Since arriving on the shores of the United States, the experience of the African American individual has been a turbulent, convoluted struggle for full rights as citizens. Through the use of many strategies, blacks in the United States have reached parity with whites in terms of social and political...

In today's American society, and most other places around the world, one's race, ethnicity, ethnic background, or whatever other politically correct title one wishes to attach to this phenotypic identifier, is as plain as the nose on one's face. For many, in the "dominant cu...

Beloved is a ghost story, the tale of the dead returned to haunt the living. The story comes complete with a haunted house, strange lights, scents and sounds, and an animal that can sense the presence of the supernatural. We know of the shattering mirrors, the tiny handprints appearing in the cak...

Marcus Garvey was notably the first Back leader in American history to capture the imagination and loyalty of the Black masses. He was the first to stir their pride by asserting that African Americans were members of a proud race with their stimulating history, tradition, and culture. In his speeche...

Changing the World There are many things that could effect the lives of millions, but there is one thing that really stands out from the others, "The Power of One". The important thing about the power of one person is that we need to look at what that one person is doing that is making a ...

Duke Ellington and the Harlem Renaissance: The term Harlem Renaissance refers to an artistic, cultural, and social time of writing about race and the African American's place in American life during the early 1920's and 1930's. It is hard to put a specific time and date in terms ...

Elitism and Racial inequalitiesThe birth of the 20th century brought forth many industrial and social innovations. With these innovations came many racial and economical inequalities. Race has always been an issue throughout the history of our nation, but it was enlarged with the huge wave of Europe...

In the history of California, race-based issues occupy a central place in the state's overall narrative. These issues, unique in their own right, contribute to the uniqueness of California. The state has experienced prosperous episodes that have not always guaranteed positive outcomes for so...

Education is the Practice of Freedom When you're fifty-eight and seeking to obtain your first Master's Degree, the reality of bell hooks statement that "education is the practice of freedom" is easy to embrace. While there is no true comparison between the plight of a...

The Race to the Finish "When it is dark enough, you can see the stars...." This quote, said by Charles Austin Beard, can be taken in may ways. In this case the quote is being used to show how it can relate to the dark and light times of the 1930's. In this era, when blacks were thoug...

Prejudice Vs. Slavery, The Egg Before the Chicken A chicken's egg is round, soft, white, and extremely delicate. The egg holds within it the power and necessary components to manifest a healthy, able-bodied creature. The egg might be weak in the sense that its structure is fragile, however,...

To understand the history of America and come to grips with the development of blacks at a time where they were looked down upon by the rest of society, we must be able to comprehend the works of intellectuals of that time. Not only must we comprehend these works, but we must also decipher whether o...

The Civil Rights Movement gave African-Americans many rights that would change their lives forever. Without the Civil Rights Movement, our world is significantly different today because African Americans would still be segregated from the white world. Before the 1950s, African Americans held very f...

The Disuniting of America In the book The Disuniting of America author Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. talks about the shift between the traditional focus the "melting pot" to the "multicultural society" that dominates public awareness today. He looks at the history of the United Sates and finds that ear...

Writers present the perspective of their particular community and social order. Readers of literature are enabled to see into different lives, different communities, different worlds. Black women writers take the reader into the world of women and the world of the African-American alike, especiall...

Da Bluez From years 1505 to 1870, the world underwent the largest forced migration in history. West Africa was soon to be convulsed by the arrival of Europeans and become the advent of the transatlantic slave trade. Ships from Europe, bound for America, appeared on the horizon, and their captains...

1. Introduction What is Black English? Is it English spoken with an African accent or is it just sloppy speech spoken by people who are unable to learn the correct way to use English? Does Black English have a grammar? In this essay, I will not only go into this controversial discussion, but also ...

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings I know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a fascinating eye opener to the Jim Crow period in the New South. It has a greater impact than textbooks on what it was like to be African American at that time in history because it is a story of real experiences that appeals to...

A poet, an author, a play-write, an actress, a mother, a civil-rights activists, historian and most important a survivor. Perhaps Maya Angelou, award winning author of many books is one of the most influential African Americans in American history. I believe that she rates at the top of the ...

Booker T. Washington's body of work, study, and his life as a whole, as most notably encompassed within the text his own autobiography, entitled, Up From Slavery, is often set against the live of W.E.B. Du Bois. As noted by the scholar Louis T. Harlan, conventional wisdom holds that Booke...

In American history, the people of color narrative have historically been invisible; the dominant discourse of American society has been predominantly white with Eurocentric emphasis. Thus, we see the silencing of the narrative of minority groups in American history. In his literature The Price of R...

Racism - The Future Racism People see it everyday across America. A group of whites burn down a black church, someone gets hurt or murdered from a racial slur, or fights break out at school or in public. These are the extremes of racism. Racism is definitely not a good thing, it's a power t...

Influence of Jazz Jazz, a type of music first that was developed by African Americans around the first decade of the 20th century it has an identifiable history and distinct stylistic evolution. Jazz grew up alongside the blues and popular music, but what changed the way of music in America was ...

Humanities 1020November 29, 2000The Harlem Renaissance and Langston HughesThe Harlem Renaissance was a great and powerful era in black history, "It was an African American cultural movement of the 1920s and early 1930s that was centered in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City" ("Harlem Renaissan...

Jackie Robinson forever changed the face of American history on Opening Day 1947, as he became one of the most influential athletes to break the color barrier in professional sports, and in several ways, the color barrier in America. Born into a poor black family in the South, Robinson had to de...