An African-American Cultural Study

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses Baldwin's and Dubois' novels in order to explore and quantify a cultural study of African-Americans. The paper comes to discuss the post civil war history of African-Americans. It addresses many pertinent issues, such as the color-line problem, dual consciousness and the socioeconomic conditions that greeted newly-emancipated African-Americans, shaped their lives and the face of American culture.

From the Paper:

"DuBois documents some main reasons for this destitution: lack of
education, training, efforts and ability to institute ways to overcome
the latter causes. For these reasons, the author constructively
denounces the path that Booker T. Washington has chosen to lead his many followers. It is not enough to be conciliatory; rather it is
historically American to garner support and together fight vehemently
in order to create a movement that will produce positive results.
Compromise too often is not enough when considering that ".all men are created equal". DuBois shows how disempowerment through unwilling ignorance will never give way to equality and that without the recognition that inequality is a constant threat, there will never be a move away from inequality. This move begins with recognition, garners support through acknowledgment and proceeds into a movement only when conditions between the haves and the have-nots are widely disparate. There is no impetus for black people to question their status among society at this time. It is evident to all that African-Americans populate the space below laboring whites and above animals, despite any desire to overcome ignorance, gain knowledge, and live peacefully with respect and opportunity for warranted taking. External stereotypes had thus far served to disempower and categorize blacks, causing blacks to be disempowered and stereotypical."

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