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​The African American experience  in Literature and media

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If you have stumbled onto this webpage as an outsider, please keep in mind this is a webpage for a literature class. The purpose of this class is to look at how the framework of entertainment perpetuated racist stereotypes and how literature, both fiction and non-fiction, about and by African-Americans, worked to counterbalance the inundation of negative media portrayals. This page is intended for educational purposes and is used as a classroom tool. As such, some of what you may find here, used in class to provoke discussion and provide examples of the insidiousness of racial stereotypes, taken out of context, may be offensive. 

How White Americans Misunderstand Protest
The Real Rosa Parks Story
Claudette Colvin
Bigger than a hamburger
The Importance of African-American Literature
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Theme for English B,
​by Langston Hughes

The instructor said,
     Go home and write
      a page tonight.
      And let that page come out of you--
      Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it’s that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.   
I went to school there, then Durham, then here   
to this college on the hill above Harlem.   
I am the only colored student in my class.   
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,   
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,   
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y, 
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator   
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:
It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me   
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you.
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.   
(I hear New York, too.) Me—who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.   
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.   
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.   


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African American literature is important because it often portrays what is a quintessential American story: the fight to hold Americans to the ideals of our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence.

"The nation could not survive being deprived of their presence because, by the irony implicit in the dynamics of American democracy, they symbolize both its most stringent testing and the possibility of its greatest human freedom."                                 Ralph Ellison
A brief history of african-american lit
Does African-American Lit exist
Bars Fight
Lucy Terry Prince
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So will my page be colored that I write?   
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white--
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.   
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me--
although you’re older—and white--
and somewhat more free.
This is my page for English B.

The N Word
It's in the books and articles we're going to read. We need to set some guidelines in the class regarding its usage. 

Teaching the N Word
the battle of the n word
Straight Talk about the n word
who can say the n word
A brief history of the n word
The N Word it's uses and abuses
Atlantic Interview with Randall Kennedy
U.S. Place Names Using the "N-Word"

Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Between the World and Me Text
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New York Times Book Review
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The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
Ta-Nehisi Coates discusses the book on c-span
3 Sociological Theories found in the book
Philosophers on the book
atlantic articles by coates
the case for reparations
5 years after ferguson
Scientists argue race is a social construction
psychologists argue race is a social construction
anthropologists argue race is a social construction
The Social Construction of Race
Racism Isn't Natural
How Racism invented race in america
Part I Discussion Questions
Part II Discussion Questions
Essay Test Questions

Slave Narratives

Slave Voyages Website
The Slave Voyages website is a collaborative digital initiative that compiles and makes publicly accessible records of the largest enslaved peoples trades in history. Search these records to learn about the broad origins and forced relocations of more than 12 million African people who were sent across the Atlantic in slave ships, and hundreds of thousands more who were trafficked within the Americas. Explore where they were taken, the numerous rebellions that occurred, the horrific loss of life during the voyages, the identities and nationalities of the perpetrators, and much more. This site is one of the few that enables African-Americans who have descended from enslaved people to trace their ancestral record beyond the 1870s census. The "Oceans of Kinfolk" database records 63,000 enslaved people who were transported from other parts of the US to New Orleans to be re-sold. Unlike the Trans-Atlantic manifests, which just records biological basics, the manifests from the forced relocation to New Orleans often recorded first and last names of the people being trafficked. 

Video containing footage of Redoshi, the last survivor of the trans-atlantic slave trade in the U.S. according to some historians

Redoshi aka sally smith

11 Facts About Slave Narratives
Federal Writers Project 1936-1938
PBS WPA Slave Narrative Sites
are the wpa slave narratives tainted?
Slave Narratives - Modern Critique

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Slavery's Shadow - New Yorker
Modern Slave Narratives
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Kindred, by Octavia Butler
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The Joy (and fear) making kindred a graphic novel
Time Travel and Slavery
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Jim Crow

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Jim Crow Museum
Jim Crow Webquest
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The New Jim Crow Text
After the Election: The Newest Jim Crow
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School to prison pipeline
What is it?
Schools Handcuffing children
Children in handcuffs
Does having police in schools make them safer?
Police in schools, more harm than good?
three charts showing issues of police presence in schools
Police Presence in schools hurts minority students
The New Jim Crow Banned in Prisons

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Ballot or Bullet Malcolm X Audio
Ballot or bullet malcolm x text

Racial Passing

hollywood actors passing as white
NPR Article on "A Chosen Exile"
Passing as White and Straight
Passing as a Film Genre
"Passing" and the american Dream
Was Gatsby Black?
Homosexuality and race in gatsby
Passing as work of the Harlem Renaissance

The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison

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The BLuest Eye text

The Harlem Renaissance

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the souls of black folk text
booker t. washington vs. w.e.b. dubois
the awakening of the negro by booker t. washington
the harlem renaissance, what was it and why does it matter?
A history of beef between black writers, artists and intellectuals
The Atlanta Compromise Speech
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Looking at Media Portrayals of African-Americans

history of blackface
Jim Crow as Minstrel
For Blacks in Hollywood, Same Old Script
William M. Trotter and The Guardian
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America's First Blockbuster Protest: Birth of a Movement
Gone With the Wind and Hollywood's Racial Politics
25 most racist advertisements
"Get Out"'s creepy milk scene

​Black history in the berkshires


black history in the berkshires
The African-American Trail Through the Berkshires
Agrippa Hull Revolutionary War Patriot
There is a sculpture of Agrippa with Gen. Tadeusz Kosciuszko at West Point. A replica of that statue is also located at the Polish Embassy in Caneberra Australia. 
Elizabeth Mumbet Freeman vs. Colonel Ashley
James Weldon Johnson Lift Every Voice and Sing
James Weldon Johnson Cabin in Great Barrington
Massachusetts 54th Regiment (the movie Glory)
Over 80 members of the regiment, including the Chaplain, were from the Berkshires
Frank Grant: Baseball Hall of Fame
Ms. Margaret Hart, 1st African-American Teacher in Pittsfield Public Schools
Stephanie Wilson, 2nd African-American Woman in Space
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