"Bigger Thomas, Escape into the Labyrinth." ... Interprets Native Son as a naturalistic novel incorporating, as a major idea, the theme of escape. Unlike the protagonists of other naturalistic novels, Bigger Thomas is unable to physically escape his oppressive environment, because of the limitations placed on him due to his skin color. Bigger attempts to find other avenues of escape, but is only able to feel truly free and independent by exploring his darker side. ... His attempt at escape fails, and he is put into a different environment in which he is again confined by his society. ...

• Word Count: 2755
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: High School

By keeping his readers off balance and unsure of his conclusions he was able to address taboo issues, and force a dialogue that might not have been possible without the ability to escape with a slight titter - an ability to laugh when tears might have been more appropriate. ... As Stanley Brodwin states in his essay "Blackness and the Adamic Myth,"" there is no escape for any human being since each generation builds on past sins and must continually pay the debts accrued. ...

• Word Count: 3141
• Approx Pages: 13
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Cry Freedom is propaganda thinly disguised as a documentary. Attenborough intended to sway people's view against apartheid. The film contains substantial evidence of bias and many different view points were ignored. The structure of the film was done in such a way to influence people's thinking towards black consciousness and to make the viewer feel offended with the events happening. The film techniques are used in a biased and prejudiced way. ...

• Word Count: 2533
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

This is just a small example of the doubt and hatred that was bestowed on the African American soldiers. However, during the war, they proved themselves to be brave and courageous men on and off the battlefield on many occasions. Despite deep prejudices and harsh criticisms from the white society, t...

• Word Count: 4026
• Approx Pages: 16
• Grade Level: High School

To weaken the rebel forces the British commander in chief offered freedom to all Blacks who could escape from the rebels and without the Blacks, the rebels would not be able to keep their plantations running. ...

• Word Count: 2905
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: High School

The Works of James Baldwin We are responsible for the world in which we find ourselves, if only because we are the only forces that can change it. James Baldwin was born in Harlem on August 2, 1924. Shortly after his birth his mother married David Baldwin, a factory worker and Pentecostal min...

• Word Count: 2618
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Introduction The Middle Passage is the crossing of the Ocean from Africa to America of African people, who passed from the state of liberty to the state of slavery, and took place between the XVI and XIX centuries. They were captured from the tribes situated on Africa's West Coast: Nigeria, Iv...

• Word Count: 4160
• Approx Pages: 17
• Grade Level: High School

Thurgood Marshall is one of the most inspirational men in civil rights history to date. He is just one of the motivating start buttons to the movement that I think could have been written about a thousand times and still not cover the complexity of his heart, strength and ideas. I believe this is wh...

• Word Count: 4823
• Approx Pages: 19
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

While in the hospital Butch would plan an escape that wouldn't go according to plan as the final result he would end up taking his life along with his girlfriend's leaving behind poor Willie Bosket. ...

• Word Count: 3198
• Approx Pages: 13
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Walker, Marshall, and Hurston; Women writing other Women Alice Walker, through her essay "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens", and Paule Marshall, in "Poets In The Kitchen", both write about the African-American women of the past and how these women have had an impact on their writing. Walke...

• Word Count: 3271
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: High School

Berkman, Ronald Opening the Gates: The Rise of the Prisoners" Movement. Lexington Books: Lexington, Mass, 1979. Bowker, Lee H. Prisoner Subcultures. Lexington Books: Lexington Mass, 1977. Davis, Angela, et al. If They Come in the Morning Voices of Resistance. The Third Press: New Yor...

• Word Count: 3043
• Approx Pages: 12

African Americans have fought for freedom from enslavement, the right to earn a living, have land and a job, have equal justice, good quality education, to escape from oppression, the right to self pride and an end to stereotyping. ...

• Word Count: 2726
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

The theme of religion and community is not foreign to Toni Morrison. In several of her novels, she has treated themes of God and humanity. Indeed, spirituality is a common thread woven through many of her characters. Morrison has a sharp insight into people as they relate to their Maker and each ...

• Word Count: 3712
• Approx Pages: 15
• Grade Level: High School

Jean Toomer's Cane was published in 1923, a miscellany composed of fifteen poems, seven stories, six prose vignettes and a play that all focus on Negro life during the 1920's. The book was focused on the primitive modern sense of what it meant to be an African-American during the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance spanned the 1920's and 'it was the period when the Negro was in vogue'.1 New York had become 'the capital of the black world'2 and Harlem was the site of black economic power and consciousness. What is now considered to be the Harlem Renai...

• Word Count: 3347
• Approx Pages: 13

African American literature is an extremely dense and rich form of literature that contains many types of similar tropes. These tropes can be seen throughout many of African American works of literature. A few that will be discussed thoroughly in this paper, that are majorly common in these types of works are: the idea of double consciousness, the question and search for identity, the Sankofa experience, the Great Migration, and lastly the return to the South. These tropes may seem very different but they all tie into the question of identity and the struggle that African Americans faced and ...

• Word Count: 3543
• Approx Pages: 14
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Albert King once stated: "The Blues its twelve-bar, bent-note melody is the anthem of a race bonding itself together with cries of shared self victimization and trouble, which are always present, and always the result of others, pressing upon unfortunate and down trodden poor souls." The music wit...

• Word Count: 3100
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography

Celia: A Slave At the time slavery took place in the US, a devastating situation placed society to an intense debate and a fight between morality and tradition. Celia as the victim of this scenario will be the figure of sexual exploitation of owner and slave that will qu...

• Word Count: 2545
• Approx Pages: 10

Federalism is a concept that started many years ago during the times of the ratification of the document we live by called the Constitution. This concept basically states that there will be two levels of government, the national and the state. Federalism states that the national and state governments are separate entities and have formal authority over the same area and people. With its largest effect was during the Civil rights movement. Civil rights are freedoms and rights ...

• Word Count: 8719
• Approx Pages: 35
• Grade Level: High School

The theme of religion and community is not foreign to Toni Morrison. In several of her novels, she has treated themes of God and humanity. Indeed, spirituality is a common thread woven through many of her characters. Morrison has a sharp insight into people as they relate to their Maker and each ...

• Word Count: 3715
• Approx Pages: 15
• Grade Level: High School

Is it a disbelief that many Africans think African-Americans are lazy, ghetto, wild, careless, untrustworthy, devious, and they are continuously complaining about racism when everything has been given to them? For an African-American this question may be insulting but at the same time it is unfortunate that in fact many African-Americans are perceived this way probably because African Immigrants are brought up with different morals and values. All though, it is just a stereotype to say all African-Americans are lazy, African Immigrants that come in contact with African-Americans may sometimes...

• Word Count: 2957
• Approx Pages: 12

February is Black History Month A full appreciation of the celebration of Black History Month requires a review and a reassessment of the social and academic climate that prevailed in the Western world, and especially in North America before 1926 when Black History Month was established. It is important to recall that between 1619 and 1926, African Americans and other peoples of African descent were classified as a race that had not made any contribution to human civilization. Within the public and private sector, African Americans and other peoples of African descent were continually dehum...

• Word Count: 3305
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: High School

SECTION 1 - Short Answer 1) Ida B. Wells maintained her anti-lynching campaign throughout her life despite her constant fear of death by her oppressors. When the entire passage is taken into context, it explains her actions and the amazing courage that she possessed. "I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or rat in a trap. I had already determined to sell my life as dearly as possible if attacked. ...

• Word Count: 4173
• Approx Pages: 17
• Grade Level: High School

"The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery." W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction of America. (Alexander 20). W.E.B. Du Bois reminds us that former slaves had "a brief moment in the sun" before returning to a status akin to slavery. In many schools ac...

• Word Count: 4144
• Approx Pages: 17
• Has Bibliography

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 ei...

• Word Count: 3965
• Approx Pages: 16
• Grade Level: High School

1. INTRODUCTION In 1988, the now-bestselling author and former lawyer John Grisham had his first book published. Entitled "A Time to Kill", the novel presented the story of a small Mississippi town that becomes the scene of a spectacular trial: After two white men rape his daughter, her black father named Carl Lee Hailey shoots them. He then hires the white street lawyer Jake Brigance as his attorney, who also defended his brother in a different case. A wave of racial tension hits the town, with its citizens taking sides, the black community organizing marches and the Ku-Klux-Klan ...

• Word Count: 4938
• Approx Pages: 20
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate