In the years following Reconstruction, the remnants of a bitterly broken south left hatred to take root among the attempts to fill social and political gaps between black and white Americans. As the North progressed economically, black codes and laws in the South stacked the odds against black Americans. In The Piano Lesson, August Wilson brings to focus the resulting hardships of African Americans and their responses to these hostilities through characters Boy Willie, his uncle Doaker and his friend Lyman through their personal experiences and struggle for opportunity. From Post-Reconstruction to the 1930’s, August Wilson’s play, The Piano Lesson, demonstrates a substantial lack of political and social progress through the convict lease system and African American acceptance of racism, despite attempts to improve their situation.
In the late nineteenth century, the introduction of the convict lease system by state governments marked a significant lack of political progress for African Americans due to rampant corruption. In The Piano Lesson, when Lymon is arrested for vagrancy, Mr. Stovall, pays his prison fees so that he must “work for him to pay him back his hundred dollars” despite the fact that Lymon would “rather take [his] …show more content…
The core ideology of racism rooted itself among the foundation of these systems, with the sole purpose of destroying black people economically, politically and socially. The repercussions of these attacks shattered black confidence in their culture and demonstrated that those who persecuted black Americans suffered little consequences, illustrating lack of social and political progress. Proving, perhaps, the unfulfilled promises of Reconstruction as empty
In the late nineteenth century, the introduction of the convict lease system by state governments marked a significant lack of political progress for African Americans due to rampant corruption. In The Piano Lesson, when Lymon is arrested for vagrancy, Mr. Stovall, pays his prison fees so that he must “work for him to pay him back his hundred dollars” despite the fact that Lymon would “rather take [his] …show more content…
The core ideology of racism rooted itself among the foundation of these systems, with the sole purpose of destroying black people economically, politically and socially. The repercussions of these attacks shattered black confidence in their culture and demonstrated that those who persecuted black Americans suffered little consequences, illustrating lack of social and political progress. Proving, perhaps, the unfulfilled promises of Reconstruction as empty