The Explorer By Gwendolyn Brooks Summary

In the mid twentieth century America went through a time of civil inequality. This inequality was aimed mostly towards the African Americans or blacks. There were boycotts, sit in’s, and protests left and right. One exemplary example of this was a woman by the name of Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white person. Another person who is recognized greatly is Martin Luther King Jr. He was a man of vision; his vision was a world in which blacks and whites can live together in peace without color coordinated water fountains and bathrooms. Henry David Thoreau once said, “The greatest country, the richest country, is not that which has the most capitalists, monopolists, immense grabbings, vast fortunes, with its sad, sad soil of extreme, degrading, damning poverty, but the land in which there are the most homesteads, freeholds — where wealth does not show such contrasts high and low, where all men have enough — a modest living— and no man is made possessor beyond the sane and beautiful necessities.” Many authors also had their moment of fame during this time as well. The Explorer by Gwendolyn Brooks and Fredrick Douglas by Robert Hayden convey certain messages of African American struggles and also a universal human longing. To begin, The Explorer by Gwendolyn Brooks conveys a certain image of black suffrage. For example the twelfth line reads, “He feared most of all the choices, that cried to be taken.” This line specifically can be translated from the poem as a black man suffering to be able to do simple things. They don’t have the choice to go where they want and no matter how hard they try they cannot escape the segregation. Another line by Brooks states, “There were no bourns. There were no quiet rooms.” These lines speak volumes not only in the sense of suffrage, but in longing for the day when there no longer needs to be quiet safe rooms and no more boundaries. The speaker is interpreted as seeking refuge with everyone, being as they are all technically equal, but thus cannot because they ridicule and mistreat them. Furthermore, The Explorer by Brooks is a prime example of both aspects. Also in Robert Hayden’s Fredrick Douglas he talks about suffrage and human longingness. Fredrick Douglas was a leading abolitionist in the 1800’s. In all actuality there have been many pieces of literature written about this man. One line that speaks out is, “but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.” Another line is, “When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful, and terrible thing, needful to man as air,” These lines can be interpreted on the same wavelength; they …show more content…
Two different authors with their only similarity being the time they grew up in wrote such radical pieces that mean so much and beg for a change. This change that they want is very simple and practical. It can be as simple as taking down the sign that separates their seats and water. Nothing more than what most people had, and yet many opposed to give them that. Segregation was a dark and scary time for our country. Yet, it is still a problem in modern times about sixty years