend to revolt against an aspect of society, they simply speak or act against their issue. A member of marginalized group does not have the liberty of rebelling so directly, as he or she would be immediately isolated. In addition, taking a stand through an unappreciated aspect of one’s status in society would be futile. Therefore, an individual must find his or her value to society and utilize it as their method for rebellion. This is exemplified in both Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, as women rebel against society without using their voices. The main characters, Janie and Hester, defy gender roles through external appearances, maintaining silence, and accepting sexuality. Both Hawthorne and Hurston reveal society’s value of women’s external persona through female characters’ nonverbal rebellion.

To understand the importance of Kara Walker’s controversial works, one must understand the significance of American slavery. Slavery is to America (not just the United States, but the Caribbean and South America, too) as the Holocaust is to Germany. Somewhere between ten and fifteen million Africans were forcibly transported from Africa to America as part of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. However, nearly two million Africans died during the voyage to America. Fifteen to thirty percent reportedly died during the voyages along the coastlines upon arrival. Altogether, anywhere from two to five million Africans may have died as a result of American

The book Middle Passage by Charles Johnson tells a story about the triangular slave trade which took place early in America 's history. This book was written with such close attention to detail that it gave the reader a sense of what life was like on board a slave boat. Johnson 's writing style included many different techniques including the use of varying structure, imagery and language. All of these devices helped create a very successful story about slavery.

It is this dignity that many African people's all but lost in the colonial period...The writer's duty is to help them regain it by showing them in human terms what happened to them, what they lost." (Achebe/Killam Eds. Pg. 159.)

Kamau Brathwaite’s poem “The Emigrants” seems to exemplify what it means to be an emigrant. By pulling apart Brathwaite’s imagery and use of enjambment, it appears that, as an emigrant, one feels as if one has never truly arrived anywhere, and that one is always on the move and has not yet made their home in a new country. More generally, the poem posits that emigrants do not feel as if they truly belong in a place. However, the poem’s focus is restricted to the experience of emigrants of African descent, and the poem also hints that, regardless if one was an emigrant or not, black people living in non-African countries are made to feel like emigrants. That is, they are made to feel like outsiders that do not belong, which ultimately suggests that the poem is a meditation on how emigration does not necessarily entail the act of emigration, but rather that it translates into internal sensations that are evocative of the experience of the black community outside of Africa.