African American Lives

The article, “Obama welcomes relatives of 1936 African-American Olympians,” by Stephen Whyno, discusses President Obama’s ceremony focused on recognizing the accomplishments of Jesse Owens, Ralph Metcalfe, and the other sixteen 1936 Black Olympiads whose feats were not fully recognized and appreciated at the time. During the ceremony, President Obama stated many times that they set the foundation for black rights and equality. Barack Obama praised the 1936 Olympians for making a statement in…

The Great Migration, or the migration of African Americans from 1915-1970 to the north, has many similarities and differences to the migration of the Jewish people out of German occupied land during World War II. Both migrations were a massive exodus from where these people were originally due to harsh circumstances, but the comparisons run much deeper than that. Both migrations were somewhat caused by the implementation of laws directed against a minority, which aimed to diminish rights.…

equality, he fought for african americans to have equal rights, and helped stop segregation. Dr. King has made multiple improvements to modern life. One of them was his help with racial equality. An example of this is the MontGomery Bus Boycott. The MontGomery Bus Boycott was when african americans refused to ride the buses. This went on for about a year before the Supreme Court ratified that segregation was unconstitutional and was banned on buses. From that day the african americans gained a…

white Christian Americans to African Americans, but shows a distaste for her own culture. She demonstrates no pride for her roots, but instead shows only thankfulness for her introduction to Christianity in the United States. She disregards the atrocities imposed upon her race, which could be because she had the privilege of being manumitted at a young age and given access to education. In this poem, Wheatley attempts to convince readers to place a gentler eye on African Americans because of…

Birmingham. The last part of the quotation tries to explain to the clergymen that African-Americans want to negotiate and talk to the white leaders rather than just having a battle of whose voice can be louder. Dr. King specifically tells the leaders that he completely agrees that there should be some negotiations going on instead of protests, it’s just that these leaders refuse to come to the table with the African-American community. Dr. King not only has to prove that he’s not an outsider,…

World War II (WWII) was by no means completely burden-free for any ethnic group that had existed prior to the inception of the war. In the United States alone, groups such as the Jewish, African Americans, Women, Japanese, and Native Americans had all fought for their own domestically respective issues. With the start of the war came significant population deficits, blatant and unprecedented racism, and common economical upheavals. These issues reiterated the hard truth that no party was…

police brutality and racism against African Americans. The key findings in my annotated bibliography were, (1) African Americans who have not violated any traffic laws are stopped and frisked by the police, (2) African Americans are ticketed by police more than whites, (3) African Americans are often handcuffed and humiliated by the police compared to others (4) In general African Americans have the fear of police at all times while driving, (5) African Americans are more often discriminated by…

During the late 1980’s African American cinema transformed by the two movies Krush Groove and Do The Right Thing. The directors chose to not only expose the experiences of some black Americans during the time, they also used music to enhance the scenes and express the message they wanted to share. Adding another element like music to the films created an atmosphere for the audience to capture their imaginations. The directors primarily capitalized on the newly fad of hip-hop by targeting the…

In the poem “If We Must Die” by Claude Mckay, he uses symbolism, and tone to develop his message that African Americans must have hope in order to accomplish equality because, they seek to abolish…

individuality. Claude McKay was a Jamaican-American author who supported the idea that African-Americans should rely on themselves to become self-governing. McKay's poem "If We Must Die" is composed by his well-known lines after riots in the summer of 1919 that left a significant number of black men, women, and children massacred out of racism. During the course of the poem, McKay states continually that blacks must be ready to die for their rights. The African-Americans know they will die,…