The 1950s was a time when the last of the generation of slaves were beginning to disappear from communities but their first generation children were attempting to make sense of the lives they led and the cautionary tales they had applied to their lives as a result. The work shows that for the 1950s African-American family it was a time of remembrance and resolution as well as a time to reflect on change and hope for even greater change in the future, with the inclusion of the fact that defacto segregation and suppression was still occurring in a rampant manner all over their lives.
Secondary Sources
Jewell, K. Sue. 2003. Survival of the African-American Family: The Institutional Impact of U.S. Social Policy. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Jewell develops a social history that demonstrates all the many disparities of the African-American vs. majority culture and how these disparities, legal, social and economic effected the family during the whole of the 20th century. Her treatment of the 1950s as a time when change was in the air but had not yet been realized and was therefore extremely frustrating for many individuals is spot on. The works premise is that the liberal social policy, which began to alter the legal and social landscape of America was largely unsuccessful, and in many ways remains so today. The challenges to African-American families can still be seen in the cultural climate that evolved from failed social policy. In other words changing the laws did little the actually change the lives of families.
Johnson, Fred L. 2005. Andrew Wiese. Places of Their Own: African-American Suburbanization in the Twentieth Century. African-American Review 39, no. 4: 615..
Johnson details the manner in which suburbanization changed the lives of African-American families, in the 1950s. They to some degree sought the same ideal that white families did in the post war culture, to own a home in one of the growing suburban communities, and offer their children the same opportunities that were so painted golden in the era. The work demonstrates that though the families may have had the same intentions...
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