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James Baldwin was born and raised in Harlem, which is where “Sonny’s Blues” is set. The story illustrates the limited opportunities for black people in the urban north but also beautifully represents music as a means by which suffering can be endured and--for a moment--transcended.

Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, 1940-1960

Lorraine Hansberry was the second generation in a migrant family that had moved from the south. She was born on the South Side of Chicago in 1930.

In its dramatization of deferred dreams that threaten to explode, A Raisin in the Sun has been likened to Richard Wright’s Native Son in setting, content, and significance to their respective genres. The play uses what Hansberry called “genuine realism,” which she distinguished from naturalism:

Naturalism tends to take the world as it is and say: this is what it is, this is how it happens, it is “true” because we see it every day in life that way—you know you simply photograph the garbage can. But in realism—I think the artist who is creating the realistic work imposes on it not only what is but what is possible…because that is part of reality too.

Ann Petry was born in Connecticut in 1911 and was the fourth generation of New Englanders. “Like a Winding Sheet” was her second story published in the Crisis, the magazine founded by Du Bois. The story is set in the urban north and reveals the psychological consequences of economic and racial oppression.

Literature Since 1975

Ernest Gaines, Octavia Butler, Alice Walker, Tom Williams, Walter Mosley

Critical trends that distinguished African American literature during the contemporary period are the acknowledgment of the multiplicity of African American identities; a renewed interest in history, as writers imagine the psychological and spiritual lives of African Americans during slavery and segregation; the emergence of a community of black women writing; a continuing exploration of music and other forms of vernacular culture as springboards for literary innovation and theoretical analysis; and the influence of African American literary scholarship.

Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, 1940-1960

Black Arts Era 1960-1975

The poets we read represent the use of a black aesthetic (vernacular—language of people, musical rhythms, performance based). This is poetry for and about people (masses of people, not the social or academic elite).

• Self-determination—define self, art, experience, politics, culture rather than be defined by the dominant culture

• Decolonize the mind—reject ideas and received knowledge based on white supremacy

• Black nationalist and separatist

• Black is beautiful aesthetic: (afros, African clothing, African names)

• Black power—aim for political and economic power

• Ethnically and politically committed literary artist—“art speaks directly to the needs and aspirations of black America” (Larry Neal 1837).

• The primary function of black art is social progress.

• Rejection of the apolitical white aesthetic.

Richard Wright: Wright is part of the Great Migration of black people who left the rural south for the urban north. His work exposes the brutality of the Jim Crow system in the south and the racism in the north. Wright's work falls under the category of naturalism, which examines how oppressive social conditions are the dominant force in shaping lives.

Ralph Ellison: Ellison was raised in Oklahoma, after his parents had migrated to the west rather than the north. Ellison's work is generally classified as modernist and explores how African Americans have created their own traditions and rituals to form a cohesive and complex culture that is the source of their identity.

The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, 2nd edition. Eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay, 2004.

Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) was kidnapped from his African homeland when he was 11. He was originally brought to the American colonies but soon sold to an English sea captain. His life at sea gave him advantages that other slaves did not have: literacy, mathematics, navigation. His narrative was written in support of the abolition movement of the 18th century in Britain and was instrumental in outlawing the slave trade. The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa the African was published in 1789, the end of the eighteenth century. We will read the first two chapters from his narrative.

Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) offers a useful complement to Equiano by detailing the female slave experience as well as the American and 19th century rather than European 18th century. The female slave narrative includes the threat of sexual exploitation as well as themes focused on children and family. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was written in support of the 19th century abolition activism in the United States. We will read selected chapters from her narrative. Her narrative was published in 1861.

African American Literature

Kindred, Octavia Butler

Beacon Press, 1979

Slave Narratives

Our survey of African American literature focuses on themes of freedom, justice, and identity. We begin by exploring the roots of the African presence in America and conclude with work by contemporary African American writers.

African American literature essentially begins with the slave experience as described by people who escaped from slavery and wrote about their experiences in order to generate support for the abolition of slavery by describing the true nature of the institution.

Don’t Start Me Talkin’, Tom Williams Curbside Splendor Publishing, 2014

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