Author: rebecca shvarts (Page 1 of 2)

Lately, I found myself attracted to the field of women’s studies and want to learn more about talented and empowered women of the past and present times. So, I choose to learn about Alice Dunbar-Nelson. Her life and writing career have really been inspiring. Alice was among the first generation of African Americans born free in New Orleans after the American Civil War. She graduated from Straight University in 1892, a time when fewer than 1% of Americans went to college, and then became a teacher in New Orleans’ public school system. She worked tirelessly, writing in genres that were not popular at her time, such as diaries and journalistic essays. Her mixed-race heritage of African American, Anglo, Native American, and Creole gave her deep insight into tangled problems of gender, race, and ethnicity. All her life she struggles with her ability to pass as white, but she also confirms her inability to control how some black people viewed her.  Due to the light shade of her skin, other blacks sometimes perceived her as an elitist.  Although Alice Dunbar-Nelson struggled with acceptance within the black community, she spent her life, as a writer, teacher, public speaker, and activist, fighting for racial and gender justice.

Reading through the offered poems, I cannot find the drama of the racist oppression and social injustice of African American. However, those poems scream about her own struggles and longing to achieve greatness and be something more than she could, given her life circumstances. Her famous poem ‘I Sit and Sew’ clearly illustrates her feelings. Written just after WWI, it compares the violence of war, its “holocaust of hell” where soldiers “lie in sodden mud and rain”—with a boring and suffocating domestic life of a woman dreaming beneath a “homely thatch.” The speaker feels more and more useless and powerless until she can think no more but only scream in anguish because her meaningless life become unbearable, stifling, and “futile.” Her other poem ‘To Madam Curie’ echoes the same state of the soul which is not content with what she is but wanted to be more and achieve greatness like the famous women of the past. “Oft have I thrilled at deeds of high emprise, And yearned to venture into realms unknown, Thrice blessed she, I deemed, whom God had shown How to achieve great deeds in woman’s guise.” She too wishes to become like Madame Curie. She desires to be greater than Joan of Arc or Sappho of Lesbos.” So would I be this woman whom the world Avows its benefactor; nobler far, Than Sybil, Joan, Sappho, or Egypt’s queen.” She wants the world to depend on her as it did on Curie.

I believe all those wishes and desires to do something good and great in her life compelled her to grow out of timidity and desperation, to become a fighter. Among her many accomplishments (aside from the literary work) were the co-founding of a mission in Harlem to help young women transition from the American South states to New York, deep involvement in the women’s suffrage movement, support for anti-lynching legislation, and life-long commitment to education for people of color.

Reading through the first chapters, we learned that story of Huck’s adventures is told by the boy himself. His narrative is casual and crude, it belongs to the boy who came from the lowest level of white society. He was homeless, got away from his abusive father, and is now under the foster care of Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson. Huck has a funny way of speaking like a boy who is very uncomfortable in his new surroundings. He is bored with the way wealthy people live and always got in trouble with the Widow Douglas who is constantly wanted to ‘civilize’ him. Huck never put anything on faith, instead, whatever adults tell him he put under his life experience scrutiny. Right away he noticed a folly in Widow’s so ‘civil’ behavior when she did not let him smoke citing it as a bad habit but snuffed tobacco herself. Right away we see how the author compared white middle-class educated and ‘civil’ Tom who is so hung up on unrealistic and sentimental stories from the books, and down to earth ‘uncivil’ Huck, who is trying to find his way in life questioning everything and everybody’s behavior. Being ‘street’ smart allowed him to keep the money out of his abusive father’s reach. Pap is really something – when he tries to take the money, nothing really can stand in his way, and harming his own child in a way of getting it is no big deal to him. He is despicable and his talks are repulsive as well. Through him we first hear how the white population is considered a different race. In those first chapters, we learn about slavery in southern society. Pap continues to rant about a mixed-race man in town and is disgusted that the man is allowed to vote in his home state of Ohio and that legally he cannot be sold into slavery until he has been in Missouri for six months. Even Huck’s attitude toward slaves is very condescending. He considered them not smart, loaded with a bunch of superstitions, and only good to be home servants.

Going through the offered reading, I’ve refreshed my memory and taken in some new knowledge about the past and how it still echoes in the present. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, the newly added amendments tried to steer the country into a more democratic and humane direction, where all civil rights would be enjoyed by all, not just by white people. Despite many great achievements such as abolishing slavery, unification of the country, and passing the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments which guaranteed the newly freed slaves the same civil rights as those of whites, Reconstruction era failed to protect African Americans from racial violence and ensure their political rights. This failure led to present day racial discrimination and violation of the amendments. It’s hard to believe that in 21st century democratic society person can be beaten to death during a traffic stop. Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man died so tragically and senselessly. His death sparked a mass protest demonstration across the country and clearly showed that the process of social reconstruction is not finished, there is no such thing as race equality and civil right for all. That is the issue that is worth working for as it was highlighted by Timothy Hunter in his statement. Community political education, discussion with the local government, are type of works that need to be continued to ensure civil right equality.