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The African American
People of African descent in America today are called African Americans. Over time and at different times in history, they had been called Negroes, coloured, blacks, and Afro-Americans. Because of the negative connotations of the words in American history, Negroes and coloured/colored have become rare in usage in recent times. Black and, especially, African American, are more favourable terms.
The politics and tension of even the proper name to call this race speak volumes on how they got to America in the first place and what their life experiences have been. The slave trade and slavery of the 17th to 18th centuries is responsible for the presence of most African Americans in the space called the United States of America today. They were mostly required to work in the plantations (rice, cotton, sugar, and tobacco); thus slave labour took a very long time to be erased and was done in stages with different parts of America emancipating their slaves at different times. Abolition faced stiff opposition in some states of America with the Southern states being the last to let go because of the economic relevance of the slaves, especially as crops like cotton have become export crops. With the abolition of the slave trade by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution on December 18, 1865, slavery ended in the United States only in name (Weider History Group, 2013; America’s Historical Documents, 2013). The blacks were still under the same kind of demeaning treatment from their white counterparts; only this time it has found other names: racial discrimination, denial of human rights, and the black population were still employed to do mean jobs since industrialisation was still rising.
Of course, human beings do not naturally keep quiet when maltreated. Therefore, it is only expected that the slave trade, slavery and the accompanying ill treatment raised different reactions from both the black and white quarters, but more from the black side of the divide. Abolitionists went to work with their protests, campaigns, writings, etc., and gradually erased slavery. Other movements would also rise among the African American to champion the cause of the marginalised blacks: movements which fought against the Jim Crow laws that promoted racial discrimination – Niagara Movement and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the early 1900s, the Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968) which brought about the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Black Power Movement which encouraged African Americans to look to their African/Black roots for inspiration and emphasised black solidarity.
With Barak Obama, an African American, becoming the 44th president of the United States of America (2009-2017), it is obvious that the blacks have done a lot to shake off discrimination and marginalisation. But, the journey has not been a smooth one, and there are still instances to show that there might still be traces of their marginalisation.
Pictures tell great stories in ways words do not. For this reason, selected pictures have been chosen to take you through the African American experience. A look at the pictures below will give you an idea of the historical progress of the African American. Take note of the comments and captions that come with the pictures. Also, observe the progress of emancipation as the years roll by with the dates on the picture comments. All the pictures and their accompanying comments have been culled from “African American History” (Microsoft Encarta, 2009), with the exception of the pictures of Gordon, the former slave; Condoleezza Rice; and Barak Obama pictures whose sources are indicated under the pictures.
Picture 1
Captives in Central Africa The first African slaves brought to the English colonies in America arrived in the early 17th century. They were captured in Africa and then transported across the Atlantic Ocean. It is estimated that more than 10 million people were brought from Africa to the Americas as slaves. Hulton Deutsch
Picture 2
Slaves Picking Cotton Cotton was the most important crop in the South before the American Civil War (1861-1865). Slaves usually worked all day picking cotton for their masters while overseers watched from their horses. THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE/Corbis
Picture 3
Slave Quarters in the South The dirt roads and simple wood houses of these slave quarters lay on the outskirts of New Orleans, Louisiana. The vast majority of slaves living in the United States were located in the South. After the invention of the cotton gin in 1793 and the spread of cotton cultivation in the South, the demand for slave labor on large plantations increased dramatically. Archive Photos
Picture 4
Gordon, a former slave displays the telltale criss-cross, keloid scars from being bullwhipped, 1863. (Photo got from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cicatrices_de_flagellation_sur_un_esclave.jpg)
Picture 5
Harpers Ferry Insurrection In 1859 white abolitionist John Brown led a raid on the U.S. arsenal and armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now in West Virginia). He hoped to free slaves by arming them and leading a revolt. In this sketch, U.S. Marines storm the arsenal, which was eventually recaptured. Brown was later convicted of treason and hanged. Corbis
Picture 6
Waiting for Rations Recently freed blacks line up for rations at a Freedmen’s Bureau in the American South. The Bureau was formed in 1865 to provide food and medical and legal assistance to the newly emancipated blacks, as well as to needy whites. The program opened several schools and educational institutions before it was abandoned only a few years later. Culver Pictures
Picture 7
Ku Klux Klan Former Confederate soldiers founded the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) after the American Civil War (1861-1865). The KKK used violence and intimidation to keep blacks segregated and to prevent them from voting and holding office. Archive Photos
Picture 8
Rosa Parks In 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested for disobeying a segregation law in Montgomery, Alabama, that required her to give up her seat on a bus to a white person. Her bold action helped to stimulate protests against inequality. The blacks of the community organized a boycott of the bus system and were led by Martin Luther King, Jr. They forced city officials to repeal the discriminatory law. UPI/THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE
Picture 9
Burned Bus in Anniston, Alabama Freedom Riders began traveling through the South in 1961 to try to desegregate Southern bus stations. In this picture, Freedom Riders sit by their bus which was burned by a white mob in Anniston, Alabama. Several of the riders were beaten by the mob. UPI/Corbis
Picture 10
Martin Luther King, Jr. During the 1950s, Martin Luther King, Jr. studied the methods of nonviolent protest of the Indian nationalist leader Mohandas K. Gandhi and successfully implemented them in a civil rights movement in the United States. King expertly led the movement and forced discussion of inequality in the United States. His work inspired thousands of blacks and led to long-range changes in the lives of countless others. In 1963, five years before his death at the hands of an assassin, King addressed a gathering of more than 200,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial in the nation’s capital. There he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Courtesy of Gordon Skene Sound Collection. All rights reserved./UPI/THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE
Picture 11
Jesse Jackson By the 1960s Baptist minister Jesse Jackson had set himself at the forefront of the struggle for civil rights. In 1971 he founded Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) to work for the economic advancement of poor people. In 1984 and 1988 he campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination. A gifted orator, Jackson electrified delegates at the 1988 Democratic National Convention with this speech. UPI/THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE/Courtesy of the Gordon Skene Sound Collection. All rights reserved.
Picture 12
Condoleezza Rice, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (2001-04) and Secretary of State (2005-09). (Photo got from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Condoleezza_Rice_cropped.jpg)
Picture 13
Barak Obama, the first African American president of the United States of America (2009-2017). (Photo got from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Official_portrait_Barack_Obama.jpg)
Each of the stages in the African American history represented pictorially and otherwise above has produced remarkable works of literary value which subsequent modules and units will be talking about. It is important therefore to have a mental picture of the conditions of the black people at every turn of their history to be able to assign the right judgment of their literature.
African American Literature
Generally speaking, African American literature refers to literature by and about African Americans. It could be oral, performed, or written. Recently, the filmic mode (films) is also included in the discussion of not just African American literature but literature all over the world. Historically, African American literature marks and records the growth and development of the African race in America from the 18th century to present.
There might be contentions as to whether works by non-African Americans qualify to be called African American literature. The answer is simple: if the experiences contained in such works are for and about African Americans and have the characteristics and themes for which African American literature are known, then it is African American literature. It is for such reasons that works of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Marcus Garvey, for example, are studied under African American literature, even though Garvey is Jamaican, and Stowe is white.
African American literature grew out of the oral tradition of storytelling, work songs of slaves on plantations, and spirituals; hence these verbal modes are seen having a great deal of impact still heavily traceable in the literature.
African American literature has significantly contributed to the way African Americans have historically understood themselves and have been understood by the rest of the world. Conversely, these understandings have in no small measure contributed to the substance of African American literature. Hence, African American literature, just like literature in other parts of the world and especially Africa, maintains a symbiotic relationship with its creating/created environment/society. Looking at African American literature, one does not cease to be amazed at the interconnectedness among literature, man and his society, and how historical events/moments produce very rich works of art.
Dasylva and Jegede (2005: 191) give an insight into the nature of African American literature:
By its very naming, African American literature is a unique tradition that is informed by a sense of cultural dualism right from inception. Historically, the socio-cultural undercurrent responsible for the emergence of this literature is the experience of slavery and the attendant contact and dialogue of the African personality with a new culture. The Africans who were transported to the United States of America (the New World, as it was known then) took with them the intangible but enduring properties of their cultural heritage; the customs, values, traditions, and histories of African were reprocessed to compose the peculiar experience and vision of the (black) American writer of African descent. Invariably the overriding thematic preoccupation of the black writer in America has been a passionate concern for race and identity, nationhood and dignity, self-integration and self-assertion, and a general quest for roots and freedom stemming from the physical and psychological dislocation which slavery had caused. Going by the African American history, their literature has a general (and not a fixed) grouping into:
a. Early African American literature, where we come in contact with works like Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects (1773) and William Wells Brown’s Clotel: The President’s Daughter (1853);
b. Slave Narratives, which cover works like Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789); Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845); and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852);
c. Post-Slavery Era; it brings us in contact with the works of W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and Marcus Garvey;
d. Harlem Renaissance releases us Langston Hughes and Claude McKay’s passionate poetry, and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937);
e. Civil Rights Movement Era/Black Art/Black Power sees the flourishing of Martin Luther King Jr.’s great speeches like “I Have a Dream” (1963), James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), Richard Wright’s Native Son (1940) and Black Boy (1945), Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man (1952), Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959) and Amiri Baraka’s (earlier known as LeRoi Jones) works;
f. Recent African American literary works include Alex Haley’s Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976) and The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982), Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970) and Beloved (1987), Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf (1975), and Terry McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale (1992) and How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1995).
It will interest you to know that many of these works have been made into films. You can find some of them online and in film shops. Watching them will help you understand and enjoy the texts more.
Conclusion
It is obvious that we can go on and on talking about the transformation of the African American and African American literature and what these mean to the American civilization. It is, however, important to note that the African American transformed both himself and his literature because he resisted the existing ideology and radically sought after change.
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