In The Little Black Boy, William Blake confronts this issue of racial bias between white and black people through the voice of a young, black boy. ... From the opening stanza, the Little Black Boy calls for knowledge of God's purpose when creating people whose skin is black and it presents the struggles against religious perception here in the humanly world. ... " Because white is the symbol of purity and innocence, the boy's statement is immediately addresses the racial indifference and inserts the boy's desire to be white. The boy acknowledges that because he was born bla...

• Word Count: 876
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The story has many symbols throughout that relate to the moral in many different ways. ... The author uses the blonde white woman, a rug, constant lies by the white man, and other symbols to show the various hardships that the narrator must endure, in his quest to deliver his speech, and all are representative of the many hardships that blacks went through and go through now in a fight for equality. ... This is symbolic of the black race" fight for equality and how uneducated or inexperienced blacks are easily misled by white people. ... The rug is another important symbol in the story. ......

• Word Count: 1103
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Inside the black race dwells an unspoken division as well. Lighter-skinned blacks in this story act superior to darker-skinned blacks. ... The river discussed at the beginning of the story is a symbol of the human spirit. ... Another important symbol in the story is the black stallion. ... A third and less apparent symbol in this story is a flint used by a young boy named Ned. ...

• Word Count: 1101
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

The economic conditions of the time made it hard for black men to earn respect. Dave's black tenant family works for a white landowner, Mr. ... Wright clearly develops the gun as a masculine, sexual symbol which will substitute for Dave's and his father's appropriated "manhood," which is a metaphor for economic security and self-sufficiency. ... He asks Joe, the white store manager, if he can borrow the Sears catalogue, the symbol of Hawkins's control over the commodities available to his tenants. ... The story ends with a kindly white man being cheated out of $50 and Dave,...

• Word Count: 973
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

In the novel, The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, the evils inflicted upon blacks by a white society indoctrinated by the inherent beauty of whiteness and ugliness of blackness are thoroughly depicted. ... Pecola's individuality is her ugliness, more important though, Pecola believes the only way for her individuality to be possessed by beauty is for her to become white, or own a symbol of whiteness "like blue eyes. ... Pecola's constant desire for blue eyes is an indication that images of white perfection and beauty are important to her because she feels that it she possesses on...

• Word Count: 1667
• Approx Pages: 7

Pecola's individuality is her ugliness, more important though, Pecola believes the only way for her individuality to be possessed by beauty is for her to become white, or own a symbol of whiteness-like blue eyes. ... Pecola's constant desire for blue eyes is an indication that images of white perfection and beauty are important to her because she feels that it she possesses one symbol of whiteness she will never again be subjected to the harsh realities of discrimination. ... One afternoon while Pecola is playing in the playground a boy named Junior invites her into his house. ... ...

• Word Count: 1667
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

The text exhibits interesting clues such as word choice, tone and mood, reappearing symbols and references that enrich the story and intensify its underlining message. ... She no doubt saw mixed ancestry in the black communities and realized the cause of it. ... This would also mean certain social destruction for Desiree having given birth to a black child. ... One of La Blanche's quadroon boys was near the baby when Desiree noticed the resemblance of the skin color between the boy and her baby. ... The quadroon boy is one quarter Negro ancestry and so his mother La Blanch is also of mixe...

• Word Count: 1926
• Approx Pages: 8

Washington The first chapters of the book describe the narrator as an innocent and naive boy attending a black college in the South. ... Even if that means denying his own black identity. ... After visiting Emerson he finds out about the true content of the letters, given to him by Bledsoe in order to help him getting a job, as they basically contain the following message: "Keep this nigger boy running" (208). ... " (215) the narrator expresses his erupted identification with the black race of the South. ... And "as he moves from innocence to awareness, the narrator must c...

• Word Count: 2972
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography

He was neither entirely black nor white; his mother told him to not associate with outsiders. ... He thinks about this a bit more and assumes that maybe God likes black people better, hence having his mother cry at Church. He then asks whether God was black or white. ... The bicycle is a symbol, representing Ruth McBride's outlet of being able to cope with her second husband's death by having it become an escape from reality, and yet negotiating what her reality has become as well. ... During this time, he felt the pain of isolation so acutely that he would get angry at 'the bo...

• Word Count: 1571
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

He's 37 now, but his music first hit at a time when the music industry was dominated by the first wave of millennial glitz and glamour: boy bands, meaningless rap lyrics, and bling. ... His music has done what no others have; he built an unbreakable bond between whites and blacks. ... This was never the case with any black rapper representing the art form and culture to white crowds, certainly not one like Tupac, who was at one point the black hip-hop artist of the counter-culture. ... He knows that as a white kid growing up with black heroes, black friends, and in a predominantly black...

• Word Count: 1858
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

He is still regarded mainly as the black leader of a movement for black equality. ... After his assassination in 1968, King became a symbol of protest in the struggle for racial justice. ... A 14-year-old black boy like Emmett Till could be hunted down and murdered by a Mississippi gang simply because he had supposedly made suggestive remarks to white woman. ... KKK members burned blacks' homes and churches, and even hanged blacks simply for "talking back- to whites. ... Bus Boycott Montgomery's black community had long-standing grievances about the mistreatment of blacks on ci...

• Word Count: 3558
• Approx Pages: 14
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

As the white men on the steamboat grab their guns and return fire, Kurtz' black helmsman continues to try to steer the boat through shallow, treacherous water. ... Marlow wonders if the trip to hear Kurtz is worth the life of the black helmsman-a notion that would have been unthinkable to him had he not made this journey into the "heart of darkness." ... An ethereal black woman emerges from the crowd and stands firm while the others scatter after the cr! ...

• Word Count: 4309
• Approx Pages: 17
• Grade Level: High School

In these years Mark Twain was still a boy. ... Although she is black one doesn't notice it at first site because only one-sixteenth of her is of black. ... Then that home was complete, and its contentment and peace were made manifest to the world by this symbol, whose testimony is infallible - (5) Only seemingly harmless and peaceful though, because Dawson's Landing was a slaveholding town inhabited by townsmen of Virginian ancestry, and by slaves. ... Only one sixteenth of her was black, and that sixteenth did not show. ... In creating a situation in which a white child get...

• Word Count: 3258
• Approx Pages: 13
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

I read Black Boy in high school and was fascinated at how new and alien the books perspective was, and wished that I could get a deeper understanding of the theme. ... Examines the importance of Native Son in the time period in which it was released, as an attack on both the whites and blacks. ... Explains that the initial reaction to the book Native Son is rejection on the grounds that it is unrealistic, and that Bigger Thomas is a flat character incapable of being a symbol to the black people. ... The representation of Bigger as the whole of the black people is still rejected by Bradley. ...

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