Americans have come a long way in their fight for the elimination of racial divide and human inequality. Beginning with Abraham Lincoln and his Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, he declared "All persons held as slaves within the rebellious states are, and henceforward shall be free." (Featured Documents 1) And while this proclamation didn’t completely end slavery, it set the precedent for freedom in the minds of many for what was achievable. But, change takes time. Analagous to the struggles that women endure in a male dominated society, per Simone de Beauvoir’s, Second Sex, African-Americans have essentially been considered an “other” to the white race. African-Americans have faced an uphill battle in their fight for their right of equality.
During the Harlem Renaissance period, was it any wonder that African-Americans might wish to have a different skin color to improve their chances of gaining acceptance by whites in literature and music? Langston Hughes, a pioneer during that time, was concerned about this longing in many of the black artists during the early 1920s. He understood how desperately these artists wanted to be heard and sought the approval from a white audience. “But he worries about the price paid for gaining the attention of whites. The perils facing the black artist are so many – from self-loathing to currying the favor of whites to providing a safe window on the exotic world of the racial other – that success depends on an honesty and fearlessness that are almost too much to ask.” (1191) Hughes was concerned for the African-American artist. He hoped they would affirm their race and acknowledge the truth in racism, but his disappointment remained when a poet friend of his declared indirectly that he not only wanted to be a poet, but a white poet. (1192)
One hundred years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Dr. Martin Luther King broke the boundary of racial divide in 1963. In the attached clip of King's famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. King unites men and women of all races and shares his dream of combined brotherhood where one’s skin color is unimportant. “I have a dream that one day my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” (King 1963) In the time between, and after this great speech, enormous progress has been made in abolishing the racial divide between white and black Americans as attested to in 2009, when Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States; a man of mixed race.
One hundred years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Dr. Martin Luther King broke the boundary of racial divide in 1963. In the attached clip of King's famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. King unites men and women of all races and shares his dream of combined brotherhood where one’s skin color is unimportant. “I have a dream that one day my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” (King 1963) In the time between, and after this great speech, enormous progress has been made in abolishing the racial divide between white and black Americans as attested to in 2009, when Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States; a man of mixed race.
Featured Documents, The Emancipation Proclamation, page 1
Record Group 11
General Records of the United States, web, May 8, 2011
Langston Hughes 1902-1967, the Norton Anthology of Theory & CriticismRecord Group 11
General Records of the United States, web, May 8, 2011
Leitch, New York, 2010, 2001 - p 1191-1192
Dr. Martin Luther King- I Have a Dream Speech, 1963
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