Black Boy Essays (Examples)

lack oy by Richard Wright

Richard's goals and dreams are born from glimmers of life seen fleetingly through a bramble of obstacles, disappointments and discouragements. The women and men in his life do not represent an active stifling so much as an archetypal mediocrity, which forms a backdrop in stark contrast to the striving, passionate, and active life Richard wants to lead.

Although he has biological progenitors, Richard has no real parents. He learns nearly everything in his life from non-relatives or by trial and error, with the one exception of his mother teaching him to read after learning that he knows his numbers. After his kin discover what he has learned from the saloon, the schoolyard, and the street, they beat him as if the severity of the switch can make up for the intensity of their neglect.

In the absence of caring adults to raise him, he raises…

Here we see Richard is learning the importance of priorities. He is learning what it means to sacrifice. These choices, however, help him reach an ideal he has in his mind of who he wants to be. He wants to understand things because he feels he has something worth saying. At the end of the day, Richard wants to write. To write anything meaningful, one must know his world and his place in it. This type of contemplation alone sets Richard apart from many in his environment because they cannot read. In addition, it sets him apart because he does not think of himself like a "black boy" the way the rest of his community does. This is directly related to his sense of self and his desire to discover who he is. This includes reading and writing. Even in the title of the book, right brings attention to the…

Black Experience in American Culture

This is a paper that analyzes the black experience in American culture as presented by Hughes, Baldwin, Wright and Ellison. It has 20 sources in MLA format.

African-American authors have influenced American culture as they have come forward to present issues that the society would rather have forgotten. Authors such as ichard Wright alph Ellison, Langston Hughes and James Baldwin have come under fire as they have written about the racial and biased experiences throughout their life [Capetti, 2001] and through their narratives they have forged a link between the past, the present (themselves) and their future (the unborn generation).

These literary works are an effort on their part to prove to their nations that regardless of the perceived realities their existence and lives have valuable. The slave past some of these authors have had created a void in their lives that at times left…

Blackest Bird opens on July 26, 1841 at midnight. A man, somewhat reluctantly and with a twinge of guilt, dumps Mary's dead body into the Hudson River. The killer audibly cries out, teeming with guilt as he wonders what have I done? "Oh Mary!" (Rose 11). Therefore, the killer knows Mary, and was likely either in love with her or a close companion. He could even be her relative.

Detective Jacob Hays is sixty-nine years old and in no mood to retire. He has long served the city of New York, as high constable. Known as Old Hays, he is obsessed with crime, and especially solving them. The murder of the as-of-yet unknown Mary captures his attention. hen he realizes that the body belongs not just to any Mary, but to Mary Rogers, Old Hays knows he's got a huge story on his hands. Mary Rogers is the locally famous…

Black Elk's Journal

The offering of the pipe

Black Elk believes himself as a symbol of his tribal values. According to him, he embodies the spiritual forces which have been bestowed upon him by the superiors of his tribe. In the first chapter, he has mentioned how the sacred pipe came to his tribe and the values borne by it.

"Behold!! She said. "ith this you shall multiple and be a good nation. Nothing but good shall come from it. Only the hands of the good shall take care of it and the bad shall not even see it." Then, she sang and went out of the tepee; and as the people watched here going. (Niehardt 3)"

In most of the religions of the world, there is always a character who is message bearer. It is amazing to see this similarity in the tribal history of Black Elk as well.…

Black Wax Museum

Young Civil ights Advocates at the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum

One of the most powerful images from the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum is that of two young children standing behind a sign that reads "We are not afraid." Behind them stands a tall figure hooded in the sinister white costume of the Ku Klux Klan. The photos that serve as the backdrop to this display show how African-Americans had to fight for basic rights that were already enjoyed by whites. The children are a sad reminder that racial prejudice was directed towards people of all ages, no matter how innocent they were. The children's sign is a reminder that African-Americans showed courage in the face of prejudice, and even children took bold steps to secure their rights and the rights of others.

In the display, the children appear to be of elementary school…

Black Women in Law Profession Early Twentieth Century

Black women attempting to enter careers in law during the period from 1900 through 1970 faced a variety of unique challenges. During this era, many women of all races began to question their role and place into society; it was during this time that civil rights campaigns were beginning to flourish, and African-American women as faced the prospect of not only being a minority as a woman, but also being a minority because of their skin color and ethnic heritage.

African-American women attempting to pursue careers during this time rarely had the opportunity to hold leadership positions, which was common for women of any race. Another challenge facing black women was the lack of adequate representation, influence and emphasis in the workforce. The lack of attention to black women's careers is even evident in the context of textual references and history; the…

Blacks in Blues Music

Biographer Lawrence Jackson wrote that author Ralph Ellison was exposed to the blues and classical music from an early age, eventually playing the trumpet and pursuing a degree in music at Tuskegee (McLaren Pp). hen he moved to New York to pursue his writing career, Ellison was exposed to the musical developments in jazz and often attended the Apollo Theater, the Savoy Ballroom, and Cafe Society Downtown, and although he admired such figures as pianist Teddy ilson, Count Basie and Duke Ellington, he did not particularly admired Dizzy Gillespie's Bebop, considering its use of Afro-Cuban influences as a "strategic mistake" (McLaren Pp). Ellison, writes Jackson, was more concerned with the "homegrown idiom" (McLaren Pp). That homegrown idiom that Ellison referred to was the blues, a music born in the fields of the South by black workers who used their African musical heritage to give birth to…

It will use historical evidence to examine the role of the church is a spiritual entity. It will examine the role of the church as a political entity throughout changing political landscapes. It will explore the role of the church as a social service provider with regards to the importance of this role in helping black people to redeem themselves in light of historical cultural atrocities that they have faced.

esearch Questions

In order to examine that topics of interest un this research study the following research questions be addressed.

1. How has the black church served as redemptive force in helping the black people to heal?

2. What factors served as a redemptive force in helping the image of black people in the black church to improve?

3. How has a black church helped black communities to regain and maintain their self-sufficiency?

4. How has the black church served…

Resistance meant affirming one's own cultural heritage, in this case an African-American or black heritage (Lincoln and Mamiya 15).

By the 1990s, the problems encountered and caused by young black students in public schools had become a national priority and among the initiatives proposed by black leader at the time was the establishment of special schools exclusively for young black males. The rationale for this educational initiative was that this would provide the possibility of concentrating exclusively on the learning potential, learning styles, and the learning and behavioral difficulties of these students in a more effective manner than can be done in the traditional coeducational interracial settings that were typically dominated by white and feminine cultures (Billingsley 107). According to this author, "It was an idea, simple and straightforward, that grew out of the best motivations to improve the performance of these boys. It seemed to have a great deal…

Trouble with boys

I answered all the questions for this resource attachment in this paper.

In the article "Are Schools Failing Black Boys," the concept known as "the downhill slide" is the frequent occurrence of African-American student's grades systematically becoming lower and lower by the time they reach fourth grade. What makes this phenomenon all the more remarkable is the fact that when they are in the first and second grades, these students' grades were on par (or perhaps even exceeding) that of their non-African-American counterparts. There are a couple of factors which can explicate the downhill slide syndrome. One is the fact that in the early years of elementary school, there is a social aspect to the way ideas are taught. By the time students reach the fourth grade, that social interaction has been replaced with a staid, sedentary lecture-based approach -- which will largely follow the majority of…

oys and Girls Clubs of America as a Resource to Aid in the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency

oys and Girls Clubs of America

This research describes the tremendous need for nonprofit human services organizations by youth who: use drugs, commit crimes or are victims of crime, drop out of high school, and become pregnant at an early age. There are a variety of nonprofit organizations such as oys and Girls Clubs of America, ig rothers ig Sisters and Children's Aid Society that step in to try to compensate for a breakdown in modern social infrastructures. This paper summarized how each makes their own unique contributions and describes in detail the many successes of programs offered by the oys and Girls Clubs of America, proven by formalized studies. ecause human services have made such a difference in the lives of children, recommendations include additional outreach and increased funding for their activities.…

She represents the negative rejection of one's own identity, and rejects her own true and inclusive path in life, as she rejects Xuma who loves her beauty, mind, and poise, and would offer her those things, but in terms that Eliza is emotionally incapable of recognizing.

At the house where he lives Xuma also meets a woman named Maisy, who loves him but whom he rejects. Maisy's plight inspires a great deal of affection in the heart of the reader, as she genuinely loves Xuma, and states that to love a man who loves another is painful, as she looks at him and he is thinking of another woman and feels pain. But Xuma sees in Maisy an older and outdated way of being Black in contemporary society, and despite the fact that Maisy, according to her own admission is pleasant and merely likes to be happy, to dance and…

" (Adams et al.)

hat the report went on to show was how a decades long deception was practiced on a race that was viewed primarily as a guinea pig for medical science.

The Tuskegee Institute had been established by Booker T. ashington. Claude McKay had passed through there in 1912 to study agriculture (under the patronage of alter Jekyll, a man who provided the basis for Robert Louis Stevenson's classic horror tale character). Around the same time that Eleanor Dwight Jones was striving to preserve the white race, the United States Public Health Service began the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. hat took place was a forty year analysis of the life of syphilis. The two hundred black men who had syphilis were "deliberately denied treatment" (Adams et al.) in what was just one more step in oppression and callous social engineering.

And at the same time the Tuskegee experiment was…

Duke Ellington: "Symphony in Black"

Symphony in Black, A Rhapsody of Black Life" is Duke Ellington's second motion picture. The film was directed by Fred aller at Paramount Pictures and then was released during the mid-1930s. One of the most thought-provoking features of this short film is the lack of stereotypical, racist representations of African-Americans which deface earliest jazz movies. This motion picture showed Ellington as composer that was on the same level as other famous composer of "Rhapsody in Blue." In the film, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra are depicted as skilled, and a dignified performer. ith that said, this essay will discuss how Richard right's characters in Down by the Riverside, or Long Black Song reflect both the version of history that Ellington describes, and the idea of history that Conn sees as so essential to 1930s American culture.

Richard right's characters in Down by the Riverside, reflect…

Media Forms

The media has a significant influence not only on individuals but also on the society as a whole. Media representations are not merely an echo and emulate of society but rather they are highly discerning and fabricated portrayals. It is the capability of these representations to form and structure our awareness of the world, which is taken into account in this paper. One important aspect that can be shed light on, is the representation of the minority groups or disadvantaged groups in the media (Sanson et al., 2000). This is particularly of great importance since the issues of discrimination and racism have historically and even today been deemed high-profile subject matters. It is imperative to point out that the roles in which these minority groups are portrayed and represented in the media have a tendency of emphasizing stereotypes about them (Sanson et al., 2000). The focus on this…

Miss Evers Boys

The Tuskegee experiment often receives special attention in textbooks about ethics. In the case of Miss Evers' Boys, the experiment became a critically acclaimed television movie starring Laurence Fishburne and Alfre Woodard. Although some of the details were changed to make the subject amenable for a screenplay, Miss Evers' Boys is based on the Tuskegee experiments, in which researchers were authorized to study African-Americans with syphilis while purposely withholding treatment.

The film fills in the details that the textbooks usually omit. These details include the psychological suffering, the human perspective that is impossible to imagine otherwise. There is a personal dimension displayed in Miss Evers' Boys that cannot be captured in a dry, objective textbook or academic article. Although it is difficult to watch due to the heavy subject matter, Miss Evers' Boys is a mandatory accompaniment to formal study on the subject of ethics in research…

Understanding a form of prejudice and discrimination in a black community
Explain how prejudice and discrimination manifests in this community
Research on health and race often invoke discrimination, prejudice, and racism as probable causes for increased levels of mortality and morbidity in the black community. Discrimination and prejudice can impact people's social resources, opportunities, motivation, self-worth, and involvement with the wider society. Besides, the different views on inequality and equality serve as drivers for further prejudice. Therefore, the establishment, promotion, and sustenance of human rights and equality are dependent on understanding how individuals comprehend and apply these ideas in their daily lives (Abrams, 2010).
Early sociological accounts regarding black's higher offending rates focused not on the physical constraints created by racial prejudice but instead on the supposed unique facets of their culture that disrupts conventional behavior while encouraging violence and crime. A few recent structural perceptions openly incorporate racial, physical…

Hip Hop and American Youth Culture

Everyone enters a stage of growth when a strong urge to break out of parental dependence, when he recognizes his own person and desires to assert himself. This sense of individuality is an inherent in the American character, especially the youth. Aligned with this restlessness is the restlessness endured for centuries by the Blacks. Their elders may have learned to live with the malignity, although without yielding to it, or have less energy to fight. But African-American youth found a way to vent their revulsion towards the discrimination and abuses to which they are subjected as a race. That discovery happened in the 70s when the hip-hop spirit evolved into a concept and then into music, dance, poetry and many other creative forms of letting the sea of anguish flow out of their soul.

The voice of the young American who seeks individual freedom…

Captain Morgan Black Spiced Rum advertisement in the recent issue of Miami New Times is dark. A black candle on a black candlestick smolders in the air, presenting one of only three traces of light colors via its cream colored smoke, billowing about. Directly above it, the white phrasing of "Introducing a darker, bolder spiced rum" leaps out at the viewer, in stark contrast to the opal shades that characterize the rest of the advertisement. The final light shade on the ad, the label for the bottle of Captain Morgan Black Spiced Rum, displays a grinning, sword clutching captain standing on a barrel mounted atop the distant cliffs of some shore. Other than the warm, reddish tinged liquor cooling on a couple of ice cubes in a transparent glass, everything else depicted in this ad is black. The table containing the bottle, the glass and the candle is black, a…

4. Do you think that Astro Boy will be successful? Why?

This is a difficult question to answer simply and unequivocally. On the one hand, it is relatively certain that the character of Astro Boy will be a success in a financial and commercial sense. Part of the reason for this is that the impetus and popularity of global youth culture is behind anime and characters like Astro Boy. The large companies like Sony have taken cognizance of this global enthusiasm and popularity and they are fully prepared to exploit it and to raise the character to the level of cult status through marketing, advertising and film.

However, there is a certain degree of danger in this commercialization. It may have the effect of alienating the hardcore fans and fan base. Anime as a global youth culture has been firmly rooted in the unconventional aspects of the medium and in…

statistics showing that English boys are performing worse than their oversees counterparts. Then I list some of the possible reasons boys are falling behind and some of the solutions. I end with what I feel is a viable solution to the problem of boys falling behind.

Are boys in England falling behind there female counterparts? If the answer to this question is yes, then why, and what can be done to address the problem. In an age of fierce competition, it is no longer enough to just let "boys be boys" The question is How can we balance the learning needs of boys with the needs of girls. It seems society is on a pendulum, first favoring boys, then favoring girls. We cannot go back and forth, favoring one gender at a time. The pendulum needs to stop swinging, but how do we balance the needs of boys with the…

For Homer, the radio was the voice of the outside world, and all information, long before television ever existed. Homer's Republican father was furious. He was a zealous anti-communist, and this meant that the Russians were 'ahead' in their fight for freedom. Just as people huddled around their televisions during 9/11, Homer kept abreast of Sputnik, wondering if the world was going to end. Even the newscasters were afraid, wondering if an atomic bomb was on board, the Russian spacecraft. But Homer's mother took a different view and saw that the world was taking a new turn, perhaps for the better, as the U.S. government encouraged children to advance in science.

Homer's mother encouraged her son to build the rocket of his dreams, and was unafraid of the town's public opinion and her husband. "Take care if this one doesn't embarrass me all over Coalwood," said Homer, Senior (41). Homer's…

Criminal Smehra

lack Tar Heroin Dealer

I am sitting in my ex-roommate's living room. The television casts the only light in the room. It dances on the coffee table and upon our faces; a dull placid light from some meaningless rerun on Nick at Nite. Sharon gets up from the sofa, murmuring something about popcorn and her 'stupid' boyfriend, Tony. They've been together for 4 weeks now, that's why she's my ex-roommate, and in a nutshell: I don't like him. Not because he took my roommate away -she still pays for her room there- and not because he greases back his hair with half a jar of rylcreem everyday I don't like Tony because he's scum. He's the kind of scum you tend to pull up your coat to avoid their stares penetrating the back of your neck as you walk past them on the street. The kind of scum…

Blues music however did not cross racial lines, with the majority of famous blues musicians still residing in New Orleans and various other well-known black music entertainment venues of the South.

Gospel music has been an African-American church tradition with influences from traditional African music and especially prevalent during the slavery era. Later (most likely because of those particular ignominious associations and all they implied, especially in the South) gospel music was strongly discouraged within mainstream society and actively suppressed.

Similarly, blues music represented a blending of black musical traditions with a centuries-long history originating from the earliest days of American slavery. Sammy Davis Jr. And Nat King Cole, were and remain today among the best-known of early black entertainers within the (then) up-and-coming rock 'n roll genre of the 1940's. Each had a heavy influence upon Elvis himself.

Obviously, though, the blending of Southern musical traditions was not started…

This entertainment is the ceremonial or festive taking of alcoholic drinks at events called "beer parties." Researchers noted the significance of the festive element of work among the laborers but showed beer as an essential aspect of work. The rule in these beer work parties are adjusted to the particular workers involved. It invokes the overall value and morality of helpfulness and reciprocity, which are part of beer-drinking events. It is an expression of a general interdependence between homesteads. Ordinary beer parties emphasize the general principle of mutual helpfulness and mutual relationships in homesteads. ut beer parties for harvest give thanks to ancestors for the homestead's harvest. These parties give recognition to those who plow the homestead's garden (McAllister).

A recent analyzed the relation between cooperative work and beer drinking. It found that beer drinks served as a contact point of everyday activity and ideas in the Xhosa society in…

However, while I see that Boy Scouts has helped develop my empathy and my planning ability, I know that I continue to struggle with my ability to frame concepts for a group. Servant leadership is not about asserting power, but about developing rightful authority. ather than force a group to do the leader's bidding, a servant leader's role is to persuade people to follow the leader's path. However, it is not really the leader's path that he asks people to follow. On the contrary, because a servant leader listens to people, respects all members of the group, and considers short- and long-term consequences, the path that the servant leader proposes should be one that is best for the group. Of course, that path may not seem best to the group because of competing interests, short-term worldview, or the fact that every plan is going to have pluses and minuses for…

King's The Man In The lack Suit

The modern concept of self, and the human trait of self-awareness, have been a part of humanity since recorded history -- as has the notion of good and evil, although clearly on a sliding scale. However, it was not until the Middle Ages that the concept of the self in relation to the choices of good and evil coalesced, moving away from the supernatural "the devil made me do it," and allowing for personal responsibility. That did not change the idea that the human individual always has a choice in their path -- the euphemistic fork in the road -- do we choose good, or do we choose evil? Stephen King's short story, The Man in the lack Suit, is a modern retelling of this conflict, albeit not in the traditional manner (King). King's Devil is more like his own Randy Flagg than…

Memory

Lost Boys Never Forget" had always thought my childhood to be quite memorable. Birthday parties, family reunions, road trips, football games... It was a very active and eventful life when I was growing up, and I always seemed to have an exciting adventurous tale to tell in class the first day after summer break, or when my parents asked me how my day had been at the dinner table. I loved playing outdoors, and the nearby woods offered endless games of make-believe. However, when I was barely twelve years old, I chose to take a walk down the old, rarely used hiking trail in those woods with my friend Kenny. Down that path I would find something unlike anything I had ever seen before, and I would have such a life-changing experience that my entire twelve years of life before would seem almost like an empty slate with nothing…

Old Boy at a Children's Museum Play Area

Soren is a 4-year-old boy. He has light blonde hair that is cut short on the sides and is longer on the top. He is a generally smiley child. He likes to interact with his surroundings and likes to run and hop, crouch and spring into action with a cry of delight as though he were taking great amusement in catching the world by surprise.

He is viewed at a play area in a children's museum. The observation begins just before noon and continues until a quarter past 1 pm.

The play area is very crowded and full of children around his own age, with parents standing nearby watching their children. Most of the children are playing on their own, looking at the environment around them, engaging with the activities (puzzles, blocks, interactive equipment, play sets, scooters, and jungle gym equipment). Soren's…

Essay Prompt
The movie The Lost Boys of Sudan - 1) Discuss the initial issues presented (if referred to therapy) by individuals and families in the process of re-location to another country. 2) What are ongoing issues as individuals and families get settled in another country? Describe the issues for the individuals in the specific video viewed in your class. 3) Consider and discuss how you would establish rapport with individuals in the initial phase of therapy; how would you engage individuals and families initially? 4) As individuals and families get settled (and re-settled) into the new country, how does the situation change for various individuals or the family? As individuals adjust, what issues would you focus on if you were their therapist? Address the issues for each person. 5) Do you think you would do short term therapy (6-12 sessions) or long term treatment (12-24 sessions) if you…

Michael Vey: The Prisoner Cell

The book is Michael Vey: The Prisoner Cell 25, written by Richard Paul Evans. This is a science fiction story intended for young adults; the plot of this story involves Michael Vey, a teenage boy with Tourette's syndrome but gifted with electrical powers.

The electrical powers that Michael -- a fourteen-year-old high school student -- discovers within himself give him an extraordinary gift but these powers also cause Michael serious social / personal issues and cause intense scrutiny that plague him. A cheerleader named Taylor also has these electrical powers, and readers learn that both Michael and Taylor were born in the same hospital. In time, an evil group that wants to control Michael's and Taylor's powers and puts their evil plans to work, creating solid conflict in this book.

Thesis Statement

Adolescents anywhere in the world -- during their high school years -- universally…

Delany Neveryon

Samuel R. Delany's novel, Tales of Neveryon depicts a society where the monetary system is highly eroticized. Slavery is eroticized, and human sexuality becomes a commodity that can be bought and sold with the purchase of a slave. The story of the Rublyn culture reveals that inter-gender and inter-class relationships are closely impacted by a change from the barter to a monetary system, as women begin to choose males with money, rather than choosing males with which they can live harmoniously. Eroticizing slavery, class relations, and economic exchange has an important impact on society, as shown within Tales of Neveryon. In Delany's book, sexuality becomes intimately tied to ownership and economics, and individuals lose the ability to love freely.

Tales of Neveryon is part of a larger series, which includes the titles Tales of Neveryon, Neveryona, Flight from Neveryon, Return to Neveryon, and The Bridge of Lost Desire.…

There are costs to bearing and believing in such a secret.

These costs are manifested in many ways. There are the psychosomatic costs Jesse endures, his impotence, his weakness around the black boy in the jail, his tremors at the thought of Otis, "Now the thought of Otis made him sick. He began to shiver." There are also the psychological costs that Jesse is plagued by, the self-delusion associated with believing racism is moral, the mental anguish, and the constant struggle over whether he can trust his coconspirators, "They were forced to depend on each other more and, at the same time, to trust each other less" (Baldwin). What Baldwin is underscoring with these psychological and psychosomatic burdens is that the path Jesse has followed, a path of racism and discrimination, has led him to a very troubled existence.

Baldwin wants the reader to understand that proponents for a Jim…

They were followed in 1936 by the Harlem River Houses, a more modest experiment in housing projects. And by 1964, nine giant public housing projects had been constructed in the neighborhood, housing over 41,000 people [see also Tritter; Pinckney and oock].

The roots of Harlem's various pre 1960's-era movements for African-American equality began growing years before the Harlem Renaissance itself, and were still alive long after the Harlem Renaissance ended. For example:

The NAACP became active in Harlem in 1910 and Marcus Garvey's Universal

Negro Improvement Organization in 1916. The NAACP chapter there soon grew to be the largest in the country. Activist a. Philip Randolph lived in Harlem and published the radical magazine the Messenger starting in 1917.

It was from Harlem that he organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car

Porters. .E.B. DuBois lived and published in Harlem in the 1920s, as did

James eldon Johnson and Marcus Garvey.…

."

The character of Babo, who apparently was just a loyal personal attendant of Don Benito, but actually he was the person first-in-command of the throng of slaves, and tended to be a constant eye on Benito, and influenced (in fact controlled) all his actions/decisions. As it was revealed in the latter portion of the story, that it was Babo, who took the dire initiative to overrule the enslavement, which was literally destroying his kins, both mentally and psychologically. Hence Babo was that Black who actually channelized the thirst of freedom which was a direct effect of slavery.

Even the old Oakum-pickers, who according to Delano: "Seem to act the part of old dominoes to the rest," tended to further support the notion that Don Benito's role of being the ship's Commander had turned into a symbolic one.

The passive character of Don Benito itself, illustrated the fact that he…

civil rights since Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. There are three references used for this paper.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis in 1968 as he was fighting for civil rights in America. Since that time, the country has seen changes in how minorities are treated.

Some of these changes have been positive, while others have had a negative effect on the progression of the civil rights movement.

Positive Changes

The Civil Rights movement has seen some positive changes since the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. There are no longer segregated drinking fountains or waiting rooms in public areas. The Black community no longer fears being evicted from their homes because they chose to vote (unknown 1997).

Congressman John Lewis stated on the 40th Anniversary of the Civil Rights movement that "because of the work and sacrifices of many, we are a better people (unknown 1997)."…

Baldwin and 'Down on the Coss'

Not eveything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

James Baldwin

The now flouishing talent of James Baldwin had no easy bith, and he did not emege ovenight, as some of his new discovees would have you believe. Fo yeas this talent was in incubation in the ghetto of Halem, befoe he went to Euope nealy a decade ago in an attempt to discove the United States and how he and his people elate to it. The book in which that discovey is potayed, The Fie Next Time (New Yok: Dial Pess, 1963), is a continuation of his seach fo place and definition.

The hadships of that seach wee ecently descibed by Steling Stuckey, Chaiman of the Committee of Nego Cultue and Histoy:

The tagedy of the Ameican Nego is bon of the twin evils of…

One of Wright's major works was Black Boy and one of the most poignant sections of that book was Chapter 12 in which Wright described the experiences of two southern black boys exploited by the "five dollar fight." Working for an optician in Memphis, Tennessee, the protagonist (Richard) hopes that his experiences with white people in Memphis will be better than in the small town of Jackson, Mississippi "The people of Memphis had an air of relative urbanity that took some of the sharpness off the attitude of whites toward Negroes & #8230;"

However, Richard finds that white people are just as exploitative and abusive of blacks in the big city as in small towns. Some of the white men where Richard works pay another black boy a quarter at a time to let them kick him in his rear end and even when white men seem to be nice…

Blurring the Gap Between Fiction and eal Life

This is a paper that outlines how modern literature integrates personal experiences of the writers into works of fiction. It has 5 sources.

It is quite interesting to note the means by which eminent writers attract attention to their ideas and literary content. On closer examination, we may come to the conclusion that the means by which public attention may be grabbed has followed a definite pattern through the years. While writers like Shakespeare and his contemporaries used fiction to project their literary geniuses, modern day writers strive to catch the attention of the masses by presenting their own personal conflicts and tragedies to the public. The modern writer has lessened the gap between a literary piece of work and real life. However, literature in the classical period is known for its often unnatural and over-dramatized perspectives on life. Today, the stories…

Because I was happy upon the heath,

And smiled among the winter's snow,

They clothed me in the clothes of death,

And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

And because I am happy and dance and sing,

They think they have done me no injury,

And are gone to praise God and his priest and king, Who make up a heaven of our misery."

In these two poems, Mark Blake was allegorically relating the importance of God and religion in our lives. In The Little Black Boy, he gives an optimistic perception of God. The poem having the persona of an African child who questions his color and identity learns from his mother that God does not base his love on the color of one's skin. His mother also teaches him that the lives we have here on earth are temporary and but mere preparations of the rewards…

Racial Exclusion in America

When one thinks of racial exclusion, they usually think of the reconstruction period of the late 1800s and the Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow laws prohibited blacks from drinking from the same water fountains, eating in the same restaurants, and ride in the back of the bus. Most ideas of racial exclusion are targeted at blacks, however, many other ethnic groups were the victims of racial exclusion as well. They may not have had laws condoning it, as was the case with blacks and Native Americans, but exclusion was there never the less. The books "Black Boy" by Richard Wright and "America is in the Heart" by Carlos Bulosan are two of the best examples illustrating the effects of racial exclusion from an insider's perspective. This paper will compare these two books both from historical perspective and from a contemporary standpoint.

Everyone knows about the…

Great ar in American history does not signify any greatness for the disastrous affects it left behind. The aftermath of the civil war had been damaging for the Americans, which resulted in their rebuking the African-Americans, with a biased attitude towards their slavery. The book 'A lesson before Dying' emphasis on such a community, where the outcome of the wars were still hanging on their shoulders, yet it was becoming more difficult for the blacks to sanctify their identities. Leaving a young boy's life in danger, when he's unjustly announced with the death sentence. hile ' Snow Falling in Cedars' brings out the Japanese-Americans and their hardships while they try to live discreetly around coastal environment. It shows the side after orld ar II, when Japanese were taken into the concentration camps and even after they were released they had to fight a battle with the same people they had…

Black ay, Kinloch, and the Spirit of the Los Angeles Renaissance

In Chapter One of the The Great Black ay: L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African-American Renaissance, R. J. Smith describes John Kinloch, the up-and-coming young African-American editor of the California Eagle. A charming personality with erudite expression and a radio gig to boot, Kinloch made a particular impression on Los Angeles in the 1940s. He had the ears and eyes of society and his goal was to report what he saw and report it in such a way that people actually took notice. The thesis that Smith uses to frame the book is that L.A. was a thriving Mecca of black culture -- imported to some extent from the East, but completely moving in a unique direction that was more grassroots and organic than the elitist-led and white patronized Renaissance in Harlem had been. This thesis is…

As the movie continued, I began to look for evidences confirming his guilt. When I saw Sister James noticing how Father Flynn left Donald's shirt in his locker, I thought this confirmed my expectation. I believed Father Flynn was guilty. When Sister Aloysius suggested that this was something one could expect from lonely priests, in her first discussion of the incident with Sister James, I thought the case was closed.

As the story unfolded -- Father Flynn's confidence in his innocence and his ability to explain his treatment of children, especially in a conversation with Sister James who believes that Father Flynn's explanation is adequate and convincing -- I began to doubt. Nevertheless, I kept looking for evidences that would prove Father Flynn's guilt. Sister Aloysius's discussion with Donald's mother and the decision of Father Flynn to leave the school at the end of the film again confirmed my earlier…

Sutherland wrote "No attempt was made to investigate.

Defendants were immediately hurried to trial...." The Court noted that "a defendant, charged with a serious crime, must not be stripped of his right to have sufficient time to advise with counsel and prepare his defense." To deny that, Sutherland wrote, "is not to proceed promptly in the calm spirit of regulated justice but to go forward with the haste of the mob." (U.S. Supreme Court Powell v. Alabama)

Clarence Noriss, one of the nine boys, case was overturned due to an argument that he had no jury of his peers.

There were no blacks serving as jury at his trial. No African-American had ever served as juror in that county. "Within the memory of witnesses long resident there, no negro had ever served on a jury in that county or had been called for such service. Some of these witnesses were…

Childhood Prejudice

In an experiment, a Caucasian girl named Morgan was shown pictures of two girls - one white and one black.

hen asked who was smarter, Morgan pointed to the white girl. She was then shown a picture of a white and a black boy and was asked who threw garbage on the floor. She then pointed to the black boy (Stern-LaRosa and Bettman 2000).

Morgan is only three years old.

The experiment shows how early prejudice can affect people's perceptions, and the various negative ways in which they are manifested.

Morgan, however, is far from a lost cause. Experts agree that children often look to adults for guidance, and that there are many strategies to help children like Morgan work through their attitudes towards difference.

Definitions of prejudice

Studies of prejudice and discrimination usually center on a group of common ideas. Most experts begin with stereotypes, which are…

This sentence, although it talks about bowels, is really describing the mother's love of the baby.

This story is written like a detective story. It is very difficult to determine which woman is telling the truth and to determine if King Solomon is actually a bad person or a good person. It does not give the names of the women. They are simple referred to as one woman and the other woman. It does say that they were "harlots," but it does not give any background information about who the women are or how they got involved in this argument. They were simply two women in the same place that had babies at the same time.

Also, it is not clear to the reader rather King Solomon is a bad person or a good person. He does propose to slay the baby and divide it into two half to settle…

Thus, Nordan does not only give an account of this main event in the true story of Emmett Till, but adds important information about the characters involved to stress the reality of the social tensions that existed at that time in the South. Besides the extensive use of magical realism, Nordan also employs several "blues strategies" to structure his narrative, as Baker points out: "In olf histle, Nordan uses several blues strategies, not the least of which is the blues technique of playing through the break, to explore the interracial implications of the Emmett Till story."(Baker, 48) the blues technique is also important because it is obviously used as a means of recreating the story within an African-American tradition. Actually, at the very moment of Bobo's fatal whistle, there is a blues singer on the porch of the store that accompanies the events with his music: "The blues singer on…

alker Evans

The emergence of non-commercial still photography, in the form of an art is comparatively recent that may probably be dated from the 1930s. Just as poets use similar language as journalists, lawyers and curators, in the same manner, the ordinary realism of photography, including the medium of mug shots and real-estate ads, can be the material of visual poetry. In this context, the American photographer alker Evans was among the first to identify this potential (Masters of Photography).

In the 1930s, alker Evans contribution in the development of American documentary photography was significant. His each succeeding generation of photographers was greatly influenced by his precisely & comprehensive, frontal portrayal of people and artifacts of American life (Masters of Photography).

He abandoned his early ambitions of writing and painting and turned to photography, and as a result he reached at a dry, reasonable and modest style of photography that…

Several members of the congregation left a prayer meeting to come out and see what the noise was all about.

Walter briskly walked right up to the man, slapped him hard in the face, grabbed Sonny, set him down, and backed up for a moment. He rolled up his sleeves. The fat man's face was bright red. He panted. He moved forward to attack Walter, swinging a right fist towards Walter's face.

Walter ducked away from the fist and then aggressively wrapped his powerful right arm around the fat man's head and pulled him hard into the dandelion yard in a wrestler's grip. Walter kept a headlock on the fat man while Elmo retrieved Sonny's bike from the street.

"Apologize!" Walter demanded of the fat man.

"Okay!" The fat man replied. "Let me go." Walter released his iron grip on the man and helped him back up. "Don't you ever…

Circle in the Fire," and "Everything that Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

This is a paper on the analysis of the two books "A Circle in the Fire," and "Everything that Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor, which exposes many similarities between them.

The two stories of Flannery O'Connor are written from a matriarchal perspective and depict the lives of women in control of other's lives or property. They show that no matter how much wealth a person may amass, they are all still prone to suffer. Thus, there is an element of 'twist of fate' in both these pieces of literature. It also shows that as these leading characters are women they should understand the world from their softer perspective because of the fact that there are still others of their type in a worse of position financially, as well as politically. Instead, we see the opposite from…

Man Who Almost Was a Man," by Richard Wright, explains how the non-literary dimension changes one's understanding of the story.

The Man Who Was Almost a Man"

Richard Wright was one of the greatest African-American writers; he was also the first African-American to have produced one of the famous novel of racism and its psychological affect on the individuals in his masterpiece "Native on." Born in 1908 in Mississippi, Wright father left the family when he was only six years old and when he was ten his mother had a paralytic stroke and was unable to work. Wright after a formal education was forced to seek employment in order to support his family. The first half of the twentieth century was a crucial period for the African-Americans, the discrimination against them had taken a different form and shape and there were little jobs available for the black people. Wright worked…

Yarbrough quotes Ihab Hassan, who describes postmodernism as the "literature of silence" in that it "communicates only with itself," a reference that initially astounds the rational mind. Then, reading further in Yarbrough, Hassan is quoted as saying the term postmodernism applies to "a world caught between fragments and wholes, terror and totalitarianism of every kind."

In Vonnegut's novel, characters reflect the deconstruction of American society in the 1950s, during the period of paranoia dominated by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy's fascist-like search for "communist sympathizers," which created terror and loathing and reflected how morally shallow yet potent the hammer of temporary totalitarian authority can be.

On page 96, Chapter 44, it is revealed that Horlick Minton had once been fired by the State Department for allegedly being "soft on communism" - but the only "real evidence" used to justify his dismissal, his wife announced, was a letter she wrote to the…

Examining the difficult process that Huck has when he finally determines not to turn Jim in can be especially helpful in this. In addition, readers of this opinion can discuss the effects of Twain's own divergence from society when contemplating the ways in which his articulation of his nonstandard views into text affected society.

Thus, while two sides clearly exist in this debate -- one stating that Twain's novel advocates racism through the relationship between Huck and Jim and the other arguing that Twain actually condemns the ideology by using this relationship -- a compromise can be reached. Each side can still find Twain's novel valuable in a discussion of the effects of racism on society and the role literature plays in those effects. Thus, the need to ban this novel from the classroom is null and void when this type of compromise can be reached.

Regardless of the fact…

S. Constitution under the Fourteenth Amendment. States can no longer ignore the Fourteenth Amendment following the ruling in Duncan v. Louisiana, and that makes this case a landmark case.

Justice hite delivered the opinion of the Court, saying that basically if a state is going to convict a person to a crime that is - by state law - punishable by up to two years, it is then considered a serious crime, and the Fourteenth Amendment comes into play. That amendment, hite wrote, "denies the States the power to 'deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The laws of "every state," hite continued, "guarantee a right to jury trial in serious criminal cases; no state has dispensed with it; nor are there significant movements underway to do so." In fact, hite went on, the right of the accused to a jury trial is given…

Unseen

So much has been said and written about black community and the challenges it has to face due to dismal poverty that another book on the same topic doesn't always spark much interest. However Ron Sacking's A hope in the Unseen doest suffer the same fate since it is based on a true story of one black boy's rise from ghettos to the Ivy League. It is not everyday that we meet such courageous boys and for this reason, the public warmly welcomed both the book and the boy.

Cendric Jennings is not your typical protagonist because unlike other heroes, he actually exists and has actually been through all the rough and tough times mentioned in the book. This is what makes him a real hero and a real source of inspiration for millions of black young men out there who have passively resigned to fate believing they can…

Night funeral in Harlem: When the funeral was completely over and the boy's coffin was carried out to the hears, which drove too fast down the street, the streetlight even seemed like it was crying for the boy. He was well-loved by everyone, and their love made the funeral magnificent, even if things looked more poor.

Connotation: The meaning behind the literal sense of the poem seems to be that despite what hardships, disadvantages, and unfairness, human relationships are the really important things that make us rich. The words that Hughes uses juxtaposes symbols of money, greed, and death with love, friendship, and life -- insurance men with satin boxes, flowers and the greedy preacher man, etc. This implies that many people just don't understand what's really important.

Devices: As stated above, the rhyme and meter of the poem enhance the poem's varying meanings. In addition, the use of repetition…

Perhaps the author chose the most sensationally bad decisions from his year of research to show the inherent problems with the system. Of course, he could not chronicle every case and every decision, that would be impossible in a 300-plus page book. However, the reader has to wonder what he left out, and if it would have given the book a different feeling and tone if he had included some more positive cases, as well. Perhaps, like the beat reporters he discusses in the book, he fell under the spell of showcasing the "heater" cases that would be interesting and noteworthy.

Certainly, most of the people in this book are criminals, and they committed the crimes they were accused of. However, there seems to be no way to end this cycle of crime and jail. Many of these people clearly need help, not jail time, but there seems to be…

Life:

he main character of the novel, Sula, has always been in search of true love. She tried to seek compassion and love from many different sources, but every time had to face disappointment and failure. She had relationships and contacts with many people but the outcome was always unpleasant.

In her childhood she came close to Nel and eventually they both became best friends. he family background of both girls was different and contrasting yet they shared a strong bond and relationship. hey were friends since childhood but the incident where Sula accidently killed Chicken Little (drowned in the river and the girls decided to keep quite) changed their whole lives. hey started to get apart after this incident, as the differences in their personalities became visible and evident. Both of the friends took different decisions about their future lives. After ten years when Sula came back to Bottom,…