Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid (1984): American action film and television, involving martial artists as heroes, tended to be dominated by narratives revolving around Euro-American protagonists. ... In the intervening twenty years, American action film and television, involving martial artists as heroes, tended to be dominated by narratives revolving around Euro-American protagonists played by actors as diverse as Tom Laughlin as Billy Jack, Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid (1984), Steven Seagal in films like Above the Law (1988), Jean-Claude Van Damme in Bloodsport (1988) and Kickboxer (198...

• Word Count: 9463
• Approx Pages: 38
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

This produced copious perspirations so that the air became unfit for respiration from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died- - thus falling victims of the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers" (From The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa the African, London, 1789) In The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa the African the protagonist recounts the pain involved in entering this enormous ship, and how, gradually, the more the ship flew over ...

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

Reading African American literature ranging from spirituals and slave narratives, to works written during and after the Civil Rights Movement provides readers and scholars with a rare insight into the minds and lives of African Americans at that time. Much of African American literature is realistic in nature, meaning that it tends to be about their personal experiences, especially the later works; therefore, readers are able to experience firsthand the struggles that African American people faced on a daily basis. ... This idea of double-consciousness comes through in almost any African A...

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

However, these intersecting ideas and groups meant that The New Negro movement was not a cohesive one, but was loosely bound together with hopes for racial assertion and self-definition. ... Toomer continually struggled with his own identity 'I wrote a poem called "The First American", the idea of which was that here in America we are in the process of forming a new race, that I was one of the first conscious members of this race'.7 Cane however, was still marketed by Waldo Frank as 'a book about Negroes by a Negro'8 and this slogan appeared in the New York Times and New...

• Word Count: 3347
• Approx Pages: 13

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. Walker and Marshall write about an identity they have found with these women because of their exposure to the African culture. These women were searching for independence and freedom. Walker expresses independence as found in the creative spirit, and Marshall finds it through the spoken word. Walker...

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