Friday, August 29, 2008

Week 4 Required Post- Allusions

The novel we're starting this week contains many allusions- some of which may be familiar to you while others may not be. In class on Friday, bring information about your assigned allusion to share with the class. You are NOT turning in anything typed about your allusion- you are just verbally presenting on it. However, I'd like you to put post on the blog the factual information about your allusion for everyone to see and keep (and include a source. Where did you get your information? Please use MLA, as always, for citing your source.) More than one person has each allusion, so please try not to repeat each other.

Note: Wikipedia does not count as a source. "Answers.com," "Geocities," "Book Rags" or similar pages are also not sources. You should know by now how to do proper research, and you should know what counts as a credible website and what is simply non-academic, or even junk.

In your post, describe your allusion- who is he/she or what is it? biographical info? historical info? This information should take the form of a good paragraph (8-10 sentences at least) or paragraphs, not bulleted points. I'll post the assigned allusions this weekend on this blog.

94 comments:

Lara said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lara said...

3rd Period:
Alyx: Jim Crow Laws
Leah: Booker T Washington
Casey: Marcus Garvey
Sean: Jack Johnson (not the modern one..)
Megan: WEB DuBois
Alex B: Frederick Douglas
Andrea: Father Divine
Laura Leigh:Nation of Islam
Chandler: Harlem 1930's
Brandon: Bessie Smith
Lucy:Louis Armstrong
Matt: Sambo (racial stereotype)
Chelsea:NAACP
Kelsey:Jack the Bear and Brer Rabbit
Lyndi:Scottsboro Boys
Arie:Horatio Alger
CJ:zoot suits
Jessica:John Brown
Libby: Amos and Andy
Hannah:Adam Clayton Powell, JR
Skylar:Harlem Riot of 1943
Geritt:Great Migration (diaspora) from South to North, 1930s, 40s
Brianna:Socialist Movement in America
Mary:Jazz (fusion)
Caroline: Richard Wright

4th Period:
Kristina: Jim Crow Laws
Mark: Booker T Washington
Bradley: Marcus Garvey
Michael B: Jack Johnson (not the modern one..)
Justin: WEB DuBois
Mallory:Frederick Douglas
Bridget: Father Divine
Graham: Nation of Islam
Andrew: Harlem 1930's
Adam:Bessie Smith
Cameron:Louis Armstrong
Jared: Sambo (Racial Stereotype)
Becca: NAACP
Grant: Jack the Bear and Brer rabbit
Ryan: Scottsboro Boys
Emily: Horatio Alger
Lauren: Zoot Suits
Chachie:John Brown
Isaiah: Amos and Andy
Kellye: Adam Clayton Powell, JR
Bethany: Harlem Riot of 1943
Alisa:Great Migration (diaspora) from South to North, 1930s, 40s
Hillary: Socialist movement in America
Jana: Jazz (fusion)
Megan W: Richard Wright
Yiyi: T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland

7th Period:
Landon: Jim Crow Laws
Harrison: Booker T Washington
Chloe: Marcus Garvey
Chris: WEB DuBois
Ben: Frederick Douglas
Shannon: Nation of Islam
Rachel: Socialist Movement in America
Brandon: Louis Armstrong
Tiffany: Jack the Bear and Brer Rabbit
Jake L: Sambo (racial stereotype)
Madison: zoot suits
Kristen: Horatio Alger
Kayleigh: Richard Wright
Alyssa: T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland
Jake S: Father Divine
Kate: Bessie Smith
Lisa: Harlem 1930's
Chandler: Great migration (diaspora) from the South to the North, 1930s, 40s

Bradb90 said...

On August 17th 1887 Marcus Garvey was born in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica.In 1906 he left St. Ann's Bay for Kingston where he began working for the P.A. Benjamin Manufacturing Company. A age 21 Garvey experiences his mother death. On year later he publishes "Garvey's Watchman," which was unsuccessful. In 1912 Garvey attended Birkbeck College in London. Four years later Garvey arrives in New York City virtually broke, but soon finds work as a printer. He begins to gain followers as he orates nightly soapboxes. May 9th he holds his first public speech, ending in disaster as he falls off the stage. Three years later he is admitted to Tomb's Prison in New York after promoting his Black Star Line, a steamship company that was to be the transportation for the U.N.I.A., that promoted worldwide commerce among black communities. On October 14th Garvey is shot by George Tyler is his attempt to assassinate him. In 1940 Garvey dies of a cerebral hemorrhage or heart attack. Twenty-four years later he is declared Jamaica's first national hero.

Daniels, Maria. "Marcus Garvey Timeline."1999-2000 PBS Online/WGBH. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/garvey/timeline/index.html.

Haley said...

:(
I have been forgotten.

Lara said...

Haley- How about Langston Hughes?

Unknown said...

Mrs. Charbonnet: you're talking about the boxer, not the crappy singer, correct?

Lara said...

This is me ignoring the slight to one of today's greatest young song writers but agreeing with your statement about Jack Johnson, the boxer.

:)

Kayleigh said...

Richard Wright was born close to Natchez. Missippi on September 4, 1908. He had a rough childhood and encountered tough times after his father abandoned his family for another woman. After a brief stay in an orphanage, Wright’s mother moved her family in with her mother in Jackson, Mississippi as she was unable to provide for her family with her illness. When he was twelve, he was enrolled in a Seventh Day Adventist school. In 1924, he printed his first story in a local black newspaper. He bounced from job to job but continued writing and was inspired by the works of H.L. Mencken, Theodore Dreiser, and Sinclair Lewis. While living in Chicago he became involved with the Communist Party, he however broke from the party in 1944. Despite the break, he continued to follow similar liberal ideologies. In his later years, Wright suffered from aerobic dysentary and was financially unstable. He died on November 28, 1960.
During his lifetime, he wrote close to 4,000 English haikus and had many famous novels and short stories published. Some of the most famous are his autobiographies, “Black Boy” and “American Hunger” and four of his short stories which were compiled to make up “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

"The Mississippi Writers Page" . Matthew Duffus. January 26, 1999
September 2, 2008. http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/english/ms-writers/dir/wright_richard/.

Kayleigh said...

Richard Wright was born close to Natchez. Missippi on September 4, 1908. He had a rough childhood and encountered tough times after his father abandoned his family for another woman. After a brief stay in an orphanage, Wright’s mother moved her family in with her mother in Jackson, Mississippi as she was unable to provide for her family with her illness. When he was twelve, he was enrolled in a Seventh Day Adventist school. In 1924, he printed his first story in a local black newspaper. He bounced from job to job but continued writing and was inspired by the works of H.L. Mencken, Theodore Dreiser, and Sinclair Lewis. While living in Chicago he became involved with the Communist Party, he however broke from the party in 1944. Despite the break, he continued to follow similar liberal ideologies. In his later years, Wright suffered from aerobic dysentary and was financially unstable. He died on November 28, 1960.
During his lifetime, he wrote close to 4,000 English haikus and had many famous novels and short stories published. Some of the most famous are his autobiographies, “Black Boy” and “American Hunger” and four of his short stories which were compiled to make up “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

Lisa said...

Harlem 1930s

During the 1930s, the era of the Harlem Renaissance flourished, centered mainly around Harlem in New York City. Before this was a segregated area, and blacks were not allowed any near there; however, during the 1930s, there was a great migration of blacks from the rural south to the north, and along with them, they brought their culture, their music, and their art. The famous Apollo Theatre appeared in 1934, and it was and even still is quite famous for its amateur nights and was the start a many black artists' careers. There are several other theatres and ballrooms that were incredibly famous during the Renaissance, such as the Lafayette Theatre, the Douglass Theatre, the Congress Casino, the Rose Ballroom, the Garden of Joy, and the Savoy Ballroom; also the club nightlife was "hot", and there were four main clubs people went to. Art and literature also became quite popular. The Harlem Renaissance "was a time when black and white Americans alike “discovered” the vibrancy and uniqueness of black art, music, and especially, literature" (Yale). These black artists were, for the first time, able to be proud of their heritage and culture, and they let it all show through their works of art, which are still greatly praised today. People loved reading the poetry of James Langston Hughes, and he became a strong leader in the Harlem Renaissance. Mainly, this was just a pivotal time in African-American history.

Jackson, Caroline. "Harlem Renaissance: Pivotal Period in the Development of Afro-American Culture." Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute 2008. www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1978/2/78.02.03.x.html

Pfeffer, Murray L. "My Harlem Reverie." www.nfo.net/usa/harlem.html

hannahr said...

Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was born on November 29, 1908 in New Haven, Conn. He attended public schools as a kid and graduated from Colgate University , Columbia University, and Shaw University. From 1932-1940, he was publisher and editor of a newspaper and an instructor at Columbia University Extension School. In 1941, he became and ordained minister and a member of the New York city council. He was a cofounder of the National Negro Congress and a member of the Manhattan Civilian Defense. From January 3, 1945 to February 28, 1967, he served as a Democrat in Congress, representing the state of New York. He served as a chairman on the Committee on Education and Labor for the Eighty-seventh and Eighty-ninth Congresses. He was unsuccessful in being renominated for the Ninety-second Congress. He died in Miami Florida on April 4, 1972.

hannahr said...

Hamilton, Charles V. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.: The Political Biography of An American Dilemma. New York: Atheneum, 1991; Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr. Adam by Adam: The Autobiography of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.: With a Foreword by Adam Clayton Powell, III. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing Group, 1994.


This is the bibliography at the end of the article. I know this is probably not what you want, but the page does not have an author. I will talk to you about it in class tomorrow so you can tell me what you want.

mstrick540 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
mstrick540 said...

This type of jazz originated in the U.S. in the 1960's along with the rise of rock music. Jazz fusion is a type of jazz that incoporates other instruments to give jazz a more rock and techno style. Fusion jazz differs from regular jazz because of the straighter rhythm and the new electronic instruments. Fusion jazz uses electronic instruments like electric guitars and synthesizers instead of the usually traditional jazz instruments like the saxophone or trumpet. The Free Sprits and Miles Davis were pioneers in the jazz fusion world. Miles Davis' most famous album is "Bitches Brew" released in 1969. However, jazz fusion usually doesn't get a lot of radio time due to the long lengths of songs and lack of lyrics.

Garcia, Al. "A History of Rock-Jazz Fusion." September 3,2008. http://www.liraproductions.com/jazzrock/htdocs/histhome.htm.

Kellye Oldham said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kellye Oldham said...

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was born on November 29, 1908, in New Haven, Connecticut. He acomplished a masters degree in religious education in 1931 from Columbia University. He became involved in the civil rights movement during the Depression. He set up meetings, organize strikes and public campaigns, which made companies hire or promote black employees. In 1944 he was the first black congressman from New York elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives.In 1961, he became chairman of the Education and Labor Committee. In this position he looked he helped increaseminimum wage, education and training for the deaf, and aided to elementary and secondary education. In 1967, he was acused of misusing the funds in this position and in 1968 the House said they misacused him and so he came back to the House. He retired from Congress after he lost the last election and then he moved to Miami. He died on April 4, 1972 at the age of 63.

Pesa, Mike. "Adam Clayton Powell Jr-Activist and Politician." July 18,2000. September 3, 2008.BBC. www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A352450.

Anonymous said...

Though his real name supposed to be George Baker, few knew him by that name. To most Americans in the 1920s and 1930s, he was Father Divine, the founder of the Peace Mission devoted to "interracial paradise" and "heaven-on-earth to the black man".
Father Divine's ultimate goal was desegregation and equality for all people, but his followers thought of him as more than just a man. To them, he was a deity, or he even represented the Second Coming of Christ.
This belief centered on the fact that Father Divine was not the conventional black man. He boldly "challenged the status quo", but doing things that a black person or anyone for that matter would ever do at that time. Most prominent of these actions was his marriages and sexual affairs with white women. He openly lived with them despite the societal norms of the time. He was even arrested for these marriages, but before he could be sentenced the judge died unexpectedly. Father Divine claimed that he had used his powers to kill him which only increased his followers' faith in him.
But Father Divine was not just some religious fanatic, he helped the poor and underprivelaged during hard times. During the Great Depression, his Peace Mission fed thousands of people and soon the network had saved millions of dollars. These missions became involved in a network of businesses and enterprises that gave jobs to the unemployed and put money into black hands.

"Father Divine's Peace Missiion: Hope for the Impoverished"
2003 PBS Online/WGBH
http://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/
journey_3/p_10.html

Unknown said...

Harlem 1930s

Although the Harlem Renaissance reached a peak at the turn of the decade, the movement lost considerable support as the Great Depression commenced. Groups such as the NAACP that had catalyzed the cultural renaissance were forced to switch their focus to economic matters. Furthermore, the famous faces of the movement, like Langston Hughes, exited Harlem in the early '30s. With the decline of the Renaissance came the rise of racial riots, which resulted in many deaths and property damages in the millions. Black unemployment was perhaps the greatest issue of the decade and resulted in boycotts of companies that refused to hire black employees. Worse standards of living as well as minimal income only further plagued the citizens of Harlem in the 1930s. Harlem Hospital was overcrowded and understaffed. This dark time in Harlem seemed to blot out the optimism from the Renaissance.

Greene, Larry A. "Harlem in the Great Depression, 1928-1936." 1979.
http://app.cul.columbia.edu:8080/ac/

Anonymous said...

The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenagers that were on a freight train from Chattanooga to Memphis. They had been captured by a group of men for beating up three white men and pushing them off the train. After being captured, they were tied together and transported to a jail in Scottsboro on March 25, 1931. On the train, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, both mill workers, began a rumor that 12-armed black men had raped them. Since the police had already captured 9, they assumed that they were guilty and the girls identified 6 of the men. Less than two weeks later, the boys were in trial with Stephen Roddy and Milo Moody as their lawyers and A.E. Hawkins was the judge. Everyone had already decided that the boys were guilty. Important evidence was never showed and important witnesses were never questioned during trial. Even the NAACP didn’t believe that the boys were innocent because rape was such a heinous crime. Eight of the boys were found guilty and seven were sentenced to death by the Alabama Supreme Court in January of 1932. However, the case was appealed and the boys got new trials with Samuel Leibowitz as their new defense attorney. Finally witnesses were brought to the stands and questioned and it was proven that the allegations of the women were false.





The Trials of the "Scottsboro Boys". Linder, Douglas O. 3 September 2008. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_acct.html.

JaredF said...

The term sambo is a word that to many in the United States and the United Kingdom is a racial slur. The term itself is said to have originated from a black man who was left after a slave ship landed. This man's name was said to be Sambo and became a common word for a black person in the UK. So in essence, sambo was much like the "n word" in society. However, times changed and public outrage escalated at the point of a novel by Helen Bannerman called Little Black Sambo .This novel was about a little black boy as he travels and is robbed of his clothes by tigers. The problem was not, however, with the story but the pictures drawn by Bannerman. They depicted the "blackface" stereo types that were associated with blacks at the time. The characters weere of dark complexion, ruby red lips, and horrible clothing styles.

Pilgrim, David. "The Picaninny Caricature." October 2000. http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/picaninny/.

Unknown said...

Originally named Frederick Bailey, he was born in February of 1818 in Maryland. The exact date is unknown because slave records did not exist. His mother was a slave and his father was her white master. He went to Baltimore as a slave, where he secretly learned to read and write. He also learned about the abolitionist movement while in Baltimore. He was sent back south to a brutal slaveholder named Covey, who completely broke Douglass. He fled slavery in September of 1838 and settled in Massachusetts with his new bride under a new name, Frederick Douglass. He was a strong supporter and speaker for the abolitionist movement and even met president Abraham Lincoln. He published an autobiography in 1845. He died on February 20, 1895.

"People and Events: Frederick Douglass 1818-1895." Africans in America. 1998. PBS Online/WGBH. 4 Sep 2008 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1539.html.

Rachel Joines said...

The Socialist Movement in America was founded by the Socialist party in 1901. They describe themselves as being "non-racist, classless, and a feminist socialist society" whose goal is to form a democracy in which the people are in control. Socialism requires the people to be in charge of all aspects of society and the economy. Their main focus is on the working class of America, and they strive to meet their specific needs. They are a democratic party who want radical change to occur within the federal government. The Socialists are very anti-war and want the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan at all costs. This party considers the state of America now to be oppressed and they want a democratic revolution to occur. The movement is big on freedom and equality in all aspects of life, and to me they seem to be a group of modern day hippies.


"Socialist Party USA." 4 September 2008. The Socialist Party of America. 4 September 2008. http://socialistparty-usa.org/

Unknown said...

On March 31, 1878, Arthur John(Jack) Johnson was born to a poor family of former slaves. He dropped out of school in fifth grade. To make money, he started doing many odd jobs, including boxing. In 1897 he became a professional boxer but was put in jail because boxing was a crime in Texas. After his release, he became the first champion of Negro boxing. He soon would become the world champion when he would beat Tommy Burns in Australia and Jim Jeffries in Las Vegas. Later he fled because he violated protstitution laws, and during the exile he lost the title of champion to Jess Willard in Cuba. Upon his return to the U.S., he was jailed. Many years after his release, in 1948, he was killed in a car crash.

Brabner, Wendy. "Jack Johnson." 1996 Texas State Historical Association.
http://www.famoustexans.com/jackjohnson.htm

Unknown said...

Jack Johnson was an African-American heavyweight boxer. He began his career in 1897, fighting in small private boxing clubs in Texas. In 1903, he became the black heavyweight champion, defeating "Denver Ed" Martin. However, boxing (along with pretty much everything else back then) was segregated; Johnson was not able to become the world heavyweight champion because he was not allowed to fight (and beat) the current American champion, who was white. He got around this by fighting the world champion (Tommy Burns), an Australian (Australia did not have a color barrier), and was given the heavyweight title.

This scared the white people, because they believed that there was no way blacks could be equal to whites (never mind better...). Enter the search for the "Great White Hope," which was a mean old white guy who would beat Johnson and take back the title for the KKK... erm, white people. In 1910, Jim Jeffries, a former world champion (retired) came out of retirement to beat Johnson. He lost. This lead to race riots, among other things.

In summary, Johnson was an awesome boxer who, in addition to kicking... erm, winning, helped break down one of the many color barriers that existed at the time.

In another life, he's a crappy singer that's trendy among yuppie twenty-something white chicks and middle schoolers alike.

http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/Harlem/text/jajohnson.html

Unknown said...

Booker T. Washington, 1856-1915, Educator. Booker Taliaferro Washington was the foremost black educator of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He also had a major influence on southern race relations and was the dominant figure in black public affairs from 1895 until his death in 1915. Born a slave on a small farm in the Virginia backcountry, he moved with his family after emancipation to work in the salt furnaces and coal mines of West Virginia. After a secondary education at Hampton Institute, he taught an upgraded school and experimented briefly with the study of law and the ministry, but a teaching position at Hampton decided his future career. In 1881 he founded Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute on the Hampton model in the Black Belt of Alabama.

Harlan, Louis. "Booker T. Washington, 1856-1915" September 04, 2008. http://docsouth.unc.edu/
fpn/washington/bio.html.

Anonymous said...

Jack The Bear is a jazz song written between the years of 1939-1942. It was written by Duke Ellington, a famous African-American jass musician. Ellington's music has a huge impact on popular music of the 20th century. Ellington believed in letting each musician play against each other which is seen in the song Jack-the-Bear.

Brer Rabbit is a tricky character in folktales of African and Native American culture. He often matches wits with other characters and usually wins out. Also, many Native Americans incorporate the Rabbit in myths and legends.

"Brer Rabbit Stories". American Folklore. www.americanfolklore.net/brer-rabbit.html.

"Duke Ellington". PBS. www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/ellington_d.html

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Yiyi said...

T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland"

"The Wasteland" is a long poem published in 1922 in 5 sections, a total of 433 lines. Through the poem, it often abruptly shifts speaker or location. The poem includes many obscure allusions and lines in foreign languages. It talks about European culture, painting modern society as devoid of spirit and life. A theme seems to be that death is necessary for rebirth.

Parker, Rickard. "Exploring 'The Waste Land'". 2002. 4 September 2008. http://world.std.com/~raparker/exploring/thewasteland/explore.html

"T.S. Eliot 'The Wasteland' 1922." 4 September 2008. http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/english/English151W-03/wasteland.htm

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Horatio Alger was a popoular, well-known author of the nineteenth century whose books sales are comparable to the present-day Stephen King. He was a small and sickly child who graduated from Harvard before becoming a minister. While he was minister, he was accused of molesting two boys and he was forced to resign and fled to New York City. There he encountered thousands of homeless teens running amuck in the streets due to the mass amount of Irish and European immigration and decided he wanted to rescue these teens from losing their childhood and try to put them back on the right track through literature. Not only did he make an impact through his novels he also supported and raised money for the Five Points Mission, the YMCA, the Children's Aid Society, and the Newsboys' Lodging House. He died of pneumonia in 1899 as a well-known man. In 1947, the Horatio Alger Association was created for people who also worked themselves up from rags to riches.

Kanfer, Stefan. "Horatio Alger: The Moral of the Story." 2000. City Journal. 4 September 2008. http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_4_urbanities-the_moral.html.

Unknown said...

John Smith
John Smith was born in Willoughby, England in 1580. While fighting in the "Long War", Smith is captured and sold as a slave to a Turk. Smith escaped by murdering his master and returned to England in 1604. He then became involved with plans to colonize Virginia and goes to America with a group to do so. The Indians, however, try to make the settlers leave and ambush Smith's group. They take Smith to their chief where he is part of a ceremony that he does not understand. The chief's 11 year old daughter took part in this ceremony and Smith believes she is what saved him. She is Pocahontas.

"Captain John Smith". 1997. The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. http://www.apva.org/history/jsmith.html

ChelseaE said...

The 1908 race riot in Springfield, Illinois, spurred the creation of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard called for a meeting to discuss racial injustice where 60 people, only 7 of whom were black, gathered. Like W.E.B. Du Bois's Niagra Movement, the NAACP's goal was to secure the rights that 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments guaranteed to all people in the Constitution. The NAACP was stationed in New York City and named Moorfield Storey its president. DuBois was the only African American on the committee as the director of publications and research. He formed the NAACP journal, The Crisis, in 1910. The NAACP grew and established five more locations. The NAACP became an important and successful legal advocate in early court battles for African American rights. The organization grew through the power of publicity. It grew rapildly, and one of its top priorities was to end lynching. In 1930 the Margold Report became the basis for its reversal of the separate-but-equal doctrine. In the 1930s the NAACP focused on economic justice and cooperated with the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations). The NAACP influenced Roosevelt's decision to set up the FEPC (Fair Employment Practices Committee). There were many acts of violence committed against the NAACP. Although the NAACP opposed extralegal actions such as nonviolent movements, it provided aid and representation to members of some of these groups. It became diversified in its goals in the 1960s, and more people left the NAACP to join the Black Power Movement. The NAACP, in more recent years, focused more on economic development and education than on civil rights issues.

"History and Information on the NAACP." Africaonline.com. Toonari Corporation. 4 September 2008. http://www.africanaonline.com/
orga_naacp.htm.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Marcus Garvey was publisher, journalist, Black nationalist, orator, and national hero of Jamaica. He spent his entire life fighting for his people and their racial pride. His goal was the freedom and redemption of all African people.

In Jamaica in 1914 the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League were formed. Garvey organized a new branch of the UNIA & ACL. Its motto was "One God, One Aim, One Destiny," and dedicated itself to the revival of Africa and the success of Black people all over the world. It struggled for racial pride, self-reliance and economic independence.

In the 1920s the UNIA had hundreds of divisions that existed throughout all of the Americas, the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and Australia. It hosted international conventions and published a weekly newspaper called the Negro World.

Africa Within. "Marcus Garvey Bio: Marcus Mosiah Garvey". http://www.africawithin.com/garvey/garvey_bio.htm.

blandon said...

Louis Armstrong was a famous African American jazz artist during the 1920's or better known as the "Roarin Twenties." Born on August 4, 1901 in New Orleans, Louis lived in poverty much of his childhood. When he was about twelve, he started playing trumpet. He went on to record two very successful jazz records titled "Hot Five" and "Hot Seven." He soon became an icon of jazz and invented what became known as scat singing. His experimental and groundbreaking style faded and he concentrated more on each individual note. In his musical career, he traveled and performed around the world in many countries and continents. He died July 6, 1971. Even today, Louis Armstrong is still acclaimed as one of the greatest and most influential jazz artists of all time.

Unknown said...

Richard Wright was born on Rucker's Plantation, between Roxie and Natchez, Mississippi. His father was an illiterate sharecropper, and his mother was a schoolteacher. When Wright was five, his father left the family, forcing his mother to leave home for work. At the age of seventeen, Wright left for Memphis to work, and began to read contemporary American literature. In 1932, in Chicago, Wright joined the intellectual arm of the Communist Party. Wright's literary career was launched when his short story collection, "Uncle Tom's Children," won outstanding awards. Richard Wright is a symbol of success for a black man in a very difficult time, and he showed his readers of all races that he could overcome it all.

Rayson, Ann. "Modern American Poetry."
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/r_wright/wright_life.htm

Chachie said...

John Brown was born in Torrington, Connecticut during the year 1800 to a father very oppesed to slavery. Despite being white, he was an important figure in ablolishing slavery for his unique views. He moved about the country during his first firty years, places including Ohio, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, all the while keeping up with his ever increasing family (fathered 20 children, 11 made it to adulthood). He also helped in the Enderground Railroad, and helped establish the League of Gileadites in 1851, which protected runaway slaves from slave catchers. He is most well known for his stand at Harper's Ferry, West Virgina. Brown's plan was to rob this federal arsenal and arm the slaves of the surrounding countryside with his "army" of 16 white men and 5 black men. He set his plan into action on October 16, 1859, but failed miserably, 10 of his men dead and 7 captured, including himself. He was tried and convicted of treason and hanged on December 2, 1859.

"People and Events John Brown". September 4, 2008. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1550.html

"John Brown" September 4, 2008. http://www.civilwarhome.com/johnbrownbio.htm

Kate said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kate said...

Bessie Smith, one of the most popular female blues singers of our time, was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee April 15, 1894. She joined the Moss Stokes Company, a traveling show, as a teenager, where she met "Ma" Rainey, who became her blues mentor. In 1923, Bessie got her big break when she was signed to Columbia records. Her first recording was “Down Hearted Blues” b/w “Gulf Coast Blues” which sold 800,000 copies. She became the major African-American musical figure of her time. She died from a car accident on September 26, 1937. In 1989, her memory was honored as she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"Bessie Smith" no author http://www.rockhall.com/inductee/bessie-smith

Unknown said...

Horatio Alger was born on January,1832 on Friday the thirteenth. His family lived in Chelsea, MA, and later moved to Marlborough. In 1848, Alger attended Harvard, where he studied under wonderful teachers like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Alger's writing carrer did not produce much income at first, though, so, after traveling to Europe for 10 months, he began teaching and then became a First Unitarian minister. Before teaching, however, he served in the Civil war on the home front, after which, he wrote his novel, "Frank's Campaign".
Alger is best known for writing young adult adventure novels such as "Frank's Campaign" and "Bound to Rise". He also wrote several biographies about American heros, which were not as successful as his other novels.
Alger passed away on July 18, 1899. He had instructed that many of his personal writings were to be destroyed at his death, so there are not many personal accounts from him to help historians document his life.

Merriman, C.D.The Literature Network.2005. Jalic Inc.4 August 2008.http://www.online-literature.com/horatio-alger/

0hlucy said...

Louis Armstrong is known as one of the best jazz musicians of all time. He was from New Orleans was from a very poor family. Louis was sent to reform school when he was 12 after shooting a gun in the air on New Year's Eve.At this school he learned to play the cornet. He didn't own and instrument at his young age, but loved to listen to jazz all the time. Joe "King" Oliver was his favorite and he acted as a father to Louis. Oliver gave Louis his first cornet. In 1919, Louis left New Orleans for the first time and joined a band called Fate Marables in St. Louis. Louis stayed with Marable until 1921 when he returned to New Orleans and played in Zutty Singleton's. In 1922 Louis received a telegram from his mentor Joe Oliver, asking him to join his Creole Jazz Band at Lincoln Gardens in Chicago. While in this band, Louis metlillian Harding, who he later married in February of 1924. In 1925 Armstrong moved back to Chicago and joined his wife's band at the Dreamland Cafe. Armstrong recorded his first Hot Five records that same year. This was the first time that Armstrong had made records under his own name. The records made by Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven are considered to be absolute jazz classics and speak of Armstrong's creative powers. In 1932 he returned to California, before leaving for England where he was a great success. For the next three years Armstrong was almost always on the road. In 1935 he returned to the U.S. and hired Joe Glaser to be his manager. On July 6th 1971 the world's greatest Jazz musician died in his sleep at his home in Queens, New York.


http://www.redhotjazz.com/louie.html

Woo ! Done.
:F

CYoung said...

Richard Wright was a political activist and author in the 1940s'-50s'. He was born in Mississippi and raised by family when his father left at a young age and his mother suffered from a paralyzing illness. He moved to Memphis at 17. He moved again to NYC in 1937. He became a member of the communist party. He wrote for the party's newspaper. In 1938 his fist book was published, Uncle Tom's children, a collection of novellas about racial prejudice. He wrote his most famous Novel, Native Son in 1939. Native Son is about a black man named Bigger Thomas, working as a chauffer for a wealthy white family. The daughter of the family seduces Bigger and he accidentally smothers the daughter while sleeping with her. His trial in the second part of the book reveals tense racial relations in America. Native Son was the first book by a black author on a book-of-the month selection.

"Richard Wright". MSN Encarta Encyclopedia. 04 September 2008 http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761553668/Richard_Wright.html

Jana said...

Jazz Fusion

Jazz fusion is basically a rad mixture of jazz and rock music. In the sixties after World War II, the people of America needed a new sound to go along with the revolutionary ideas and changes of the time period. Since rock was steadily increasing in popularity, it was fused with jazz to create--you guessed it--jazz fusion. In order to get a different sound from this music, the artists use more electrical instruments like electric guitar instead of classic jazz instruments like the saxophone. Also, the rhythm and syncopation is different in jazz fusion to create a new felt time. One of the pioneers in jazz fusion is Miles Davis, who produced a very popular jazz fusion album, "Bitch's Brew."

Bowden, Marshall. "History of Jazz. Part 8: Fusion." Jazzitude. Jazzitude.http://jazzitude.com/essential_fusion.htm

alyxadams said...

Jim Crow is "a term describing the American racist culture against blacks." The Jim Crow laws are the laws separating black and white people in public places. They deprived black people of their civil rights and said that they were inferior to white people. They started out as "Black Codes," which were laws that white people used to try and limit freedoms of former slaves. They didn't last long, though. Congress declared all kinds of segregation laws illegal. But then during the Compromise of 1877, Congress took this back and stopped helping black people to gain civil rights. Things went steadily downhill for blacks during this time and the Jim Crow Laws were set up, basically taking away any rights they had. People like W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King, and the NAACP helped to fight these laws. They were ended in 1964 with the Civil Rights Act.


Davis, Ronald L.F."From Terror to Triumph: Historical Overview."
http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/history/overview.htm

Graham said...

The Nation of Islam, in its title itself, can be misleading. More of a following than a unified entity, it began in the 1930's when a man by the name of Wallace D. Fard of Detroit, Michigan, was identified as the modern coming of Allah. He visited a man by the name of Elijah Poole, who became his minister of Islam and to whom he passed on his knowledge of the religion. With the wisdom of this teacher, Poole focused on raising the moral, economic, and spiritual standings of non-whites. As the movement progressed, caucasian became synonymous with the element of evil. For this reason, a large portion of the followers were criminals and drug addicts. After years of urging blacks to form a separate development from whites, Poole died after 44 years promoting the movement and was succeeded by his son, who opened the movement to include whites. A more radical member by the name of Louis Farakhan broke away from the new form and restricted members to black advocates of separate social structure.

Beliefnet. "Nation of Islam." 2008. Beliefnet, Inc. http://www.beliefnet.com/index/index_10039.html

Muhammed, Tynetta. "The Nation of Islam in America: A Nation of Peace and Beauty." 1996. NOI.org. http://www.noi.org/history_of_noi.htm

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
chanbear said...

During 1914-1918 African Americans migrated North from the South. Many migrated to Harlem where W.E.B. Dubois convinced them to be proud to be African Americans. Soon many writers (in Harlem) began to write about the life of an African Amercian. The Harlem Renassance was the first time publishers even looked at African American writers. The Harlem Renassance came bout because a middle class of African Americans became educated and began to recieve job opportunities. Along with this were three main reasons. First was the National Urban League held a dinner putting light on all of the African American writers. Second was when Nigger Heaven was published but was written by a white novelist Carl Van Vecten. Last Fire was produced which was a magazine filled with new writers and artist.




http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761566483/harlem_renaissance.html

Unknown said...

Great Migration (diaspora) from South to North, 1930s, 40s

Thousands of blacks moved from the South to the North in order to find jobs. They also left to try to escape from hard times that they faced while in the South. Racism was a big problem in the South, so blacks sought out for a new life free from their previous life. In the North, the black population rose by about 20% in just 20 years. Because of WW1, the North saw an increase in demand for labor, and African Americans took that opportunity to head North. This migration became known as the Great Migration because so many moved from the South to the North. This southern diaspora helped transform religion, and music in our culture. This was a major transformation to change politics about race.

"The Great Migration." 2002, Educational Broadcasting Corporation, Inc. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/reference/articles/great_migration.html
“The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America—about the book.” 9/19/07. http://faculty.washington.edu/gregoryj/diaspora/index.htm

landon said...

As everyone knows, Jim Crow Laws were laws set in order to segregate whites from blacks. This usually took form in public segregations such as separate theaters, buss seats, schools, and many other public resources. Although many people do not know the history of what or who Jim Crow was. It has been believed that the term "JimCrow" was invented by a white entertainer named Thomas Rice. He witnessed a black boy singing about someone (a slave owner)named Jim Crow. No one knows for sure if this
man really existed but Tomas Rice established a recognized entertainment (from this invisible black boy) that got slave owners and white men excited about the comical aspects and stereotypes of the inferior race. "Jim Crow" quickly turned into a racial slur and slowly became an adapted law solely based on racial judgments. These laws were often forced by mobs of white supremacists through lynching and violence and were not held as an acutal law. It took a awhile to discover that the Jim Crow Laws were unconstitutional.

Davis, Ronald L.F. "Creating Jim
Crow." "The History of Jim Crow"
4 Sept. 2008
http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/ history/creating2.htm.

Unknown said...

Harlem Riot of 1943

The Harlem Riots of 1943 were caused by racial tensions all across the United States. To try and place unity in the city of Detroit, NY, mayor Fiorello La Guardia denounced a union that had held back African Americans. During this time in Harlem unemployment was a great factor, and since prices were high for food many African Americans remained hungry. The point of breaking was on August 2, 1943 when a white policeman shot a black slodier who was trying to stop an arrest. After her was shot there were many rumors spread that the white policeman had killed him, therefore many riots broke out. Soon after this incident the mayore declared a curfew of 10:30 PM, this was enforced by placing Army troops on every street corner of Harlem. During the time of curfew the mayor spoke about the calm of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson an African American dancer. There after a day or so the riiots ended and curfew was over. The total numbers after the riots were 4 looters killed by police, 1 robber shot by a barkeep, 495 civilians injured along with 50 policemen. Also 500 people were arrested. After the riots the Federal Office of Price Administration paid closer attentiton to price gouging by merchants, but not much was given to the racial viloence, which was the main cause.



http://www.authentichistory.com

rebecca913 said...

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded in 1909. Their goal has been to achieve complete equality for everyone. The NAACP is a nonprofit organization that goes beyond helping the African Americans; it reaches out to other minorities as well. Dr. Martin L. King was rewarded by the NAACP with the most prestigious prize in the organization (Spingarn Award). This organization is the oldest and largest civil rights organization the states have ever seen. They have a new President and CEO that was recently elected. Benjamin T. Jealous starts his new job on Monday September 15 (2 days after my birthday!).


McIntire, Richard. "NAACP Chooses Benjamin T. Jealous as National President-Elect." 4 September 2008. http://www.naacp.org/news/press/2008-08-30/index.htm.

Also: http://www.naacp.org/home/index.htm.

Brandon said...

Bessie Smith was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee in the year 1894 (actual date unavailable due to the popular though of African Americans of the time being worthless, thus it was not documented). She is known as the "Empress of the Blues" due to her passion in singing blues music. She was very strong willed and fought for what she believed in; at six foot, 200 pounds, she was not a person you wanted to pick a fight with. Smith began singing at the age of eight after her mother died and her family was without income. She first started singing on street corners, collecting money from passersby, but she started a professional career in 1912 when her brother Clarence arranged an audition with Moses Stokes' traveling show. In 1923, she was said to actually save Columbia Records when they were on the brink of bankruptcy after they set up a new division of "race" records. She was flown to New York to record her debut record, "Downhearted Blues" and "Gulf Coast Blues," which sold 780,000 copies in the following six months, making $2,000 a week herself for some time. Bessie Smith was killed on September, 1937 in an automobile accident.

Joan Hemsworth. "Bessie Smith." New York City Women's Biography Hub. http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/386/bsmith.html.

Unknown said...

"Father Divine"

Father Divine is the name George Baker opted to go by in his religious cult. Baker was born in 1882 near Savannah, Georgia. In 1915, under the name of Major J. Divine,Baker preached in to the predominately African American neighborhood of Harlem in New York City. He founded the Peace Mission Movement and decided to change his name yet again to Father Divine in 1919. Father Divine gained much contreversy because of his belief that he was the God Incarnate. In 1919, he founded his first communal dwelling, which he called Heavens in Sayville, New York. His Peace Mission Movement is largely regarded as a cult following and grew substantially in the 30's with close to 500,000 adherents. Members of this cult are called Rosebuds, Lilybuds, and Crusaders. His preachings were an extreme precurser to the civil rights movement. Father Divine died in 1965.


Phillips, Robert S, ed. "Father Divine." Funk and Wagnall's New Encyclopedia. 1976 edition.

CJMac said...

CJ - Zoot Suits

**I'm under a different name for a third time because of new emails and a confusing google page. (:**

Zoot suits were popular in the late 1930's in the young crowd. Basically, the suits looked like, as today would describe them, as mafia suits. They were most popular with young Mexican Americans out west, linking to anti-latino riots called Zoot Suit Riots.
But I think what the allusion will probably me more about is the suit's connection to Harlem Jazz. The suits were all the rage with jazzers because of their hip and trendy style that was said to be influenced by African American culture when jazz was first emerging into the music world.

Anonymous. "Zoot Suit History" 2005-2006 Thomson Gale. http://www.bookrags.com/history/zoot-suit-sjpc-05/

Anonymous said...

According to AmericanFolklore.com, "Brer ("Brother") Rabbit is a trickster character in folktales of African, African-American, and Native American Culture. . ., the consummate trickster, who typically matches wits."

As for Jack the Bear, he is also a part of African American folklore, but is the name of a jazz song. Written in Chicago on March 6, 1940by Duke Ellington and named after a Harlem bass player that Ellington knew.

Brer Rabbit: Stories featuring...
http://www.americanfolklore.net/brer-rabbit.html

Duke Ellington: Jack the Bear
http://www.jazz.com/music/2008/1/24/duke-ellington-jack-the-bear

Anonymous said...

Though the American citizens failed to realize it at the time, the Harlem Riot in 1943 was a key event in United States history. It represented, and still continues to illustrate, the ever-present bitterness towards the opposite race. That night on August second, a white police officer was in the process of arresting a black female, when he was interrupted by an African American soldier. The man objected to the harsh actions and the attitude of the officer, and when he began to intervene, the police officer shot him in the arm. When witnesses shouted that the man had been murdered, rumors permeated throughout the city. Thousands clogged the streets and began stealing and clashing with the police. Mayor LaGuardia sent out a curfew at 10:30PM, and army troops kept watch over the anxious city. Four looters as well as an attempted robber had been killed, and 495 civilians had been injured. Over 500 arrests were made. Very little attention was given to the underlying cause of the violence: racial tension.

"The Harlem Riot 1943." September 5 2008. thehistorybox.com. http://www.thehistorybox.com/ny_city/riots/SectionIII/riots_article7a.htm.

"New York City Mayor Laguardia on The Harlem Riots." September 5 2008. The Authentic History Center.
http://www.authentichistory.com/ww2/news/19430802_NYC_Mayor_LaGuardia_On_The_Harlem_Riots.html.

Unknown said...

Amos N Andy was the longest running radio/tv program in broadcast history. Originated on WMAQ Chicago Radio in March of 1928, it was a comedy about two black men, Amos Jones and Andy Brown. THese were played by Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, two white actors. THEse two mimicked current "negro dialect" to make the show a commercial success. As the civil rights movement grew members of the black community, especially the NAACP condemned it's use of mispronounciation and faulty grammar as racist. The NAACP deemed the show an "insulting return to the days of blackface and minstrelsy."
Bowing to the growing public demand, CBS reluctantly took Amos N Andy off the air in 1953.

Museum of Broadcast Communication
www.museum.tv/archives/etv/A/htm/A/amosnandy/amosnandy.htm

Unknown said...

Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901 in New Orleans, Louisiana, and is known for being a major contributor to the acclaim of “ragtime” music. His father, William Armstrong, abandoned his family when Louis was an infant, and his mother Mary Albert Armstrong, a prostitute, then left Louis and his younger sister, Beatrice Armstrong Collins, in the care of their grandmother. Armstrong attended the Fisk School for Boys, where he likely had his first exposure to Creole music; he dropped out of the Fisk School at eleven and began his self-taught music career. Armstrong was featured in many tours in the south, performing on riverboats on the Mississippi River. Armstrong is also remembered for giving major financial support to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists. In addition, Armstrong publicly criticized President Eisenhower over school integration in Little Rock, Arkansas. Armstrong died of a heart attack on July 6, 1971 in Queens, New York.

Unknown said...

W.E.B. Du Bois

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868 in Great Barrington, Mass. He graduated high school in 1884 as the valedictorian of his school. He attended Fisk University, as well as Harvard University. He was one of the founders of the NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He was the editor of The Crisis, which was the NAACP's magazine. Not only was he a civil rights activist, he was also an editor, poet, scholar, educator, historian, Pan-Africanist, and sociologist. At the time of his death, Du Bois had written 17 books, edited 4 journals, and he played a key role in the civil rights movement. In 1963, he became a naturalized citizen of Ghana; he was 95 years old. He died on August 27, 1963 in Ghana.

"W.E.B. Du Bois." The Library of Congress. http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/aa/dubois

"W.E.B. Du Bois." NAACP. http://www.naacp.org/about/history/dubois/

Unknown said...

From 1877-mid 1960's Jim crow laws were the way of life. Whites were the chosen people and Blacks were cursed to be servants and God supported this segragetion. Blacks were to refer to whites with courtesy names. Blacks were not supposed to show any PDA in public because it was displeasing to whites. A black man was never to light a white woman's cigarette because it was a sign of affection. Also they could not offer their hand to any white males especially not a white female. Blacks were not to be treated as equals because then that would lead to affection and a mongrel race would form leading to the downfall of society. And voilence was used to keep this heirarchy in line.

Jake said...

"Sambo"

The term "Sambo" was a racial stereotype during the era of the Jim Crow laws that characterized black people as lazy, stupid, and immoral. In the stroy "Little Black Sambo" by Helen Bannerman, the main character Sambo is a resourceful, well dressed little black child who outsmarts a pack of tigers and gets a stack of tiger stripped pancakes. The character Sambo in the book doesn't display any of the characteristics of the stereotypical racist term, but the book is still considered to be very racist due to the fact that he is so crudely drawn. The "black" characteristics, such as red lips and un-kept hair are also very over-exaggerated in the illistrations.

Babara Bader, "Sambo,Baji, and Sam," The Horn Book Magazine September-October 1996 vol. 72 no. 5 pg. 536

www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/picaninny

Introspection said...

Sambo:
Sambo was a racial stereotype for an african slave in America and in Great Britian. Sambo is dervived from zambo, a latin american term for a person of mixed indian and black parentage. Later it became a racial stereotype of a "loyal, lazy, affectionate and child-like slave." As time passed the word became more and more of an insult. In Great Britian the term was synonymous with the n-word. In Spanish the word also referred to a yellow monkey. Sambo was also a common name for black males in the United States during the 1700s.

"Sambo." 3 September 2008. http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/802/Sambo.html

Anonymous said...

The Great Migration was actually from 1910 to 1940. It was when huge amounts of former black slaves migrated up to the Northern cities. After being released from slavery, the blacks had no more jobs or reasons to stay down South. The North had much less racism because they fought against slavery in the Civil War. They had to find opportunities that the South no longer could offer. The Northern cities were full of industry and looking for people to work in factories. The greatest amount of blacks migrated around the 1930s and 1940s. The moved into places such as downtown Chicago and Harlem in New York City. With the influx of blacks also came their culture. This is how the blues became so dominant in the big cities. The migration slowed down for a couple years and then picked back up during WWII.

Anonymous said...

...oops forgot my source.


"The Great Migration." 2002, Educational Broadcasting Corporation, Inc. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/reference/articles/great_migration.html

Unknown said...

Although there is debate between two censuses of Bessie Smith's actual birthday, the majority of her documents say she was born April 15, 1894. Growing up she sang in the streets of Chattanooga. Then in 1912 she joined a traveling act called the Moss Stokes Company, in which she both sung and dance. She quit that in 1915, and joined the Vaudeville Circuit. This helped raise her popularity, so by the early '20s she was well known. In 1923 she paired up with pianist Clarence Williams, recording “Gulf Coast Blues” and "Down Hearted Blues." Her success skyrocketed as the record sold 750,000 copies. Because of the combination of radio, movies, and the depression, the Blues were put on the backburner. As a result, her record company let her go in 1931. Struggling to say successful, she tried to become a swing musician. Unfortunately, her attempt was cut back when she died in a car accident on September 26, 1937.

"Bessie Smith." Red Hot Jazz. 5 Sep 2008 http://www.redhotjazz.com/bessie.html.

I couldn't put the address in <> because it said "Your HTML cannot be accepted: Tag is not allowed."

koconnor said...

Horatio Alger was born on January 12, 1832 in Revere, MA. He wrote somewhere near 130 "dime novels," most of them considered rags-to-riches stories. They were generally about poor young men becoming able to live the American Dream. He is considered an important part of American culture even though his works are scarsely read today. He died on July 18, 1899.

"Horatio Alger." NNBD. 2008. Soylent Communications. 5 Sep 2008 [http://www.nndb.com/people/787/000082541/].

mr.jones2691 said...

I will try to be brief but accurate and descriptive. However, as there have been many books written about the Scottsboro Boys, I cannot possible give full, detailed information in a paragraph. However...

The Scottsboro Boys were a group of nine black teens falsely accused of raping two white women. The incident occured on March 25, 1931 on a freight train travelling from Chattanooga, TN, when a white boys stepped on the hand of Haywood Patterson, a black boy. A fight erupted, resulting in a group of white boys being thrown off the train by a gang of black boys. The white boys then went to a stationmaster to report that they had been assaulted by a gang of blacks. The train was stopped in Paint Rock, Alabama, where a group of white men with guns and other weapons forced the black boys off the train and took them to jail. Two white girls, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates claimed that they had been raped by the blacks. Price 'identified' six of the nine boys as her attackers. In reponse, a guard said, "If those six had Miss Price, it stands to reason that the others had Miss Bates." This demonstrates the Southern prejudice towards the blacks.

The trails began twelve days after the arrest. Due to false witness statements and an overwhelming bias against the blacks, 8 of the 9 boys were sentenced to death. The one boy was 12 years old, thus not earning a life sentence. However, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the convictions, and a second trial began. Again, the group was sentenced to death. Judge James Horton, upon hearing a defense motion, moved for a third trial. Not surprisingly, the boys were convicted a third time. Again the case went before the U.S. Supreme Court. In the case of Norris vs. Alabama, the court declared the Alabama "system of jury selection" unconstitutional and the convictions viod. At the foruth trial, Haywood Patterson was convicted, but not sentenced to life in prison, marking the first time a black man had been convicted of raping a white woman but not sentenced to death. At a fifth and final trial, 5 of the boys were freed. The other three boys were imprisoned due to other crimes.

Haywood Patterson eventually wrote a book about the trials.

Linder, Douglas. "THE TRIALS
OF 'THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS'".1999.http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_acct.html

The bog will not let me do the MLA format for some reason.

Hillary Vance said...

The socialist movement has everything to do with social equality. Their motto is to make life good for all instead of having only a few profit. Everyone in a "Democratic Socialist" society believes in producing for practicality and use instead of for profit. To them, democracy is a way of life and they have their children grow up learning how to choose for themselves. Race and sex are not an issue when it comes to their equality because they believe that everyone are the same. Their main focus is on what the middle class of America need. They do not believe in war and think that we should not be in Iraq right now. They want to see change in the national government and would like a more citizen run democracy.

Unknown said...

"The Socialist Movement in America"

The Socialist Movement in America was formed in 1901 by the Social Democratic party. It focused on the working class and had anti-war ideas. It was, and still is, committed “to freedom of speech, assembly, press, and religion.” It also fought to remove class segregation and end “all forms of oppression.” The people own and control the means of production in a socialist system. The main economic goal is to provide the “necessities of life” and social service like caring for the mentally ill and handicapped. While it had several leaders over the years, the most well-known was Eugene V. Debs, who was also the party's presidential candidate.



"Socialist Party USA." 5 September 2008. The Socialist Party of America. 5 September 2008. http://socialistparty-usa.org/

L. Logan said...

Zoot suits were a popular fashion in the late 1930s and early 1940s. They grew popular in Harlem jazz culture where they were originally called "drapes." Zoot suits were suits with baggy, high-waisted, wide-legged, cuffed pants and a long oversized coat with wide lapels and wided padded shoulders. The zoot suit was considered an outrageous style and also a statement of defiance. They were an emblem of ethnicity and a way of negotiating an identiy. Zoot suits also were a reminder to whites that the social order had failed to contain the energy and difference of blacks. As a result zoot suit wearers went from making a fashion statement to a political statement.

Cosgrove, Stuart. "The Zoot-Suit and Style Warfare." 4 September 2008. http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpieces/whole_cloth/u7sf/u7materials/cosgrove.html

ashley said...

Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri on February 1, 1902. He attended Columbia University in New York City but left after only a year because he found the atmosphere too depressing. He worked some odd jobs until entering Lincoln University in Oxford, Pennsylvania. His first book of poetry was "The Weary Blues," published in 1926. After graduating from school, he made a living as a writer. His primary focus was portraying black Americans, especially those in the lower classes. He was an important and influential part of the Harlem Renaissance, and was even known as the poet laureate of Harlem during his lifetime. His early work was influenced by Walt Whitman, Laurence Dunbar, Claude McKay, and Carl Sandburg. He even referred to Sandburg as his "guiding star," whose influence is evident through Hughes's use of free verse and a radically democratic modernist aesthetic. His radical democratic views led to his belief that art should be available to as many people as possible, and although he was at times bitter, he managed to infuse a keen sense of the ideal into his work, including his profound love of humanity, especially black Americans. He died in New York City in 1967 from lung cancer.

Rampersad, Arnold. "A Centennial Tribute to Langston Hughes." 1997 Howard University. http://www.howard.edu/library/reference/guides/hughes/default.htm

Unknown said...

In the early 20th century, African Americans began their struggle for equal rights outside of the basic laws. They were fighting the Jim Crow Laws. W.E.B. DuBois was one of the instrumental leaders of this movement. DuBois was born February 23, 1868 and lived most of his childhood without his father, who abandoned his wife and infant child because of the difficulties with his in-laws. His beliefs later in life were shaped by his mother's stroke, that rendered her incapable of working. His platform for equality was education. He believed that blacks could become social equals, immedietly, with a strong education. In his 95 year life, he recieved his PhD from Harvard, taught in many institutions of higher learning, and still found time to publish over 4,000 picecs of literature. DuBois, along with William Monroe Trotter, founded the NAACP, which is now the largest non-profit civil rights group in the world. He also helped publish poets who became central to African American life for years to come. One of these poets is Langston Hughes.
DuBois died on August 27, 1963 at the age of 95.

Lewis, David Levering. "W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race." Owl Books, 1994.

Unknown said...

Booker Taliaferro Washington was born into slavery on April fifth 1856 on the Burroughs Plantation in southwest Virginia. Washington and his family were freed from slavery after the civil war. Washington then went to Hampton institute, which was established to educate freed blacks. After several years there he went to Wayland Seminary to learn to become an educator himself. Hampton’s president nominated Washington to be the first leader of the Tuskegee institute, one of the first colleges in the United States to accept black students.
Washington believed that confrontation of the racist whites would only due harm, and that the only way to gain black rights was through cooperation with supportive whites. Washington is remembered as a great orator for black rights, and an excellent educator.

“The Booker T. Washington Papers.” History Cooperative. 5 September 2008 http://www.historycooperative.org/btw/index.html

Anonymous said...

Jack the Bear and Brer Rabbit

Both Jack the Bear(more commonly known as Brer Bear) and Brer Rabbit were characters in the story "Song of the South". These folktales of African American culture was created by Joel Chandler Harris. The story is set in Georgia in the 1880's, and an elderly plantation worked called Uncle Remus tell a boy stories involving these characters. Brer(which is short for brother in the story) Rabbit is a trickster character who typically matches wits with Brer Fox, who always falls into his tricks. Brer Bear was Brer Fox's big but somewhat dumb sidekick. Basically, the stories decide that because a black man is uneducated, he can not reach his full potential.

http://www.toonopedia.com/brerrab.htm

Unknown said...

Amos and Andy

Amos and Andy (a.k.a. Amos 'n' Andy)originated as a nightly 15 minute skit created by 2 white actors, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll. They won over their audience quickly with the way they portrayed the two black characters, perfectly fulfilling the stereotypical views of African Americans during the time (late 1920s). The storyline was about two peanut farmers from Atlanta, Georgia named Amos and Andy. They both were seeking a better life in Chicago, so they left Atlanta with some ham and cheese sandwiches and $24. They go on to live in Chicago, and their lodge keeper "the Kingfish" always tried to trick them into get rich quick schemes.

After over 4,000 nightly episodes, the show went to a weekly broadcast (by this time it is a nationally syndicated show). There was much controversy over the way black people were portrayed in the show, often times shown as uneducated and dumb. NAACP and some other groups made a push to get the show removed from the media, but it was not until 1953 that CBS pulled the show. However, reruns of recordings aired until 1966.

McLeod, Elizabeth. "The Original Amos 'n' Andy: Freeman Gosden, Charles Correll, and the 1928-43 Radio Serial." 2005. September 4, 2008. http://www.midcoast.com/~lizmcl/aa.html

Bridget Daunais said...

Father Divine

He is a minister named Rev. Major J. Divine. his wife is reffered to as mother divine. their goal is to spread the peace mission movement. they have beliefs on everything from politics, to religion, to school systems. they believe that schools should allow people to progress at their own pace and not be bound by a course system. they also believe that english should be the universal language for the whole world.

chloe said...

Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey was the leader of the largest organized mass movement in black history. He was born on August 17th, 1887 in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica. He quit going to school at age 14 and began working as a printer, also touring much of Central America, and joining the Jamaican nationalist organizations.
Garvey then moved to the United States in 1916 and started touring and lecturing---attempting to make the Black American population proud of their heritage and culture and avoid relief from racism. His thoughts and ideas were often known as "Garveyism". He possessed excellent oratory skills that aided him in successfully convincing the people that a change was needed.
After settling in New York, Marcus Garvey created the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association)and by 1920, there were hundreds of organizations worldwide. However, over the next couple of years, the movement began to crumble because of internal disagreements, governmental harrassment, and resistence from Black critics.
In the year 1922, Garvey was sentanced to prison by the federal government for mail fraud charges. Later, his sentance was commuted and instead he was deported back to Jamaica in 1927. He never returned to the U.S after that. He reconstructed the UNIA and held several inventions in Jamaica and Canada, and finally passed away on June 10th, 1940.


"Introduction, Marcus Garvey: An Overview". UCLA African Studies Center. 4 September 2008. http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/mgpp/intro.asp.

"Timeline: Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League Chronology". UNIA-ACL. 4 September 2008. http://www.unia-acl.org/info/timeline.htm.

Anonymous said...

The Nation of Islam was founded during the Great Depression by Wallace D. Fard. It was under the leadership of Elijah Muhammad that the movement gained recognition. It teaches that American blacks descended from the ancient tribe of Shabazz which had origionally settled in Mecca. It also preaches that blacks and whites share no real community. Followers are prohibited the use of alcohol, smoking, and drugs, and also the women are taught a dress code of modesty. One of its most famous followers was Malcolm X, who in 1964 went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he prayed alongside people of every race. He then became convinced of the hopelessness of racism and and started to preach black nationalism instead of black separatism. Today the group is divided but the main one is led by Louis Farrakan. This is a more radical for that restricts membership to blacks and preaches separatism.
"Nation of Islam Basics."
2008. Beliefnet.
4 September 2008.
http://www.beliefnet.com/index_10039.html

Unknown said...

Nation of Islam

Master Wallace Fard Muhammad, “the master”, believed that African Americans, his “lost and found people,” were the original inhabitants of the Earth, and although they suffered hardships through the many years of slavery, they could be led to a road of new spiritual independence through the knowledge of God. He met Elijah Muhammad in Detriot, Michigan and chose him to be his disciple, spending three and a half years teaching him the “secret wisdom of the reality of God.” Muhammad began preaching to followers of the return of the Messiah, when the master would return to Earth again. The Nation of Islam taught believed they were the answer to Abraham’s prayer to deliver his people from slavery. They founded their beliefs on peace and love and were taught the Principles of Divine Unity and the Universal Brotherhood of Islam. They believed that by following God’s example of moral behavior they were extending his divine work for the rest of the world to witness. They believe in modesty and the righteous path of life. They continue, to this day, to await the day when Allah will return to Earth again.

Muhammad, Mother Tynetta. "Brief History on Origin of the Nation of Islam in America A Nation of Peace & Beauty." March 28, 1996. http://www.noi.org/history_of_noi.htm.

Alyssa said...

"The Wasteland" is a very, verrrrrry verbose poem by T.S. Eliot. It has 434 lines. There are abrupt shifts in satire, context, and speakers. The women in the poem are the main characters. They describe their memories and nature. The poem also is written in different languages. The tone is somber. There are many references to death which at times are exemplified through the "seasons".

Alyssa said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Chandler Witt said...

The Great Migration lasted from the 1910s to the 1940s. This was the period when hundreds of thousands of African Americans migrated from the South to the North. One of the main reasons for this major movement was for the job opertunities that were becoming increasingly available in the North. This was because factories were increasing production in order to meet the war time needs. Some of the major northern cities that were migrated to include: Cleveland, Youngstown, Toledo, and Akron. The Great Migration was a wonderful sense of hope and oppertunity for these people. It is estimated that as many as 500,000 blacks moved from the South to the North from the 1910s and the early 1920s.

"Great Migration", Ohio History Central, July 1, 2005, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=502

Alyssa said...

Kennedy, LuAnn. "Analysis of the Wasteland." Associated Content. 24 Jan. 2007. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/124118/analysis_of_the_wasteland_by_ts_eliot.html

Alyssa said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Alyssa said...

ysis_of_the_wasteland_by_ts_eliot.html

Chris.Choe said...

W.E.B. DuBois was born on February 23, 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. There were no more than 50 blacks in his community, and therefore, there were little signs of overt racism. It was when he was in high school that he developed a big interest in the development of his people. After high school, DuBois received a scholarship to Fisk College in Nashville, Tennessee. It was his first excursion into the South, and here, he saw discrimination to the extreme. After his sophomore year in Fisk College, DuBois was accepted into Harvard as a junior. He then continued his education at the University of Berlin in Germany. In Berlin, he began to see the race problems in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, and the political development of Europe as one. WEB DuBois later had a controversy with Booker T Washington. Washington believed in achieving economic quality before social and civil equality. However, DuBois believed in gaining social, political, and civil equality first. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, DuBois had a change in ideology. He relegated integration to a long-term goal and developed a keen mistrust for white politicians and white capitalists. Towards the end of his life, DuBois renounced his US citizenship and settled down in Ghana. There, he became an official citizen of Ghana and an official member of its communist party.

Chris.Choe said...

and here is my source:

http://www.duboislc.org/html/DuBoisBio.html

Alex said...

Frederick Douglass was born in Febuary of 1818 in Maryland to a slave. He lived with his aunt and uncle, but sometimes saw his mother, but never he father, who was white. He worked for many different slaveholders, experiencing the cruelest treatment from some. +When he was 18, he decided to escape from slavery, but was arrested after his plan was discovered. He eventually escaped when he was 20, traveling to New York City. There, he became a strong and influential abolitionist, speaking to crowds of white and black people. Douglass was included in William Lloyd Garrison's "The Liberator" and even wrote his own book about his escape from slavery "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass."

Alex said...

"Frederick Douglass." PBS WGBH 1998. September 4, 2008. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1539.html

blandon said...

I just saw that i didn't put my citation down, I hope its not too late:

Notable Biographies. "Louis Armstrong Biography." 4 September 2008. http://www.notablebiographies.com/An-Ba/Armstrong-Louis.html.

HBogema said...

Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington was born in 1856 on a tobacco plantation. He spent much of his young years in the cabin where he was born, being too young to work, but he often carried a white girl's books for her to school. He dreamed of going to school, but only got the chance after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865. He went to school at the Hampton Institute in Virginia, a school where any black student could get in for a reasonable tuition. Washington's education here was a turn around and he began seeking African American rights. He became an instructor at the institute and made it his mission to help black students learn and escape poverty. Later, he founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and continued his mission. Washington became one of the main African American civil rights activists and is one of the most accomplished African American's of his time. He thought African American's should first escape the economic restraints before the social and political ones. Therefor, he was seen to fight conservatively for African American civil rights and looked down upon by other civil rights activists. Despite this, he continued to fight conservatively and continued until his death in 1915.

Up From Slavery, http://www.nps.gov/archive/bowa/btwbio.html

Haley said...

Langston Hughes was born into an abolitionist family in Joplin, Missouri on February 1, 1902. He started writing poetry at the age of eight, and his father paid for his tuition to Columbia University when he reached adulthood. He dropped out after a short amount of time with a B+ average. He continued to write poetry, though. His first published poem "The Negroe Speaks of Rivers" was also one of his most famous. He often was published in Crisis Magazine as well as Opportunity Magazine. He considered African American poets who did not write or refer to African American rights and culture as pretending to be a "white poet". He traveled the world in 1923, and he returned to Harlem in 1924, during which time the Harlem Renaissance was occuring, and his work became more popular than ever. Hughes received a scholarship to Lincoln University where he earned his bachelour's in 1929. He devoted his life to writing and lecturing, and he remains to be one of the most celebrated African American writers of all time, even after his death due to cancer in 1967.

Andrew P. Jackson. Langston Hughes. 2003. Jazz is Timeless Records. 4 September 2008. http://www.redhotjazz.com/hughes.html

:)

Unknown said...

Initially an African American youth fashion, closely connected to jazz culture, the zoot suit was co-opted by a generation of Mexican American kids, who made it their own.

The oversized suit was both an outrageous style and a statement of defiance. Zoot suiters asserted themselves, at a time when fabric was being rationed for the war effort, and in the face of widespread discrimination.

Zoot suits were reserved for special occasions -- a dance or a birthday party. The amount of material and tailoring required made them luxury items. Many kids wore a toned-down version of the "draped" pants or styled their hair in the signature "ducktail."

The Los Angeles press was hostile to zoot suiters, many of them Mexican American young people. The newspapers depicted them as hoodlums. With the nation at war, headlines about zoot suiters shared column space with articles on Allied advances in Europe, food shortages at home, and advertisements urging American victory.


Works Cited

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/zoot/eng_sfeature/sf_zoot_mx.html

Ben Chung said...

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass, whose real name was Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, was the son of a slave mother and an unknown white man. His mother died when he was seven, and he was unfortunately forced to face the reality of slavery. He was brutally whipped by his first owners. When he turned eight, the wife of a slave owner(Hugh Auld) taught him how to read. After some time, Douglass was once again transferred to a new owner, where he would be beaten repetitively. But by then, he knew better than to take the blows; he planned on running away. Eventually he ran away, and from then on, he became a hardcore abolitionist, publishing his famous book called THE LIBERATOR. Through the help of his mentor Garrison(a white abolitionist leader), Douglass successfully revealed the reality of slavery to many slaves. After the slavery issue, he fought for women's rights.

Africans in America. "Frederick Douglass." PBS Online/WGBH.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1539.html