Why I Am From Pennsylvania

It took bravery and courage for John Howard Griffin to literally step into the shoes of not only another man’s life, but an entirely different race’s life. John Howard Griffin, a white middle-aged man with a wife and three children, put his entire life on hold to pursue the truth about racial indifferences. In 1962, Black Like Me won the Anisfield-Wolf Award (Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards). The Anisfield-Wolf Award is an award that honors American literary works that recognize racial and cultural differences. John Howard Griffin’s documentation of his personal experience crossing the color line is a story that will give perspective every man and woman regardless of the color of their skin.

The vast majority of aids in this process, however, come from African American scholars, writers, poets, film-makers, etc., who have set out to expose the “miseducation of the Negro” into believing and acting upon forced actions or opinions and to learn the truths behind their actual heritage. Four works that susinctly bring the “miseducation” about African American history into the spotlight of the national public are Claude McKay’s “The Lynching”, Harriet Jacob’s “Incidents in the Life of A Slavegirl”, Gordon Park’s “Washington D.C. Charwoman”, and Spike Lee’s “School Daze.” All four works illustrate a common thread of the misconception of African-American life by blacks themselves, as well as Caucasians around them, that has been carried intact through many a generations in the history of the United States.

White Americans, especially those who agreed that African Americans should be equal, found it interesting when they read a book and saw the world from the point of view of an African American. “Book publishers soon took notice and patronized many of these talents. Zora Neale Hurston was noticed quickly with her moving novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God...” (The Decade That Roared, page 1).

For my first event requirement, I attended the 27th annual African American Read-In. During the read-in, students and professors from Columbia State read poems and short stories written by African Americans. As a senior in high school, I had never heard many of the pieces read, and I had never heard about most of the authors.

One night, towards the end of November, three teenagers were out past their town 's curfew. The teenagers knew that if they were caught, they would be in more trouble than they had ever been in before. These three teenagers were the oddest group of friends, Ethan was the goody-two-shoes of the group- always following the rules, he was a skinny kid standing about six feet tall but there was not one ounce of muscle on his body; Jackson was the star of the lacrosse team- he never paid attention to what anyone told him, especially adults, he was only about 5’10”, but built of pure muscle; and then there was Brooke- she did not know much about anything and she did whatever her boyfriend Jackson told her to, she was blonde and strikingly

The memorization of the facts and dates of events has proven to be the hardest part of learning history for me. The interdisciplinary nature of this course is what has helped me understand the material and be able to follow the “story” of history. Reading the words and perspective of important figures that live in the periods of American history that we are studying allowed me to see America through their eyes and allowed me to make sense of the prevailing feelings and ideas of the time. Reading works from writers of diverse viewpoints, gave me the opportunity to learn about an era from many different perspectives from the people who lived it. In particular, Zora Neale Hurston’s “How It Feels to be Colored Me’ offered a very different tone in the gloomy times of segregation. What I enjoyed about Hurston’s writing is that her distinct voice allowed me to hear her confidence and hope. Though the facts and dates will always be crucial to studying history, writing like Hurston’s can teach so much more about a time period than an Oakes

Morgan (2009) writes to convey that African American’s literature has historically been omitted from American libraries and schools. After the civil rights movement, there where some improvements made. Sadly, very few books contained African American main characters. Even during the 20th century, many

Throughout the valley floor, superb sceneries cover the region with delightful trees and magnificent meadows. Exquisite views of the sheer rock faces surround the valley. While walking through the fields, you can feel the moist grass grazing your legs. There’s always the sweet smell of flowering plants, extensive rivers, and tremendous woodlands. You can hear the distant sounds of the crashing waterfalls,

Lesson plans at school taught me the worlds version of my ancestors’ story was completely different from what had been seen in my community. Lesson plans focused on American slavery and briefly touched Civil Rights, Reconstruction and the Harlem Renaissance. Often studying in school teachers would say stern with confusion “Richard Wright was great and I’m happy you are not limiting yourself, but your required reading is Salinger.” Hearing these things over the years led me to look for and prove that Black individualism did exist. The same black individualism I felt when I laid eyes on classic blaxplotation films like Crooklyn and The Wiz, read plays scripted by Langston Hughes and short stories penned by James

The incident has occurred at Weekly's house in Lakeland, Florida. Jessie has told authorities she has defended herself when Weekly attacked her. But no injuries has been spotted to support her story.

In that fight, Douglass conveys in not so uncertain terms that his master would need to kill him in order to succeed in beating him down, rather than he let him hurt him anymore. We see an example of the true spirit of Mr. Covey with his need to maintain a façade of being a "Negro breaker." Douglass has asserted his strength and will and for anyone to find out the truth of what transpired during the altercation would mean giving up Mr. Covey's well earned, unsubstantiated reputation.

In this course, Nature Writing at metropolitan University, we had a variety of different races, but the Black race didn’t get the representation they deserved. There was a writing titled, “from a black boy” by Wright, and it wasn’t a good representation of Black writers in America. I remember reading it and questioning what I just read; because it didn’t have any emotion or deeper meaning like most the other readings we studied. In

It’s a big field of tall wild grass. By the time i get there the sun is low enough that the rays shine along the very tips of the blades. You can see all of the fuzzy particles floating around in the wind and i imagine each one is its own universe, as vast and as big as the one i'm in. There is a stillness that makes everything seem okay, not that anything isn't okay it’s just better there. I still get that embrace in the grass , although it is much dryer than the tropics, i could never figure out why. I prefer going alone, or with my grandpa. Once i tried bringing one of my friends when i was around 10 but the only thing she could talk about was her favorite colored pencil. From then on i realized two things: one,sometimes people don't appreciate things the way they should ,and two, if you don't want to get bummed out just leave Autumn Yeller at the edge of the

In the day it's a beautiful place to be. It can have fun things like trampolines and tree houses. You can even ride your bike there. You can play all kinds of games like baseball, soccer, volleyball, and football. You can also pretend and make games up. After you get done mowing it it smells like fresh grass that was just cut. When it's windy you can hear the leaves wrestle with each other.

The next morning I called home. That fall I would start school at a Historically Black University, as systematically different as I could get from my southern Missouri predominantly white university. I flourished, I was involved in numerous organizations, inducted into a national Greek lettered organization and soon after, elected President of my chapter. I developed essential study habits and found my sense of belonging. If you were to ask me what color my crayon was then; it would be the alluring brown or the rich black crayon in the box. My crayon was as brown as the dirt in mother Africa, and as black as the chains the “white man” used to put me into slavery. Yet, I still had not found my true identity I had merely assimilated to the culture around me. It would not be until I stepped into the working world that my true colors would show.