African American History:the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Power Era - Research Paper Example

? African American History: The Harlem Renaissance and the Black Power Era Introduction The history of African Americans is one that is worth pursuing because it is full of emotions and it is a journey of civilisation and humanity. In the North American continent, the history of the African American people can be seen as having started in early 15th century, and on the wrong foot. People of African descent were kept as slaves by white people in the United States and lived a life of slavery with neither civil nor political rights. Even basic human rights were denied to most of them who were kept in deplorable conditions, working many hours a day without pay. After the civil war during Abraham Lincoln’s administration, slavery was abolished in the United States (Zieger, 2007). However, even after the end of the civil war in 1865, the woes of the African Americans did not end immediately. They still did not have civil or political rights and life was just too difficult for most of them. Most of them, especially those in the southern parts of United States were still living under slavery conditions in extreme poverty. As Phelan (2009) says in his response to Zieger’s book, not even non racial unionization of back labour would help in solving this problem especially due to the differences in ethnic densities in the labour unions. Even those who managed to acquire some land for farming were never able to get the descent life that the average white people were living. In most northern parts of the United States however, there was hope for these poor African Americans. In New York for example, most of these African Americans especially those who had managed to get some education, were able to live much better lives. The Harlem area in New York City was a haven for black people and by early 20th century, it attracted a black middle class. This led to the famous Harlem Renaissance which apart from being concentrated in the New York Harlem area, was also felt elsewhere around the world such as by French Speaking North Africans especially those who lived in France. The fifteenth amendment The fifteenth amendment of the American constitution in 1870 was another important milestone in the history of African American people. This amendment gave people of African ethnicity to vote and therefore restored the civil and political power to them. As it was to be, this as a very big milestone and paved way for more development with regard to the status of the African American people (Scheper, 2008). The same year, Hiram Revels was elected to the Mississippi senate. In 1891 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded and prominent African American leader belonged to the group. According to Woodard (1999), Like the establishment of universal voting rights in the earlier years, the founding of this associating also gave black people more strength and power to move on with the struggle for complete independence. The Harlem Renaissance Apart from the American civil war which brought the dawn for the emancipation of black people in the United States, the Harlem Renaissance was one of the major events which reshaped the history of African Americans and changed it for good. During the Harlem Renaissance, a number of important things happened. The first was the development of the black middle class in the northern parts of the United States of America and especially the New York region. Harlem in New York City was the centrepiece of this new black movement. The Harlem Renaissance was as much a rebirth of people from the African American ethnic group as it was a reassertion of their intellectual abilities. The Renaissance saw numerous of African American intellectuals writing a lot of books about their experiences and other important issues. Its peak is believed to have been between early 1920s and 1929, the year of the famous collapse of the stock market which also marked the start of the great economic depression in the United States. However, although the peak of the Harlem Renaissance was in the 1920s decade, its origin was in a much earlier date, starting as early as 1880s, only a few years after the end of the civil war. The Harlem Renaissance was fuelled by two major factors which were eminent at the time. To begin with, there was the deeply conservative south which kept the black people feeling the urge to flee to the northern areas where they were not as segregated as the south. After the civil war, democrats in the southern parts of the United States felt the urge to keep the status quo in terms of the segregation and in terms of keeping white people being superior to the African American people. Because of this, white democrats tried as much as possible to make sure that although they could no longer legally keep slaves, the African American people were kept in situations which were as good as slavery or even worse. Keeping the African American people economically disempowered was a strategy to keep them from gaining any freedoms and eventually coming to the same level as the white people. While the southern democrats were busy trying to keep the status quo of the salve-master relationship between the whites and the African Americans, the northern liberals were less concerned about this and were willing to accept black people as equal humans. This created an attraction fielded like a magnetic field which attracted the blacks to the northern United States where there was promise of a better life, economically, politically and socially. This flow of black population from the segregated southern parts of the United States can be seen in Nella Larsen’s novel through her main protagonist, Helga Crane, in her novel, Quicksand (Scheper, 2008). However, this attraction was not the only factor which fuelled the Harlem Renaissance. On arriving in New York, apart from being economically better off, most of these African American intellectuals found a publishing industry which was thirsty for literature from African American authors. Most of the white publishers in the New York region were very eager to support African American writers and this came handy for the African American intellectuals since there were no black publishers to support them. The demand of African American literature had increased both among the liberal white community as well as the ever increasing African American middle class and this demand had to be met. This created a healthy collaboration between African American writers and white publishers. At the same time, the economy had been doing well immediately after the First World War had ended in 1918 and just before the catastrophic collapse of the United States stock market in 1929. These glorious decade in the United States, made possible by the numerous technological advances which had been achieved in the attempt to get technology for the First World War, led to an economic boom of the time. The First World War soldiers who had just returned from war were also well compensated by the government and were making numerous investments such as in buying homes. This led to the economy booming and this was a time good enough for an industry such as the publishing industry to thrive. The Harlem Renaissance era is known most for the massive African American literature it produced and this can be explained by this economic phenomenon which was happening after the First World War. While the Harlem Renaissance era is seen to have ended after the collapse of the US stock market and further killed by the elongated economic depression that followed for almost five years, its results in the shaping of African American history in the United States can be felt up to today. For instance, it gave birth to the black civil rights activism of the mid 20th century where famous civil rights activists such as the famous Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. This era of civil rights activism which lasted until the 1970s to give way to the current ear called the modern era in African American history, was also dubbed as the Black Power movement era. During this time, Africa American activists and leaders started not only looking at African American people as equal to the white people but also as better than white people (Thomas & Franklin, 2001). This is what came to be known as Black Supremacy and which was supported to by numerous African American leaders. Malcolm X is best known to have been one of the most popular and influential black supremacy ambassador. There were a number of reasons why African American leaders started to see themselves as supreme to the white people and why they pushed for this kind of view, that is, Black Power. According to Mayes (2009) in the post black power era, new holidays which were meant to give more meaning to the African American identity were created. First, as discussed above, the Harlem Renaissance era had proven that black people had potential, politically, economically and socially. The numerous publications of literature by the African American authors reignited the hope and the audacity of the black people. They saw themselves as ever more powerful and capable. Most literature by African American authors was made of stories of perseverance, resilience and endurance that made them to overcome the many challenges thrown at them. These stories were a basis for most African Americans to see themselves are superior and more resilient than the white people who always operated behind the security of the many provisions they had. The Black power movement era was fuelled by this belief that people of African American descent were more power and more resilient (Mccartney, 1993). Apart from making the African American to feel more powerful than the white people who had been their masters for nearly four hundred years, the Black Power movement also created solidarity and a sense of purpose for many African American people. This was an era of civil rights activism and it was not easy for most of the African American people especially with famous assassinations and persecutions such as the Martin Luther King Junior and Malcolm X assassinations. The African American people needed something to hold them together in order to keep the hope going. It is good to note that at this time, despite the fact that over a hundred years had passed since the abolition of slavery, many African American people especially those who lived in the southern parts of the United States were not able to participate in political processes such as voting, let alone running for political offices. They were still treated differently even at official levels. Schools, churches and public recreational facilities were highly segregated in most if not all states and African American people would not be able to access the same facilities as the white people (Sadler, 2009). 1963, only two years to the hundredth anniversary of the abolition of salve, Martin Luther king was arrests and detained in Birmingham Jail in New York. This as Mayes (2009) says was a big and important millstone for black history as it was to reignite the push for black people to have complete civil rights. While detained at the Birmingham jail, Luther wrote the Letter from Birmingham Jail which urged for black people to refrain form violent while pushing for civil rights. After the arrest of Martin Luther in 1963, the civil rights act which prohibited any form of discrimination was put to law (Zieger, 2007).. This act prohibited any discrimination based on race, color, ethnicity or national origin. In 1965, the assassination of Malcolm X was to change the course of the African American history. Malcolm’s assassination was a boost to the need for more civil rights. This was because Malcolm was very famous and popular and was seen as the beacon f hope by many African Americans. Conclusion African Americans still lived in fear and their children could not have the same opportunities as the white children. Worse than all however, they lived under intimidation. To help in curbing this fear among the African Americans of the time, the Black Power movement was necessary as a way to encourage the people to be more resilient and to demand their rights despite the intimidations (Woodard, 1999). Luther King Junior wrote his famous letter from Birmingham Jail while in the New York maximum security prison. Malcolm also wrote his famous books while in prison. These were like statements to the white folks that there would be nothing which would crush the highly resilient African American spirit and that nothing would stop the imminent change which was about to happen (Ogbar, 2005). Black Power was a slogan which was used by African Americans to indicate that nothing would stop them from continuing to ask for what was rightfully theirs. References Mayes, K. (2009). Kwanzaa: Black Power and the Making of the African-American Black Holiday Tradition. New York City, NY: Taylor & Francis. Mccartney, J. (1993). Black Power Ideologies: An Essay in African American Political Thought. Philadelphia, PN: Temple University Press. Ogbar, J. (2005). Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity Black Power Reconfiguring American Political History. New York City: JHU Press. Phelan, C. (February 2009). Labor History symposium: Robert H. Zieger, For Jobs and Freedom. Labor History 50,( 1),59–83. Sadler, J. (2009). African American History: An Introduction. Bern: Peter Lang. Scheper, J. (2008). The New Negro Fianeuse in Nella Larsen's Quicksand. African American Review . 2, (3), 679-695. Thomas, C.B. & Franklin, V.P. (2001). Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-black Power Movement. New York City, NY: NYU Press. Woodard, K. (1999). A Nation Within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics. Chapel Hill, NC: Univ of North Carolina Press. Zieger, R. (2007). For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America Since 1865 Civil Rights and the Struggle for Black Equality in the Twentieth Century Series. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. Read More