What Are The Dangers Of African American Education

It has been over one-hundred and fifty years since African-Americans have been liberated from the hardships of slavery. Even though the United States of America and its citizens have undergone many modern changes since slavery and its abolition, the effects of enslavement and oppression are still evident today. Many works such as Rituals of Blood: The Consequences of Slavery in Two American Cities, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, and Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy all explain a common conclusion; the chattel enslavement of African-Americans left a profound effect on former slaves and their descenders. In 1903, W.E.B. DuBois wrote in The Souls of Black Folk, “the problem of the Twentieth century is the color line”. The problem

The texts taken together describe the development of African Americans from the 16th century to the 19th century. They reveal how their status changed to one of complete submission and their lower position codified within the law. However they also reveal how they were able to make a difference and help secure their own freedom. Common themes present in the texts are resistance and creolization.

The American Civil War was ending and African Americans gained freedom, freedom from slavery and to live life as common folk. However, being set ‘free’ was not enough for African Americans to really experience what freedom was really like. Respect and rights of citizenship are by themselves weak in the ability to survive without also obtaining economic power. This paper will examine the progression of African Americans after the Civil War of 1865.

America in the 1960’s was a dark, despairing environment for African Americans, or Negroes. Conditions in all areas of life were poor, chances of success were slim to none, and appreciation or acceptance in the community was barely a dream. Negroes of this time were downtrodden, disrespected, and poorly treated. In his book, “Why We Can’t Wait,” Martin Luther King uses historical allusion, emotive imagery, rhetorical questions, and juxtaposition to convey the negative, daunting poor social conditions of Black Americans in the 1960’s.

The documentary, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, allows one to experience African American history through key historical sites, and interviews with living eyewitnesses such as those who fought during the well-known civil-rights movement. The documentary sheds light on the experience of African Americans, both in the past and today. The information presented in class further aids in detailing how African American history shaped the African American community in regards to support systems, crises, but most importantly, how these individuals used resiliency to overcome their trials and tribulations towards a fights for rights, freedom, and respect. During the six episodes, one will see that the road and battle to freedom for blacks in America was not linear, but rather complex and difficult- it was much like the course of a river, full of loops and turns, sometimes slow, and sometimes reversing the current of advancement. Although enslavement led to the creation of the African American people, it manifested into the multiplicity of cultural institution, beliefs, and religion and social institutions that the African American people have established- along with their strength and resiliency. From slavery, lynching’s, and the many marches and protests led by phenomenal black leaders, to the gained freedoms and the first black president in the White House, the documentary, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, details an engaging journey through African-American history from a perspective that thoroughly reflects the lives of African-Americans and the community in its

The life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination… the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land (qtd. in W.T.L. 235).

Lastly, the spirit and “soul” of the individual was threatened. In the Gilded Age, many workers lost a sense of their true identity, and turned to drinking or long fits of depression. In DuBois’ writings, we also here stories of the desperate slave who has had his identity stripped of him by wealthy plantation owners. However, through all the inhumane and degrading atrocities they faced, the spirit of African-American’s as a people did not die. In DuBois’ book, we read songs and stories that kept hope alive. We

Many ignorant people assume that the living conditions of African Americans during slavery and desegregation were not as harsh as they are made out to be. However, autobiographies of African Americans that were alive during that time prove otherwise. If people continue to believe that African Americans did not live a tough life during slavery and desegregation, America will be covering up its past and directly contributing to the further discrimination of the African American people. Texts such as Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Iceberg Slim, Pimp: The Story of my Life display how difficult growing up as an African American was during this time by providing insight into the atrocities of slave labor and pimping.

African American individuals still faced inhumane discrimination and were often not looked at as people, let alone cared for or acknowledged. To anyone else, their opinions did not matter and their lives were not valued. The 1930?s was also a time in which America was being rebuilt after the detrimental effects of the Great Depression. Furthermore, there was a greater presence of African Americans in northern states, which brought about racial tension from powerful white figures who did not want African Americans in what they believed to be ?their cities?. The struggle to find jobs was present all over, and African Americans found it even more difficult to support themselves. The narrator faced all these obstacles throughout the course of this novel.

Life in the south for African Americans was nothing but a new form of slavery. Most African American’s were sharecroppers making little to no money to live while being oppressed by white southerners. Daily life in the south for African American’s was full of insults, rude looks, persecution and discrimination as well as the constant risk of being killed. African American’s in the south hated living there but, felt as if they had no other choice at the time it was the first and only available option for southern slaves after the civil war. African American’s wanted a better life and to be treated as they were told

In the fictional story, “Of the Coming of John”, DuBois rebukes Washington’s ideas of subordination to whites in order to obtain support for black education. The dominant white male of the story speaks the following statement, “Now I like the colored people, and sympathize with all this reasonable aspirations; but you and I both know, John, that in this country the Negro must remain subordinate and can never expect to be equal of white men” (373). This is a fundamental sentiment that white people in the American society during that time held on to. In this essay W.E.B DuBois shows how this black man, John, was treated in his hometown after returning home with a college education. Both blacks and whites reject his new views. However, to whites the black John represents a devaluing of the college education. If a black person can have a college degree, then having a college degree must not have value. After this reaction from society John started to think, “John Jones, you’re a natural born fool” (369). This behavior from society kept the average black person stagnant, and unmotivated.

As a book that focuses on early America from both the white and the black perspective, the authors’ purpose is rather quite different than that of others writing the same type of book. They are not writing this so that people in the modern era feel sorry and ashamed of how black people were treated when this country originated but rather will see that there was equality and black people were able to succeed just as much as—sometimes even more than—their white equals. Many books have been written that make everyone feel like we are to blame for modern day racism, but the authors are here to argue against that and show that there was equality in early America.

There have been various tactics that southern whites used to slow down this educational progress. First, White communities would not hire African-American teachers, despite meeting the required credentials. Du Bois faced this firsthand when he was searching for a job in Tennessee. He would walk, because horses were too expensive, many miles asking schools ‘Got a teacher? Yes.’ The difficulty of being accepted into schools is another reason behind the uneducated African-American. Some schools would deny students based on the color of their skin. For example, Alexander Crummell was an African-American who sought an education from the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church. He would be rejected admission; but, the rejection did not deter him from his goal of obtaining an education. He would eventually own “his own chapel in Providence, a priest of the Church.” The experience of him being rejected created a man that would not complain of America’s standards. Instead, he would use the rejection to inspire the young, unwilling, and uneducated

I analyzed the ideological connection between Arthur Schomburg’s essay, “The Negro Digs up His Past” and an excerpt from W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk. Both essays depict the struggles African Americans faced, but also attempt to inspire African Americans to see beyond their struggles and establish their identities in America. Both essays begin by stating the issues that African Americans are facing at that time. Du Bois reflects on the way people viewed African Americans as problems and how that affected one’s own self-awareness, regardless of what they previously thought. Constantly feeling like a problem and constantly being reminded of it elicits a lack of self-worth.

In the text, “The Other American,” by Rev. Martin Luther King Junior, he compares the different conditions that African Americans have sustained to compared to white Americans. Dr. King uses excellent phrases that allow the reader to become emotionally attached to the piece of writing they are reading such as, “Every city in our country has this kind of dualism, this schizophrenia, split at so many parts, and so every city ends you being two cities rather than one.” (King, 1) This text provides Dr. King’s point of how segregated the cities throughout America are for the different people of color. The text goes on with different examples of how African Americans are treated different compared to other American such as, education, jobs and poverty.