1. Histories of the Present
Soul songs like Donny Hathaway's "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," was revolutionary, in that they sought to instill pride of one's history, but at the same time motivate a new generation to reach new heights. ... The sense of hopelessness of the piece can best be conveyed in the line saying, "this life ain't worth the living .makes me wanna holler, throw up both my hands!"...
Washington understood that his speech, although meant to present the races "as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress" (451), also gave him a bit of backlash from his own community, while bringing prosper from the white community. ... On the other hand, he received heavy criticism his fellow race, including W. ... Within these published essays, Du Bois goes on to describe the disjointed identity of being "a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second sight yield[ing] him no true self-consciousness, but only lets ...
DuBois stated that, "The Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, ¾a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. ... Where on the other hand the house negro is under constant watch by the master and like Malcolm X wanted to resist and separate from him. ... This goes hand in hand with Malcolm X's movement because Malcolm wanted blacks to take a stand towards whites. ...
The Situation of African-Americans in America In their motherland Africa, black people lived together in tribes with the families staying together in the village and leading a live according to strong morals and rites. Each tribe had developed a culture and often an own language, and the people either prayed to their own Gods or (especially in north and central Africa) followed the teachings of the Koran. But in the eyes of most Europeans, all Africans were ignorant, pagan savages who needed to be introduced to Christianity and Western civilisation. When America was discovered in 1492, Eur...