Abstract
This paper examines the life of African American slave Frederick Douglass and his quest to educate his people, which was forbidden by the white slave master. It describes the daily lives of slaves, their culture and religion. The paper illustrates the strength of educating slaves to read and write in order to empower and strengthen their will to resist, and up rise against slavery

From the Paper
"Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in 1818 in Maryland. His mother, Harriet Baily, worked as a slave in the cornfields of a plantation. Frederick's father was a white man. Because of his mother's long hours, Frederick was sent to live with his grandmother, who lived on a nearby farm and raised Harriet's children until they were old enough to work.

During the years he spent in his grandmother's cabin, Frederick did not think of himself as a slave. He did, however, notice that his grandmother referred to a certain man as the "Old Master" and whenever, she referred to this man it was with fear."

Tags:slavery, freeman, plantation, mixed, blood, religion, biography

Abstract
This paper examines the play "A Raisin in the Sun", by African- American playwright Lorraine Hansberry. The paper describes the playwright's life and provides a synopsis of the plays events. The paper states that the moral of this play is as long as people try to do their best for their families, they can lift each other up.

From the Paper
"Lorraine Hansberry's " A Raisin in the Sun" was the first play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway in 1959. Moreover, Hansberry was the youngest and the first black writer to receive the New York Drama Critics Award. She was deeply committed to equality and human rights, and her play approaches important issues and concerns regarding the African-American racial identity and discrimination, and poverty."

Tags:africian, american, play, playwrite, new, york, drama, critics, award, balck, women, racial, identity, a, discrimination, poverty

Abstract
This paper describes the origins of American popular music in European and African culture. The author claims that In effect, American music is a hybrid of musical movements from blues and spirituals to European folk music.

From the Paper
"Much of American culture bears the mark of the melting pot effect. Essentially a land of immigrants, America has served, in many ways, as a palette from which popular culture draws an innumerable array of shades. As such, popular social trends often are a reflection of the hybrid mainstream instinct. Pop music, in its incubational phases, is highly indicative of that notion. This is particularly evident in ostensibly indigenous musical movements like blues/folk music and spirituals, both of which employ extensive European and African influences, social imports that create a tapestry of globally unique and distinctively American sounds."

Tags:art, jazz, music, race relations, rock, social traditional, values, blues, folk, Africian American