Alaina B - African American Literary Timeline (1940-1980) lyrics

In the decades following World War II, African Americans continued their search for identity, although the struggle had evolved. While they still suffered the effects of institutionalized racism, many found themselves in better positions to care about forms of self-expression. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, once a person fulfills those needs at the bottom of the triangle, they can begin to devote themselves to concerns of a higher order, including creativity (fashion, physical appearance, art) and questions of morality. They could also, for example, begin to critically examine the connections between their heritage and present identities—a journey reflected by numerous works of this time period. The theme of self-exploration/identity construction characterizes African American literature from the 1940s to 1980s, with particular regard to issues of a**imilation (adherence to or rejection of) and integration into a white-dominated American society. 1940: Richard Wright publishes Native Son, his first novel Excerpt from “Everybody's Protest Novel,” by James Baldwin (1949) For Bigger's tragedy is not that he is cold or black or hungry, not even that he is American, black; but that he has accepted a theology that denies him life, that he admits the possibility of his being sub-human and feels constrained, therefore, to battle for his humanity according to those brutal criteria bequeathed him at his birth. But our humanity is our burden, our life; we need not battle for it; we need only to do what is infinitely more difficult—that is, accept it. The failure of the protest novel lies in its rejection of life, the human being, the denial of his beauty, dread, power, in its insistence that it is his categorization alone which is real and which cannot be transcended. 1952: Ralph Ellison publishes Invisible Man Excerpt from Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1952) Grandfather had been a quiet old man who never made any trouble, yet on his d**hbed he had called himself a traitor and a spy, and he had spoken of his meekness as a dangerous activity. It became a constant puzzle which lay unanswered in the back of my mind. And whenever things went well for me I remembered my grandfather and felt guilty and uncomfortable. It was as though I was carrying out his advice in spite of myself. And to make it worse, everyone loved me for it. I was praised by the most lily-white men of the town. I was considered an example of desirable conduct—just as my grandfather had been. And what puzzled me was that the old man had defined it as treachery. 1955: Alice Childress' first play Trouble in Mind debuts at The Greenwich Mews Theatre in New York City Excerpt from Trouble in Mind by Alice Childress (1959) MANNERS: I'm going to tell you something you've never known before now. Remember the last picture we made together? You played a character part. I had to sweat blood, stayed up all night with the writers….getting then to change a stereotype, mammy role into something decent for you… WILETTA: And when you got through, dammit, it was still a mammy part! 1959: Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun debuts on Broadway Excerpts from A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (1959) MAMA [to BENEATHA]: Why you got to flit so from one thing to another, baby? BENEATHA [sharply]: I just want to learn to play the guitar. Is there anything wrong with that? MAMA: Ain't nobody trying to stop you, I just wonders sometimes why you has to flit so from one thing to another all the time. You ain't never done nothing with all that camera equipment you brought home— BENEATHA: I don' flit! I—I experiment with different forms of expression— RUTH: Like riding a horse? BENEATHA: —People have to express themselves one way or another. MAMA: What is it you want to express? BENEATHA [angrily]: Me! [MAMA and RUTH look at each other and burst into raucous laughter.] Don't worry—I don't expect you to understand. ASAGAI [Coming to her at the mirror]: I shall have to teach you how to drape it properly. [He flings the material about her for the moment and stands back to look at her.] Ah —Oh-pay-gay-day, oh-gbah-mu-shay. [A Yoruba exclamation for admiration.] You wear it well...very well...mutilated hair and all. BENEATHA [Turning suddenly]: My hair—what's wrong with my hair? ASAGAI [Shrugging]: Were you born with it like that? BENEATHA [Reaching up to touch it]: No. . . of course not. [She looks back to the mirror, disturbed.] ASAGAI [Smiling]: How then? BENEATHA: You know perfectly well how...crinkly as yours...that's how. ASAGAI: And is it ugly to you that way? BENEATHA [Quickly]: Oh no—not ugly... [more slowly, apologetically] But it's so hard to manage when it's well—raw. ASAGAI: And so to accommodate that—you mutilate it every week? BENEATHA: It's not mutilation! ASAGAI [Laughing aloud at her seriousness]: Oh . . . please! I am only teasing you because you are so very serious about these things. [He stands back from her and folds his arms across his chest as he watches her pulling at her hair and frowning in the mirror.] Do you remember the first time you met me at school? . . . [He laughs.] You came up to me and you said—and I thought you were the most serious little thing I had ever seen—you said: [He imitates her.] "Mr Asagai— I want very much to talk with you. About Africa. You see, Mr. Asagai, I am looking for my identity!” [He laughs.] 1964: Following the a**a**ination of Malcolm X, Amiri Baraka moves to Harlem and begins the Black Arts Movement Excerpt from Dutchman by Amiri Baraka (1964) LULA: Clay! Clay! You middle-cla** black ba*tard. Forget your social-working mother for a few seconds and let's knock stomachs. Clay, you liver-lipped white man. You would-be Christian. You ain't no n******g, you're just a dirty white man. Get up, Clay. Dance with me, Clay. CLAY: If I'm a middle-cla** fake white man . . . let me be. And let me be in the way I want. [Through his teeth] I'll rip your lousy breasts off! Let me be who I feel like being. Uncle Tom. Thomas. Whoever. It's none of your business. You don't know anything except what's there for you to see. An act. Lies. Device. Not the pure of heart, the pumping black heart. You don't ever know that. And I sit here, in this bu*toned-up suit, to keep myself from cutting all your throats. I mean wantonly. 1971: In the case of Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, the United States Supreme Court upheld the use of busing in order to racially desegregate schools Excerpt from " Recitatif" by Toni Morrison (1983) "What are you doing?" "Picketing. What's it look like?" "What for?" "What do you mean, 'What for?' They want to take my kids and send them out of the neighborhood. They don't want to go." "So what if they go to another school? My boy's being bussed too, and I don't mind. Why should you?" "It's not about us, Twyla. Me and you. It's about our kids." "What's more us than that?" "Well, it is a free country." "Not yet, but it will be." "What the hell does that mean? I'm not doing anything to you." "You really think that?" "I know it." "I wonder what made me think you were different." "I wonder what made me think you were different." 1968: Katiti Kironde became the first black woman to appear on the cover of a major American fashion magazine (Glamour) Excerpt from “For Sistuhs Wearin' Straight Hair” by Carolyn M. Rodgers (1969) me? i never could keep my edges and the kitchen straight even after supercool / straighterPerm had burned whiteness onto my scalp 1966: The “Black Power” concept is adopted by CORE and SNCC Excerpts from “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker (1973) Dee next. A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud it hurts my eyes. There are yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun. I feel my whole face warming from the heat waves it throws out. Earrings gold, too, and hanging down to her shoulders. Bracelets dangling and making noises when she moves her arm up to shake the folds of the dress out of her armpits. The dress is loose and flows, and as she walks closer, I like it. I hear Maggie go "Uhnnnh" again. It is her sister's hair. It stands straight up like the wool on a sheep. It is black as night and around the edges are two long pigtails that rope about like small lizards disappearing behind her ears. "Well," I say. "Dee." "No, Mama," she says. "Not 'Dee,' Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!" "What happened to 'Dee'?" I wanted to know. "She's dead," Wangero said. "I couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me." "Maggie can't appreciate these quilts!" she said. "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use."