Persuasive Essay
Amber
4 April 2012
The Double Edged Sword of African American Literature
Throughout history, little by little our great country has progressed, from a nation that was barely getting on its own feat in the early 1800’s to legalizing the rights of every American citizen within the United States during the1960’s. But what about the African Americans? Anyone who is familiar with our American culture and History can tell you that African Americans have played a major role in our histories movements for a better tomorrow. For example As African Americans ' place in American society has changed over the centuries, so, has the focus of African-American literature. Before the American Civil War, the literature primarily consisted of memoirs by people who had escaped from slavery; the genre of slave narratives included accounts of life under slavery and the path of justice and redemption to freedom. At the turn of the 20th century, non-fiction works by authors debated whether to confront or appease racist attitudes in the United States. During the American Civil Rights movement, authors wrote about issues of racial segregation and Black Nationalism. Today, African-American literature has become accepted as an essential part of America however like a double edge sword African American literature brought in good aspects as well as of the much bad.
One of the greatest influences that took place in our American History that even continues to affects us today, an event that resulted into a bloody conflict that would tear the nation apart, the civil war cemeteries and battle fields today are grave reminders of the lives that have been ended and shattered by the brutality of the war. The North’s resistance to slavery and the south’s insistence on the states’ rights to slavery would make an upturn shift from romanticism to realism to the cultural and social forces affecting the nation.
“Walt Whitman claimed that “the United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem”
4 April 2012
The Double Edged Sword of African American Literature
Throughout history, little by little our great country has progressed, from a nation that was barely getting on its own feat in the early 1800’s to legalizing the rights of every American citizen within the United States during the1960’s. But what about the African Americans? Anyone who is familiar with our American culture and History can tell you that African Americans have played a major role in our histories movements for a better tomorrow. For example As African Americans ' place in American society has changed over the centuries, so, has the focus of African-American literature. Before the American Civil War, the literature primarily consisted of memoirs by people who had escaped from slavery; the genre of slave narratives included accounts of life under slavery and the path of justice and redemption to freedom. At the turn of the 20th century, non-fiction works by authors debated whether to confront or appease racist attitudes in the United States. During the American Civil Rights movement, authors wrote about issues of racial segregation and Black Nationalism. Today, African-American literature has become accepted as an essential part of America however like a double edge sword African American literature brought in good aspects as well as of the much bad.
One of the greatest influences that took place in our American History that even continues to affects us today, an event that resulted into a bloody conflict that would tear the nation apart, the civil war cemeteries and battle fields today are grave reminders of the lives that have been ended and shattered by the brutality of the war. The North’s resistance to slavery and the south’s insistence on the states’ rights to slavery would make an upturn shift from romanticism to realism to the cultural and social forces affecting the nation.
“Walt Whitman claimed that “the United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem”
Cited: Douglass, Fredrick “From My Bondage and My Freedom” American Literature. Ed. Jacob Lawrence. Hampton University Museum VA. 1917. 2000. Cascin tempera on gessoed hardboard. Douglass, Fredrick “resistance to Slavery” American Literature. Ed. J. Eastman Johnson. Brooklyn Museum of Art. New York. 1862. Kittredge, Walter C. “The Civil War: A Nation Divided”. American Literature. Ed. Rick Reeves. Brooklyn Museum of Art. New York. 1862. Trachtenberg, Jeffery A. “Why Book Industry See the World Split Still by Race”. Lili.org. wall street Journal-Eastern Edition, 6 December 2006, Vol. 248 issue 133, p Al-All, 2p. Web. 3 April. 2013 Tribune, McCarthy.” Don’t Rewrite Literature”