africa america literature

INTRODUCTION
• This course takes the student
through beginnings of African
American literature;
• the literature of struggle for
identity; and
• the more explicit protest and
African movement literature.

The New Negro Movement
a) What is African American literature?
• To understand African
American literature one needs
to understand the history of
blacks in America who moved
to America in the year 1501 so
they were in America almost
the same time with whites.

The New Negro Mvmt…
• Presence of blacks in the US was
affected by the history behind their
arrival - the 16th century Trans-
Atlantic Slave trade.
• This history that made them second
class citizens and exposed them to
brutalities by whites.

Therefore, blacks in the America
shared two common things:
• The origin
• Subordination by white people

Understanding African American
Literature alo requires one to
Understand Blacks life in
America.
- How and why second class
citizens?

• Black race was a problem to
whites - ones race was considered
in BLOOD not in colour.
• Being black in the US was
considered being a liability - blacks
were associated with all evils i.e.
criminality (drug use , rape, theft

• The beginning of racial segregation
in the US is associated with the
introduction of Jim Crow, a
phenomenon believed to have
been at the center of segregation.
What was Jim Crow?

Jim Crow…
• It was the name of the racial caste
system which operated primarily,
but not exclusively in southern and
border states, between 1877 and the
mid-1960s. It was blessed by the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1896 with the
infamous "separate but equal"
ruling

Jim crow…
• It was more than a series of rigid
anti-
Black laws - it was a way of life.

Jim Crow…
• It was undergirded by the following
beliefs:
a) Whites were superior to Blacks in all
important ways, including intelligence,
morality, and civilized behavior;
b) sexual relations between Blacks and
Whites would produce a mongrel race
which would destroy America;

Jim Crow…
c) Any activity which suggested
social equality encouraged
interracial sexual relation
therefore if necessary, violence
must be used to keep Blacks at the
bottom of the racial hierarchy.

What is African American Lit?
It is history as it reflects blacks
response to the rising tide of
disfranchisement and segregation
that calls for black Americans to
produce a distinct literature began
to proliferate and to shape black
literary practice.

What is African American Lit?
• African-American literature was
therefore the literature of a distinct
historical period, namely, the era of
constitutionally sanctioned
segregation

What is American Lit?
• The fight against such oppression
gave rise to-and shaped-African-
American literary practice as we
have come to know it today.
African-American literature was
therefore a Jim Crow phenomenon.

Origins of African American Lit..
• The Black race did not go to the United
States culturally empty-handed.
• They were not without a cultural past,
though they were many generations
removed from it.
• Africans are known to be great
storytellers long before their first
appearance in the US with rich and
colorful history, art and folklore

What is it that constitutes AAL?
• There are 2 arguments:
a) Some scholars argue that what
defines African-American literary
texts is the way black authors,
consciously or unconsciously, have
derived and reworked myths,
folklore, and traditions from the
African continent.

What constitutes…?
• b) Others have explained that
African-American literature is
defined by its prolonged argument
with slavery. They consider even
contemporary African American
literature to be permanently
marked by the ways that enslaved
blacks coped with the brutalities.

What Constitutes AAL?
• Generally it can be said, literature by
blacks was not only enlisted in the
fight against Jim Crow as a way to
challenge segregation, but so many
black Americans had decided to shut
out from the political process and
literature, and writing became the
only thing the ‘Negro' wanted.

What constitutes AAL?
How did the whites consider
African American Literature?
• Perceived blacks literature as
voices for a largely silenced
population
• Cited one of the outstanding
features of the Negro novels to be
literary incompetence

America dream
What is it?
• This is a national ethos/culture of
the United States in which
freedom meant a promise of the
possibility of prosperity and
success.

American dream…
• It states that "life should be better
and richer and fuller for everyone,
with opportunity for each
according to ability or
achievement" regardless of social
class or circumstances of birth.

American dream…
• Is rooted in the United States
Declaration of Independence which
proclaims "all men are created
equal" and that they are "endowed
by their Creator with certain
absolute Rights" including "Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.

American dream
• African Americans could not see
themselves sharing what the
American dream had stated.
• They could not see how White
Americans could fight for their
rights and position in the American
dream.

American dream…
• African Americans were ‘fenced'
from educational, economic and
political opportunities
• They sought to demand what they
felt was rightfully theirs on their
own.

American dream
• The only area they could easily
take part and find comfort was in
sports and entertainment while
they regarded religion
(Christianity) as an institution for
comfort.

Slave Narratives
What is a slave narrative?
• African American Literature was
proceeded by slave narratives
• They are narratives by fugitive
slaves before the Civil War and by
former slaves.

Slave Narratives
• They were stories handled down
by ex-slaves as well as
descendants of slaves.
• They were either first hand or
shared testimonies of victims of
slavery.

Slave Narratives…
They are essential to the study of
18th - and 19th American history and
literature. As historical sources,
slave narratives document slave
life primarily in the American South
from the invaluable perspective of
first-hand experience

Slave Narratives…
Why are SN important in the study of AAL?
Circumstance of slavery is crucial to an
understanding of early African
American literature in two main ways.
a) Slavery downgraded African
culture, so very little of African culture
survived the trauma of enslavement.

Slave Narratives…
b) Slavery as an economic institution
prevented majority blacks from
learning due to custom, expediency
and law. Their literature therefore
remained oral. With education being a
monopoly of whites, it is not surprising
that blacks' literature was in early
times sparse (scant, thin).

Slave Narratives…
• How did blacks start writing?
Two cultural developments in
British colonies can explain this:
a) The religious passion of some
movements
b) The revolutionary confusion in
colonial political life

Thematic concerns of the
narratives
• SN had the following concerns:
a) The loss of Black's identity on
account of their reduction to the
level of property as slaves through
destruction of family relationships
which created vacuum and
enfeeblement of men and rape of
women

Thematic concerns…
b) The loss of equality and liberty.
They were brutalized and lost
their human dignity because the
violence was both physical and
psychological.

• The narratives worked towards
regaining blacks lost identity, liberty
and equal status as whites by the act of
overcoming slavery through attacking
white racism which had manifested
itself in:
a) slavery
b) denial of educational opportunities
to blacks.

• The perversion/distortion of the
Christian faith by its white
adherents/supporters
• Colonization schema/plan

From a literary standpoint, the
autobiographical narratives of former
slaves comprise one of the most
extensive and influential traditions in
African American literature and culture -
important means of opening a
dialogue between blacks and whites
about slavery and freedom.

They were designed to enlighten
white readers about both:
• The realities of slavery as an
institution and
• The humanity of black people as
individuals deserving of full human
rights.

They were considered to be prophetic
since they were mostly concerned with
blacks future pressing for rights of life
and liberty and concept of equality
which were chiefly designed by and
for whites.

Conclusion
African American literature therefore
has its genesis in the slave
narratives by blacks who had
escaped a slave existence

Narrative of the life of
Frederick Douglass
• From the letter by Wendell Phillips:
You remember the old fable of “The Man
and the Lion,” where the lion complained
that he should not be so misrepresented
“when the lions wrote history.”

The Narrative of the Life…
• I am glad the time has come when the
“lions write history.” We have been left
long enough to gather the character of
slavery from the involuntary evidence of
the masters

• Time;
• writing and;
• History,
are important aspects in slave narratives
and slave writing
Why?

• Time was crucial in slaves lives. All the time
belonged to their masters who determined
slaves lives.
• Slaves had no time of their own except for
break time and sleeping time they got.
• When Wendell says, ‘time has come’ it
suggests with high tone an opportunity and
the beginning of blacks’ struggle against
white racism.

• History of blacks was crucial because it
entails evidence of the inner nature (soul)
and capacity (memories) of the Negro race
(identity) well kept in their spirits, letters,
diaries (memories)
• Telling of their history was considered to
be both instrumental and political therefore
crucial to both whites and blacks.

Writing had significant impact in slaves
lives as(David Blight, 4) observes,
“…civilization itself was equated with
cultures that could write their history”
Telling stories of suffering and liberation
on platforms was one thing, publishing
for a reading public was another thing.

Therefore, in writing, slaves (Fredrick)
were not only seeking for audience but
more importantly, authentification of
their history.

• That is why Douglass wrote that, memory
was given to a man for some purpose and
that what he writes comes from his soul

• This narrative is a great story about slaves’
journey into and out of slavery
• When the opportunity (time) comes for
their history to be told, Douglass gives first
hand experience of slavery in terms of:
a. Meaning of slavery (p.47,48,49)
b. Meaning of freedom
c. Importance of education(78,83-85)

• Meaning of slavery at individual and nation
levels.
At individual level- story about his 20 years in
slavery
At national level- 1st hand info and
testimonies about slavery as an inst.
At both levels, they were marked by
brutalities and some good times as well as
stories about other slaves in America

• At both levels the following issues are
raised:
moral nature and
economic nature of slavery; slave-master
relationship; psychology of slave holders;
aims and arguments of abolitionists

• Douglass’s narrative shows:
- what it is to be a slave (66,67,68,78)
- what were slaves’ feelings, crises and
hardships?
Douglass presents about slavery in a
powerful language which mixes stories,
music and pictures.(56, 57)

• Look at the following:
…at every gate through which we were to
pass, we saw a watchman-at every ferry a
guard-on every bridge a sentinel-and in
every wood a patrol. We were hemmed in
upon every side. Here were the difficulties,
real or imagined-the good to be sought,
and the evil to be shunned…

…on the one hand, there stood slavery, a
stern reality, glaring frightfully upon us,-its
robes already crimsoned with the blood of
millions, and even now feasting itself greedily
upon our own flesh. On the other hand, away
back in the dim distance, under the flickering
light of the north star, behind some craggy hill
or snow-covered mountain, stood a doubtful
freedom-half frozen-beckoning us to come
and share its hospitality

…have often been awakened at the dawn
of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of
an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie
up to a joist, and whip upon her naked
back till she was literally covered with
blood. No words, no tears, no prayers,
from his gory victim, seemed to move his
iron heart from its bloody purpose.

The louder she screamed, the harder he
whipped; and where the blood ran fastest,
there he whipped longest. He would whip
her to make her scream, and whip her to
make her hush; and not until overcome by
fatigue, would he cease to swing the
blood-clotted cowskin

• Although ex-slaves narratives were
considered unauthentic by whites, they
indeed shared testimonies which were true
account of what slavery was, unlike records
gathered by whites from plantations records
which showed slaves as beneficiaries of a
system.
• A good example is the story of Douglass and
his master Edward Covey – the slaver
breaker

• James Weldon Johnson observed in 1928, “I
judge there is not a single Negro writer who is
not, at least secondarily, impelled by the
desire to make his work have some effect on
the white world for the good of his race.”
• Writers also knew that their works would
likely be viewed as constituting an index of
racial progress, integrity, or ability.

• There is paradox that the success of black
literature as a political tool (instrumental)
threatened to undermine its status as an
index of black integrity.

• Du Bois states that there are works written
by blacks to achieve the social end –
indexical- while on the other hand there
are works which are instrumental.

• In view of blacks’ writing, Du Bois further
states in “The Negro in Literature and Art”
(1913) that the “time has not yet come for
the development of American Negro
literature” because “economic stress is too
great and the racial persecution too bitter
to allow the leisure and the poise for which
literature calls.”

Why is NFLD Instrumental?
It contains many affecting incidents, many
passages of great eloquence and power;
but I think the most thrilling one of them all
is the description Douglass gives of his
feelings (IMAGINATION) soliloquizing
about:

his fate,
his one day being a freeman
e.g. as he views the receding vessels as
they flew with their white wings before the
breeze, and apostrophizing them as
animated by the living spirit of freedom, his
description of whipping and slaves feelings
etc. (5, 6, 9)

The voice in NLFD
• The experience of Douglass, as a slave, was not a
peculiar one but the narrative is due to his own style
(voice, imagination)
identify the voice (who is speaking? Douglass/free
man – how is his voice? – attitude/mood/words - how
does it affect content? It gives value to what slaves
couldn’t. Read Carole Sylvie Lahure’s
Reclaiming…33,34)
It is, therefore, entirely his own production; and,
considering how long and dark was the career he had
to run as a slave, and his oratory and writing ability.

Frederick Douglass’ literary efforts to abolish
slavery were not just restricted to composing
the narrative of his life. Throughout his
existence, he tried to reveal the atrocities
committed by slaveholders and their cruel
behaviour towards their subjugates.

He used his personal experience to open his
audience’s eyes and to make them aware of
their responsibilities towards their fellow
humans. His writings and his orations made
him famous and brought the abolitionist cause
a lot of support.

Nevertheless, his ability to express himself and
to voice his opinion openly and publically, also
made numerous envious critics appear in his
life. The initial purpose of his Narrative was
actually to undermine the reproofs he was
given by his opponents and to establish and
validate his identity as a former slave.

In the same way as Douglass later had to
verify his identity through his writing, he had
to claim his voice and establish himself as an
individual throughout his years of bondage. In
his writing, Douglass depicts how he survived
and asserted his right to freedom.

In order to claim his own voice, Douglass has
to fight even harder than his predecessors,
because he never possessed one to start with,
as it was denied to him by those in power. Due
to legal and social boundaries established at
the time, Douglass was born a slave on a
plantation and is seen by society as a mindless
property that is only supposed to work,
prosper and…

This “restless spirit” which for the master is a
synonym for a troublermaker, is for Douglass a
personal sign that he needs to be able to
explore his points of view and furthermore, to
gain the opportunity and ability to make them
known by those around him. By achieving
these goals, he will become capable of
denouncing the deceptive appearances of
slavery

A first attempt at attaining this is for him to
highlight the actual meaning of the slaves’ songs.
By revealing them as what they are, namely
laments for the slaves’ pitiful situation and
destiny in life, he makes certain that outsiders
grasp that the hymns are not an expression of
happiness and a carefree existence, as advocated
by those in power. Even though he did not
comprehend the songs at the time, while he was
a slave himself, he became aware of their power
as a free man.(32-34)

How is Slavery presented in NFD?
Douglas uses the narrative to present slavery as
an institution:
a) No slave arrest/punishment instances was done
by way of legal arrest or judicial investigation
(e.g. murderous cruelty)
b) Whites could not be convicted on the person of a
slave or by their testimonies
c) Slavery never allowed truth to be spoken (16)

Being an institution, slavery got its
strength from two main institutions:
Education and
Religion
The narrative puts clear how these
perpetuated slavery

Christianity according to the narrative is
double–faced.
A slaveholder’s profession of Christianity
is a palpable imposture. He is a felon of
the highest grade. He is a man-stealer. It
is of no importance what you put in the
other scale.

Reader! are you with the man-stealers in
sympathy and purpose, or on the side of their
down-trodden victims? If with the former, then
are you the foe of God and man. If with the
latter, what are you prepared to do and dare
in their behalf? Be faithful, be vigilant, be
untiring in your efforts to break every yoke,
and let the oppressed go free. Come what
may—cost what it may—inscribe on the
banner which you unfurl to the breeze, as
your religious and political motto…

• Education was the white man’s power to enslave
the black man
Slaves were denied that which could have made
them free.
Educating slaves was unlawful and unsafe.
Denying them education meant avoiding to
spoil, to make them unfit and unmanageable
(29).

Mr Auld says:
As to himself, it could do him no good, but
a great deal of harm. It would make him
discontented and unhappy.
Douglass world changed with reading
Columbian Orator that he ironically
envies his fellow slaves for their
Stupidity (35).

Freedom in NFD
3 types of freedom:
Physical freedom – breaking away from south
Mental freedom – through education (74-75, 81)
Spiritual freedom – white Christianity vs Black
Christianity
Douglass gains an understanding of
freedom from knowing to read and he decides to
postpone his physical freedom until he knows
how to write.

The role of singing in NFD
Singing among slaves was very
important as Douglass says, “Slaves sing
most when they are most unhappy”
It was a way of giving
testimony against slavery and asking
God for deliverance from shackles of
Slavery (57-58)

Personality development
Observe how personality of the narrator
grows in the narrative
Douglass narrative presents his growth
as a slave and a free man ( 53,74-75, 81-82)
His personality as a slave starts to grow
when he belonged to Colonel Lloyd
Edward (53)

His personality as a free man grew and
developed when Douglass was still a slave
HOW??

His personality as a free man developed in the
hands of Lucretia Auld through education(71)
WHY IS IT SO??

We can only discover Douglass in his two
personalities through the life of a slave and the
writing of the narrative.
It is the free man who writes the narrative;
therefore, this personality can not be seen to
have grown and developed outside the text.

David Blight (6) observes, “literacy afforded
the young Douglass a whole world of thought,
stirring dreams of freedom thwarted at every
visible turn of his daily life”

How does the narrative present
Douglass as both a slave and a free
man?

Douglass – a slave
• Possessed language by which to imagine
freedom.
• He had no voice with which to give value and
meaning to slave life

Douglass – a free man
• He gained education which; opened his eyes
to get the view of his wretched condition, to
the horrible pit without a ladder upon which
to get out (83-84)
• … enabled him to utter his thoughts and meet
arguments about slavery
• Understand true meaning of freedom (85)

NLFD – PROPHETIC WRITING?
Douglass is not just a literary man, but also
America’s black Jeremiah

NLFD – prophetic writing?
The narrative is about pathetic condition of
slaves (lamentations)
It is a condemnation of slavery (warnings)
It is an appeal for optimism (it reminded
blacks and ALL Americans of the divine
mission and promise)
Read(Blight 9)

NLFD is likened to the book of Jeremiah and it
is regarded to belong to one of America’s
oldest literary tradition – the jeremiad (ibid 9)

End
Questions:
1. Who speaks in the narrative and why the choice of
that voice?
2. What are the main sources of Douglass narrative and
how does he weave facts from these sources into
one story?
3. Explain the double role Christianity played in slavery
4. How do personal sentiments affect Douglass
narrative?
5. Using NLFD explain how African American Literature
was hatched from slave narratives..

Mother To Son
Langston Hughes
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor-
Bare.

But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So, boy, don't you turn back.

Don't you set down on the steps.
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now-
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

Harlem Shadows
Claude McKay
I hear the halting footsteps of a lass
In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall
Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass
To bend and barter at desire’s call.
Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet
Go prowling through the night from street to
street!

Through the long night until the silver break
of day the little gray feet know
no rest;
Through the lone night until the last snow-
flake
Has dropped from heaven upon the earth’s
white breast,
The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet
Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to
street.

Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched
way of poverty, dishonor and disgrace,
Has pushed the timid little feet of clay,
The sacred brown feet of my fallen race!
Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet
In Harlem wandering from street to street.

Harlem
Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags (drop)
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Caged Bird
Maya Angelou
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the
sighing trees and the fat worms waiting
on a dawn bright lawn and he names the
sky his own

But a caged bird stands on the grave of
dreams his shadow shouts on a
nightmare scream his wings are clipped
and his feet are tied so he opens his
throat to sing.

c. Similar to Adams, Jim Cullen also
emphasizes that the American dream is
not a journey about wealth or material
things, but rather a quest for personal
fulfillment and a vision for self
actualization.

Cullen suggests that although at the very
core of ‘the dream’ lies the belief that with
effort, things can be different and better,there
are multiple American dreams behind the
singular phrase.
The Dream also involves acknowledging
another important reality: that beyond an
abstract belief in possibility, there is no one
American Dream.

Cullen discusses that we are a nation
comprised of American dreams and that
the multiple “dreams” are ultimately united
by the timeless ideas of personal freedom,
self-reliance, and individualism.

Generally, it can be said that the American
dream MUST include the freedom to
commit as well as freedom from
commitment- all notions of freedom rest on
a sense of agency, the idea that
individuals have control over the course of
their lives.

Agency, in turn, lies at the core of the
American dream; the bedrock premise
upon which all else depends…the Dream
assumes that one can advance confidently
in the direction of one’s dream to live out
an imagined life.

Therefore, , life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness and the phrase the “American
Dream” are both part of the American
consciousness for the phrases provide both
legal and ideological grounding for people to
embark on the path to manifest their vision of
the American dream.

In looking at African American literature
one has to trace the values of American
dream which are individualism, self-
reliance, and personal freedom and
examine how they remain relevant in the
modern American culture.

Specifically, when one examines the
American dream they must demonstrate how
from one generation to another, from one
literary period to another, these works are
sacred texts because like the American
dream they are rooted in the themes of self-
actualization and individualism, and because
they provide examples of all the possibilities
the American dream offers when given the
opportunity to pursue it.

HARLEM RENAISSANCE
AND
AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE
Movement in African American culture,
particularly in the creative arts, and the most
influential movement in African American
literary history.
Embraced literary, musical, theatrical, and
visual arts.

The background
Harlem Renaissance (HR) is the name given to the period from the e
nd of World War I and through the middle of the 1930s Depression
A group of talented African-American writers produced a sizable
body of literature in the four prominent genres of poetry, fiction,
drama, and essay.
It was the first major movement of African-American literature,
beginning around 1923 and flourishing until the depression, but pro
viding a stimulus that lasted through the 1940s.

Causes for HR
The social foundations of this movement included;
• The Great Migration of African Americans from rural to urban
spaces and from South to North.
• Dramatically rising levels of literacy.
• The creation of national organizations dedicated to pressing African
American civil rights, “uplifting” the race, and opening socio-econo
mic opportunities and developing race pride, including pan-African
sensibilities and programs.
• Black exiles and expatriates from the Caribbean and Africa who
crossed paths in metropoles such as New York City and Paris after
World War I and had an invigorating influence on each other that ga
ve the broader “Negro renaissance” (as it was then known) a profou
ndly important international cast.

Reason for HR
-Participants sought to reconceptualize “the Negro”
apart from the white stereotypes that had
influenced black peoples’ relationship to their
heritage and to each other.
-To break free of Victorian moral values and
bourgeois is shame about aspects of their lives that
might, as seen by whites, reinforce racist beliefs.

HR was inspired by Marcus Garvey, founder of
the Universal Negro Improvement Association
(UNIA), Alan Locke, the author of “New Negro”
and W. E. B. Du Bois, editor of The Crisis
magazine.

Why at Harlem?
HR had many sources in black culture of the Unite
States and the Caribbean BUT manifested itself well
beyond Harlem.
• Harlem was a catalyst for artistic
experimentation and a highly popular nightlife
destination.
• Its location gave the “New Negroes” visibility an
d opportunities for publication not evident
elsewhere.

New York City had an extraordinarily diverse
and decentered black social world in which
no one group could monopolize cultural
authority. As a result, it was a particularly
fertile place for cultural experimentation.

HR contrb.to Afri-Amer.Lit
The period in which a group of talented black
writers produced an extensive recognizable
body of literature in the three outstanding
categories of essay, poetry, and art.
-This cultural movement marked the first time in
American history that the white population took
notice of the literature of African Americans.

-It expressed the pride in blacks
-motivated many African Americans to celebrate
their culture
through literature and art.
-Helped shape American culture, while
adding its own elements to the American’s
tradition.
-It offered new ways of seeing and understanding
what it
meant to be Black at this crucial time in history.

- The movement led to new styles of literature
and new philosophical ideas regarding the
issues that African Americans faced in the
early twentieth century America. This
important change in African American
mindsets has survived throughout the
centuries and persists even to this day.

HR is especially remembered for poets such as
Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson, and
Claude McKay. Langston Hughes was perhaps
the best-known Harlem Renaissance poet.

According to Aberjhani, Journey through the
Power of the Rainbow (81)
The best of humanity's recorded history is a
creative balance between horrors endured and
victories achieved, and so it was during the
Harlem Renaissance.

Harlem Renaissance defined and constructed a
literary tradition in the United States rooted in
the ideals of individualism, nature, and self-
reliance found in the 19th C American dream
(Ref.slide 129)
They served as the basis for American
Renaissance writers 'cultivation of a narrative of
the American character and experience.

Works created by blacks allowed for
American literature to reject the
European literary aesthetic by asserting
that inspiration and intelligence
developed from individuals and their
experiences rather than from any
longstanding national customs or traditions
(i.e. conflicting with ideas such as realism,
naturalism)

The Corruption of the
American Dream.
In the nineteenth century there arose a culture
where truth, self-reliance, intuition, and the divine
spirit shaped each American individual and
defined the path toward fulfilling what we came to
call the American dream.
At the turn of the twentieth century, particularly
during the 1920s, the wide-eyed optimism and
historical tradition of fulfilling the American dream
became equated with social status, material
possessions, and financial wealth.

the dream was therefore seen to be a
romantic promise and disillusionment of
the American dream.

With Harlem Renaissance some works of
American literature sounded a note of
caution, suggesting that the American
dream was becoming corrupted with
materialism and excess.

The idea of what defines the American
Dream has become a "question under
constant discussion.
Harlem Renaissance produced writers of
strong work ethic as well as those willing
to challenge the strictures of society.
“Renaissance” was the reshaping of what
it means to be a black American.

The Harlem Renaissance redefined the
American Dream because instead of
"trying to be white," in order to "pass" and
live up to the standards of the
predetermined American Dream created
by the white Puritans of America's past.
HR did the following:

Encouraged African Americans to become
what was known as "the new Negro" - a
person who embraces his or her heritage.
Of course, part of this was lashing out at
the dominant culture that had literally and
figuratively kept African American culture
in chains for so long.

Contributed to a new expression of black
pride, of love for the unique culture of
African Americans. This was emphasized
through embracing and celebrating this
culture by using the realities and
harshness of background in conjunction
with the power of language.

Aaron Douglas
...Our problem is to conceive, develop, establish
an art era. Not white art painting black...let's
bare our arms and plunge them deep through
laughter, through pain, through sorrow, through
hope, through disappointment, into the very
depths of the souls of our people and drag forth
material crude, rough, neglected. Then let's sing
it, dance it, write it, paint it. Let's do the
impossible. Let's create something
transcendentally material, mystically objective,
earthy, and spiritually earthy. Dynamic.

African American Poetry
It carries with it the following:
a. The powerful and haunting question which
signifies a definite sense of unrest and
collision between the American dream for
people who are promised and offered the
ability to attain it and;
b. the question of the repercussions when
segments of America are closed off from the
ability to participate in something truly
American.

Langston Hughes, for example,
wrote, and created a new literary art form called
jazz poetry.
His poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," provides
solid unity for the African American history. His
poetry covered the issues faced by African-
Americans with a combination of music,
cheerfulness, and culture

African American Prose
The novelists of the renaissance explored the
diversity of black experience across
boundaries of class, colour, and gender while
implicitly or explicitly protesting anti-Black
racism.
They protested against racial oppression and
expose whites novels’ most barbaric
expressions.

Du Bois in Dark Princess (1928) and McKay in
Banjo (1929).
Both novels show the strong influence of
Marxism and the anti-imperialist movements of
the early 20th century, and both place their
hopes in the revolutionary potential of
transnational solidarity to end what they consider
to be the corrupt and decadent rule of Western
culture

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