Back to Africa Movement Written by: Lily Iglehart Is the Back to Africa movement the right way to go for blacks facing discrimination in the United States? Yes, why should we have to deal with the daily discrimination from the children of the men who abducted our fathers? Marcus Garvey is standing up for us and giving us the chance to return home and reinstate ourselves into the culture we have a birthright to. How are we supposed to raise our children and protect our families in a place that is on constant attack? The black man, discriminated by the modern day white American. Our ancestors abducted from their homeland Africa, forced to leave their families and culture and forced to work for the men who caused their distress. Now, kept from making a safe home for our families, making us prudent of showing up in public for fear of anger against us, attacks, or even lynching. How are we supposed to live in a society that rebukes us for the melanin of our skin and the slavery of our fathers. We must acknowledge our saving grace, Marcus Garvey, the man leading us back to our fatherland. Why ignore the ability to obtain freedom and the person who is offering it. Just recently a white on black riot broke out in Tulsa, Oklahoma, causing the murders of 150-200 men, women, and children of color. They caused 1,500,000 dollars or property
damage with fire. This whole riot over the allegation that a white woman made, she said a man of color tried to attack her on an elevator. All of this pain and death because of the raving anger over an allegation. We must leave this nation of raving mad men who go into murderous rages at any possible occasion. We must flee for the safety of our children and families. At what cost will we stay in this hateful nation our dignity, our lives, our families lives? Staying here we risk the lives of our families and loved ones. Why should we roll the dice? This nation is out to rid of us and wipe us from their hands. We must keep our families safe in a place where we are accepted and our heritage is celebrated and dominant. we must help our children grow in our ways, so they can grow to appreciate the culture they were born into. People, we must follow Marcus and go back to Africa. A place of acceptance, where we are safe in a place where our culture is free and can prosper. A place that a great, smart man is helping us to and urging us to return to. A culture that is safe and encouraging to our children and helps them learn and grow. A home. Africa.
The Aftermath of WW1 for African Americans By: Isyss SHaw After all we have done to try and help these people and help in the war they still don't see us as equal to them. Harsh right? We go out of our way to try and help them thinking it will benefit us in some way. Foolish aren't we, why would we think that because we helped them they would bow on their knees and bow to us as if we were kings and queens. We headed into this war and came back only to be in more danger. Its ridiculous! We come together as one only for them to tear us apart by making groups like the Ku Klux Klan who make it there daily goal to scare us into doing whatever they want because we are scared and we fear our lives at all times because of the things we know that they are capable of. We lose our own to them because we feel that we should all be equal to them. Why are they back? Because there are more people like us who are just trying to make it by. “ Immigrants” are what they call them when really they are people like You and I. They created the group as a weapon to make sure that they are always in power of all of us who aren't them but, then as soon as they become unstable they turn against each other like a pack of wild geese. They justify their actions by making it seem like we're the monsters here. It's hard to try and get ahead when all they do is pull us back every time but the invisible leash they have to tightly around our neck. They think we’re the reasons that is change is coming and they are blinded by anger because they want tradition, but what good is tradition. Blinded by their anger they take our children from us as a way of warning us. They are still angry about the civil war because they believe that we are the dirt underneath their feet, but we are so much more. Every time we move they follow us, we will never actually be free. Will we? Not unless we take a stand against their wrong doings.
“Lynched!” That word is always being thrown around. You’d never find out if people didn't run their mouth all the time because god forbid the newspapers would ever tell us because we don't want any evidence of such things right? Because they believe they are doing god's work and they wouldn't want him to have a paper trail. No, they use that as there excuse to walk around bare-faced ground to lynch our people. They kill us off everyday and in public so that we see it and so whites will feel pride because of doing so. They display us as if we were slaughtered pigs. They take pictures as if we are the only interesting when we are hanging from a tree. We are NOT there puppets. They kill 200 of us a year because they can. Law Enforcement, they’re a joke, pretending to be doing there jobs but ignore our cries for help, but they always come running when we’re believed to have raped or beaten one of their own.
We’ve been pushed to the point of sharecropping, which is really just slavery in disguise. We borrow loans from them and they know we will never ever be able to pay them back so we are always in debt to them. We can't get jobs because we're not smart enough to. We have to make a living doing the only things that we know how to which isn't really anything we never got to get a education. We finally find a way to get education, but one of our very own Booker T. Washington is trying to put the idea that we should just accept that they are our superiors and get over. That our lives will be easier if we just accept it like he has. Whenever we take a step forward to be equal they always find away to pull us back. The Jim Crow Laws are a legal way that they found to keep us away from the privileges that the whites have. By having legal segregation because as long as we have the same things as them than it's not really segregating is it? Even if they have the newer version and the safer version. The Grandfather Clause is one of the many ways that they keep us from voting saying that we can only vote if our grandfather had the right which is impossible for many of us because our grandfathers were slaves. Literacy tests keep many of us from voting too because we have to have a certain number to qualify to take the test and then we actually have to take the test. Most of us don't even make it through the first test. There are barely any of us voting and the ones that are they are only making it by the smallest point and then being killed off because they voted. They scare us into not voting at all by killing the ones that do and that's how they keep us from voting.
We went off to war to better our lives for when we got back to america thinking it will get better for us. In the end it only got worse more dangerous, so dangerous to the point that people are scared for their children or scared to have children in fear that if they do they'll only be in harm's way. Half of us are too terrified to even go check the mail because they are always watching us. The other half knows of the risks and goes but, are always telling her family goodbye before leaving. We can't continue to live in fear like this we should be able to live our lives the way they do. The true question is, will you help take the stand with us?
Hardships and Success of Black Culture By: Isyss Shaw, Lilly Iglehart, Micheal Wu, And Daquan Johnson
As we face more and more discrimination daily and it seems like it's only gonna get harder and we need to leave. We know that because we stay that we can achieve success in america if we fight for what want now, we’ll keep fighting till were equal. We try to fight, only to be shot down over and over again and we are at the point of giving up and accepting such a cruel fate but, we have people of our own who will never us surrender and they do that by succeeding for us. Day and day we face discrimination. People dying because we aren't them and they can't accept it. We left to fight in the war with the mindset that we will be treated better when we return and to return with the same fate but even worst, They claim were the reasons they have no jobs or that were the reasons they get lower pay. But, in reality they are just angry that they aren't appreciated after fighting in such a terrible war and we are their cover up. It's a harsh fact to wake up to but it's the world we are living in and we can't change it. They kill us in fear that we are finally being accepted into society and people will finally see that there ways are wrong. They know their ways are wrong too because they hide behind a mask and claim that they are doing gods works.
In America today black Americans are under hardship in the U.S. We are treated like pests and made to live afraid. It is only a matter of time before they force us back into the roll of our grandfathers, with the way they keep us from normal life. Through the back to Africa movement the black man can achieve success in going home and finding roots. We need to bring our families to a place that enables our children to have a successful future. Why must we argue to stay in a place that tries so hard to break us down. We can barely get an education that is worth anything without fighting for it. We can’t even vote without the threat of lynching and the harm of our children. The black man will find success in going to safety and to a place that is accepting of his skin color and culture. We must leave this discrimination and hardship and go to Africa, where we will be welcomed in kindness and find success.
The music in America has took a big change, instead of slow music it became more upbeat and easier to dance too. This music is called jazz. This gave us more respected as African Americans and created a community of both blacks and whites. This music is bringing many white folks from the south up to the north to listen to amazing artists such as Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Jazz is also shaping the social culture of America. It has really started to shape clothing fashion, for example the drop shift womens dress was a big picture in the jazz fashion. Jazz is having a big impact on America and it's culture. The Harlem Renaissance is a group that was made to support African Americans stand up for our rights we showed this by having many plays and live performances, we showed off arts and literature and told the stories of our struggles and all the things we have been through to do things such as get a job. The Harlem Renaissance has shaped many African Americans, helped them stand up for there rights. Even through all the Hardships that we went through we have made it through and brought success that not only brings african americans together but it brings whites with us too. We fought in a war that we believed that would help us but in the end it destroyed us and made everything dangerous for us and our families. We have been told that going back to africa can help us all with the dangers and that we are welcomed as back with open arms but, should we take that opportunity. After everything we are still standing and making history for future blacks to look on and be proud of and be able to say “yeah my ancestors did that� with a bright smile. If we stay or we go after everything we've been through is truly up to you.
Jazz Movement of the 1920’s BY Michael Wu
Jazz, was born in early 1900s, this way of music was first played in New Orleans. Right now in the 1920s everyone loves it, people are coming from everywhere to listen and dance to it. Jazz is changing America! It is changing America in many ways, one of the many things is it's bringing black and white together as a community. Lots of whites come up from the the south to the north to see these jazz artists. Jazz is changing society it is changing Fashion and popular culture. Men started bagging there pants and women started cutting their hair short, these were all influenced by jazz. African Americans were given more respect through jazz. Jazz is a very different type of music then what we did have, Jazz is much louder and a lot more fun to dance to. Jazz isn't music merely, it is a spirit that can express itself in almost anything. Jazz spread through the United States very fast because of radio players and gramophone. Count Basie and Duke Ellington created great standards that people come down to listen. Harlem became a thing many white people came down just to see them. This type of music was a way of performing not writing.
Jazz is really changing The United States, but it has changed it in a good way. This New music has created many miracles and has changed the look on us.
22 cent Duke Ellington Stamp
Harlem Renaissance By: Daquan Johnson
The Harlem Renaissance is a large cultural event where African-Americans come together to listen to music and show off art. The founders of this event names are Jean Toomer, Jessie Fauset, Claude Mckay, Zora Neale, Alain Locke, and more. This urges African-Americans to stand up for their rights. It has also changed how people look at African-American culture it is a civil rights movement. It all started in African-American theater with plays written by white playwrights Ridgely Torrence using African-Americans showing Complex human emotions. The African American Religious system is a big thing when it comes to christianity, and it helps show how hard it was for the African-American priests. It shows the struggle they went thru to become priests. Most common way to see critique was threw there poems, literature also expressed in arts, to show how hard it was, letting the people know the anger they felt and the obstacles.
Women’s clothing is a big thing now. African-Americans often wanted to wear what the white women wanted to wear, a lot of women wanted clothes like that. Jean Patou is a successful African-American dancer, who is an inspiration to all races of women with her stage costumes. A lot of African-Americans wear animal skins to show African Heritage. African-Americans started playing instruments, it was mostly made up of brass instruments, and the music they play is jazz. Jazz is popular.