Weldon Johnson
Separate the Races?
One of the most prevalent themes explored in James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man is the ramifications of miscegenation during America's racially charged late 19th/early 20th century epoch. Johnson's work highlights the daily vicissitudes that are a direct consequence of the taboo social mixing of African-Americans and Caucasians. Originally engendered as one of the many unforeseen products of this country's chattel slavery period, interracial coitus would go on to greatly alter the lives of all participants involved -- spanning across gender, color and age distinctions -- and produce a remarkable number of perverse situations for all parties.
This thesis particularly applies to the progeny of affairs of miscegenation -- the children who often endured a sense of alienation and isolation that distances them from being unconditionally accepted by both races, African-American and Caucasian (Williams 1987, 141). In the following quotations, the narrator and protagonist of The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man explains the sense of separation he felt upon recently discovering he is...
One of the major components of these Jim Crow laws was disenfranchisement which was "largely the work of rural and urban white elites who sought to reassure" whites in the south that white supremacy was the law of the land. As a result, lynching and other forms of violence against blacks were endorsed, encouraged and rationalized in the minds of most southern whites (Rabinowitz, 168). A prominent spokesman against African-American
tomorrow / Bright before us / Like a flame. (Alain Locke, "Enter the New Negro," 1925) From the 1920's Alain Leroy Locke has been known as a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Through his writings, his actions and his education, Locke worked to educate not only White America, but also the Negro, about the beauty of the Negro heritage. He emphasized the idea that no single culture is more
Black Entertainment and Sports Institutions/Organizations in Atlanta, GA 1880s to the early 1900s -- "African-Americans in Atlanta were entertained by traveling minstrel companies and local orchestras which performed at social events held at the first Odd Fellows Hall, located on Piedmont Avenue. Atlanta University offered musically talented students, including James Weldon Johnson, brother of J. Rosamond Johnson, who entertained throughout the city during the late 1890s" (Mason, Jr. 10). Circa 1900 --
They were followed in 1936 by the Harlem River Houses, a more modest experiment in housing projects. And by 1964, nine giant public housing projects had been constructed in the neighborhood, housing over 41,000 people [see also Tritter; Pinckney and Woock]. The roots of Harlem's various pre 1960's-era movements for African-American equality began growing years before the Harlem Renaissance itself, and were still alive long after the Harlem Renaissance ended.
... Poor Catholic poor-white crazy woman, said the black folks' mouths" (8). But throughout the novel, it is factual treatment of race that dominates any emotional construction of race. The central problem of identity in Cane is grounded in lack of acceptance of what has universally existed i.e. polarities. In the 1920s, writers like Toomer embraced a new kind of racial identity i.e. repudiation of race itself that emerged from accepting
This work provided an intensive discussion historical forces that were to lead to modern humanism but also succeeds in placing these aspects into the context of the larger social, historical and political milieu. . Online sources and databases proved to be a valid and often insightful recourse area for this topic. Of particular note is a concise and well-written article by Stephen Weldon entitled Secular Humanism in the United States.
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