Jesse Owens

Maya Angelou, a renowned American poet once said ‘We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated’. Being a poet of African descent, she was able to manifest this in her poems by making a connection to Africa and its history. Similarly, David Diop, a contemporary of Angelou was of African descent but he was born and raised in France. Even so, he spent a significant amount of time in West Africa which helped him connect with his mother nation. His works were mainly on political…

Imagine you are sitting in the front pew of the family church, you decided to wear a dress that was normally reserved for school, your mom hesitated before letting you walk out the door but mostly because you were already late, but you are sitting in the front pew and one of the female deacons comes by and places a sheet over your already crossed legs. You smile politely but wonder what’s up with that, you weren’t wearing anything to revealing, yet fault still seemed to be put on you for the…

The film Diary of a Mad Black Woman written by Tyler Perry and released in theatres in the year 2005 tells the story of a woman, Helen McCarter, whom after 18 years of marriage to her husband, Charles McCarter, is notified that she is being left for another woman and savagely thrown out of her home. Helen, with neither work experience nor money turns to her grandmother Mabel Simmons, but commonly referred to as Madea. Helen, over the course of several months finds herself going through the…

showing the internment camps for Japanese-Americans in a way the government did not agree. Dorothea Lange became world famous with her series of photographs entitled "Migrant Mother". These images were taken in California in 1936. They showed Florence Owens Thompson and her three children. These sets of portraits clearly define the personality of the work of Lange. She took the pictures of close, clear, concise and forms a very tender way. They reflect the situation that people were going…

How would it feel to be a problem? Would it be something of humiliation and frustration because even you couldn’t solve it or be depressing that others see you as an issue? W.E.B. Du Bois expressed this idea and many other concepts troubling the Black community in the United States in his book, The Souls of Black Folk. He explains the ideas of double-consciousness, double-aims, being a problem, liberty, and much more. In today’s society, we are more tolerant and are as equivalent to Black people…

To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor If this be known to you and your allowance We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs” Through the use of the word “lascivious”, Othello as a black man is portrayed as having an insatiable lust for sex and likely perversion, a framing designed to fuel the father’s worst possible fantasies. In this presentation, Brabantio has had his daughter abducted by a black man, taken against her will or perhaps as a result of some dark magic employed by Othello. As…

In reality, how often will somebody encounter a situation where everything worked out exactly how they expected it to? In John Irving’s novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany, the main character, Johnny Wheelwright, references a quote from Thomas Hardy that answers this question: “Nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently”. To put it another way, this quote implies that in actuality, things will not usually work out how someone might initially expect it to. The reader can see this motif…

Anyone who knows me is aware of the fact that I have an enchantment with strong women. I 'm not sure why exactly, but maybe my background and the fact that I used to outwardly acquiesce so easily is part of the reason why I am fiercely supportive of women who follow their passions no matter the obstacles in their way. Add that to my fascination with history, and it was no suprirse that I found FlyGirls and Hilary Prentice. Hilary is the producer of this "work in progress," and earlier this…

Afrofuturism is an idea that situates concepts of spirituality and Afrocentrism in a literary setting. This literary setting usually has a scientific undertone. It is an idea that destabilizes the unfavorable lens of racial bias through which the African-American is viewed. It aims to provide solutions through literary means to the problems faced by blacks in a Western world. Afrofuturism can be expressed through various art forms. One very innovative mode of expressing afrofuturism is through…

crippled Tiny Tim, and Edgar Allen Poe uses missing mental faculties in many narrators such as in The Tell Tale Heart. Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany uses un-whole or partial people in a variety of ways. Spiritual, emotional and physical disparity all present themselves throughout the novel through characters, occurrences and actions. One of the main protagonists, Owen Meany, suffers from a physical…