PROMPT/INSTRUCTIONS: Your final paper for this course should first identify and

PROMPT/INSTRUCTIONS: Your final paper for this course should first identify and
analyze one claim from either Voices of the Harlem Renaissance or
Women of the Harlem Renaissance. Then
your paper will make an argument that one novel or several poems
or blues songs confirm or contradict the claim from the critical chapters in
ways that help us to understand the work and the movement. Your paper should
cite words, phrases, and passages from the work that you are considering and
then analyze these words, phrases, and passages. This practice of citation and
analysis is called “close reading” and it is the heart of a literary studies
essay. This is the case even if you are writing about songs, whose lyrics you
can cite and close read. In this case you can also talk about the musical
elements of the song (describe the music, the singer’s voice ect.) using Angela
Davis’s analysis as an example of how to write about music.
In either case, your argument must go beyond the
obvious (if you are aiming for a high B or A paper!). Meaning, you shouldn’t
merely say: “Cheryl Wall says women writers of The Harlem Renaissance focus on
the domestic and sure enough this poem depicts domestic concerns.” Rather, your
paper should argue that the particular
depiction of the domestic helps us to understand what these women artists
contributed to our understanding of the domestic.
!!!!!!HERE IS WHAT I HAVE ALREADY DONE!! JUST HAVE TO FINISH!!!!!!
William Edward Burkhardt Du Bois
was the first American sociologist to develop strategies to facilitate social
inequality. Du Bois is known for his articulate and informative writing like The
Souls of the Black Folks and Black Reconstruction in America. In his
literary works he shows the complication of indulging in black art in the 19th
century by stating the problem of the “color line”. Du Bois discuss this
fictional line that separates the two race, black and white, which causes black
oppression. In Du Bois novel The Souls of Black Folks, he develops and
explains several concepts of black philosophy and discusses the beliefs of the
socioeconomic groups. These concepts include the working class, capitalism, white
supremacy, ‘the veil’, and’ ‘double consciousness”. These concepts explain why
it is difficult for African Americans to feel supported and motivated in their
beauty and art.
To understand why it is hard to
indulge in black beauty and art it is necessary to understand the working white
class starting in the 18th century. Du Bois believe that the white working
class played an important role on the oppression of black workers. In 1860
Abraham Lincoln conveyed this objective that you can be a wealthy man if you
continue to work. In Black Reconstruction in America, it mentioned that
Lincoln states “and I believe a black man is entitled to it”. This made whites oppose to slavery but not
because they believed it was wrong but to eliminate the competition. White
people wanted a chance to become capitalists. When whites started getting jobs,
they realized that the compensation was cheap, and this is because that is what
black workers would work for. White people blamed the black workers which
started a race war. White started to riot and kill hundreds of fugitives and
free black people.