After freedom from slavery African Americans in Southern states still faced inequality, segregation and oppression, including violence. “Jim Crow” laws banned them from cla**rooms, bathrooms and trains. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine that formed the basis for discrimination, drawing national and international attention to the struggle of Blacks. Civil rights activists used nonviolent protest and civil disobedience to bring about change, and the federal government made legislative headway with initiatives such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Many leaders from within the African American community and beyond rose to prominence including Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X. The Civil Rights Era lasted from 1940 to 1980 and towards the end began the rise of the Black Power Movement.
1941- Melvin B. Tolson publishes Dark Symphony
"They tell us to forget
The Golgotha we tread. . .
We show are scourged with hate,
A price upon our head.
They who have shackled us
Require of us a song,
They who have wasted us
Bid us condone the wrong." -Melvin B. Tolson "Dark Symphony"(1941)
1942 - Margaret Walker published her Poem, "For My People"
"For my people everywhere singing their slave songs
repeatedly: their dirges and their ditties and their blues
and jubilees, praying their prayers nightly to an
unknown god, bending their knees humbly to an
unseen power"-Margaret Walker-"For My People"(1942)
1952 - Ralph Ellison writes Invisible Man
"The point now is that I found a home--or a hole in the ground, as you will. Now don't jump to the conclusion that because I call my home a "hole" it is damp and cold like a grave; there are cold holes and warm holes. Mine is a warm hole."-Ralph Ellison -"Invisible Man"
1963-March on Washington D.C.
“The revolution is at hand, and we must free ourselves of the chains of political and economic slavery. The non-violent revolution is saying, “We will not wait for the courts to act, for we have been waiting for hundreds of years. We will not wait for the President, the Justice Department, nor Congress, but we will take matters into our own hands and create a source of power, outside any national structure that could and would a**ure us a victory.” - John Lewis, "We Must Free Ourselves"
1964- Civil Rights Act of 1964
“Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American. Why, if birth made you American, you wouldn't need any legislation; you wouldn't need any amendments to the Constitution; you wouldn't be faced with civil-rights filibustering in Washington, D.C., right now. They don't have to pa** civil-rights legislation to make a Polack an American.”-Excerpt from Malcolm X- Ballad or the Bullet
1966-The birth of the Black Panther Party
“We are oppressed as a group because we are black, not because we are lazy, not because we're apathetic, not because we're stupid, not because we smell, not because we eat watermelon and have good rhythm. We are oppressed because we are black."-Stokley Carmichael
1969- Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are k**ed by Cops
“We want poems
like fists beating n******gs out of Jocks
or dagger poems in the slimy bellies
of the owner-j**s. Black poems to
smear on girdlemamma mulatto b**hes
whose brains are red jelly stuck
between 'lizabeth taylor's toes.”-Amiri Baraka
1978- Louis Farrakhan leaves Al-Islam and becomes the leader of the Nation of Islam.
"Poems are bullsh** unless they are
teeth or trees or lemons piled
on a step. Or black ladies dying
of men leaving nickel hearts
beating them down. f** poems
and they are useful, wd they shoot
come at you, love what you are,
breathe like wrestlers, or shudder
strangely after pissing."-Amiri Baraka "Black Art"