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History of African American Literature

Pre-1800s

Pre-1800s: West African Storytelling and the Slave Trade

In West Africa, travelling poets and storytellers called griots helped maintain oral histories of tribes and villages. These stories were accompanied by music and dance to help people remember them. When West Africans entered the slave trade, they were not allowed to practice their motherland traditions, so oral storytelling became a main form of expression.

1830s

1830s: Salvery and The Underground Railroad

African American slaves often told stories through song while working in order to keep up motivation and to pass the time. At this time, music was also used to express solidarity and unity during celebrations. Harriet Tubman and other slaves also used song and storytelling as code to lead people to freedom using The Underground Railroad. These songs often used biblical references asa part of the code. Example: "being bound for the land of Canaan" could mean "ready to go to heaven," but it was also code for "ready to go to Canada"

1845

1845: Frederick Douglas

As the abolishionist movement gained momentum, stories aout slaves and their struggles came into the American mainstream. A major work at this time was Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas. This memoir deals with a man being born into slavery and managing to escape to freedom. This story had a major impact on the abolishinist movement.

Early 1900s

Early 1900s: Reconstruction and Jim Crow

In the late 1800s, the Civil War had passed, abolishing slavery in the US. This wasa time when America was reconstructing its national identity and social structures.

Not soon after this, though, came the era of Jim Crow in which states could create legal segregation between people of other races. During this time, writers such as WEB DuBois came into light addressing the lack of access to education and social mobility for people of color.

1910s-1920s

1910s-1920s: The Harlem Renaissance

Starting in 1910, there was a major movement of African American people from the south to the urban north, specifically the Northeast. This movement is now called The Great Migration.

There was a major movememnt of black people to New York's Harlem neighborhood, which spurred an era of musical, literary, and poetic boom now called The Harlem Renaissance. Writers such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston are just a few of the notable names that came out of this era.

1940s-1980s

1940s-1980s: Civil Rights and Post-Modernism

During the late 40s and leading all the way into the ladder half of the 20th century, fiction surrounding the ideas of the black experience became popular. Writers such as Alice Walker (The Color Purple) and Toni Morrison (Beloved) come to be some of the most influential writers of the time. The texts written at this time by this group of people often addressed the modern and the historical plights of African Americans.

In 1959, the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry became the first Broadway play to be written by a black woman in the US. The play deals with the idea of economic and social mobility of people of color during the civil rights movement in the US. The play went on to have 500 shows and win numerous awards.

Now

Modern-Day: Black Voices in Literature

As we get into the more modern history of literature of people of color in the US, we see an amazing trend of these stories coming more and more into the public eye. In the late 2010s and early 2020s, the most popular YA novels were written about the experience of people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, and other diverse populations in our country.

Authors of this era include Jacqueline Woodson (Brown Girl Dreaming), Amanda Gorman (National Poet laureate), Elizabeth Acevedo (The Poet X), Angie Thomas (The Hate U Give), and Jason Reynolds (Long Way Down) to name a few.

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