The Importance of African-American Studies Essay

Although the article has good points, the article did not mention solutions for the struggles, challenges, and dilemmas of African American students on campus and the future trajectory for African American studies. I know that it is very difficult to predict what changes will be in the future for the trajectory of the African American Studies program. However, the article did bring insight for other researchers as an “opportunity to cultivate solidarity and sharpen and update its analysis of racism in the United States” (p 235).

Throughout history, African American weren’t considered the smartest race on earth. With slavery and being for bided to ever touch or learn to read a book, African American became the race that envy having an education. Education became a prime factor in the African American culture. Having an education to an African is having the one-way ticket out of the terrible streets. They believe that if they don’t know nothing they won’t get nothing. In other word, if they aren’t educated their life would remain the same. Way back to slavery, African American would be beaten if they were to open a book and dare to read it instead of cleaning it.

1 . What issues most concerned black political leaders during Reconstruction? Reconstruction brought important social changes to former slaves. Families that had been separated before and during the Civil War were reunited, and slave marriages were formalized through legally recognized ceremonies. Families also took advantage of the schools established by the Freedmen's Bureau and the expansion of public education, albeit segregated, under the Reconstruction legislatures. New opportunities for higher education also became available with the founding soon after the Civil War of black colleges, such as Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Fisk University in Nashville,

The book’s overall theme is, as Henri states in the preface, that "black Americans in the early decades of the century had far more of a hand in shaping their future than historians of the period tend to perceive, or at least to convey." The same can be said to some degree for almost all periods of African and African-American recorded

For blacks, the history of higher education typically points to segregated education. Before the Civil War, the social system promoted the belief that blacks wouldn’t get return on their time spent in higher education. Brown and Ricard (2007) noted that most North institutions were reluctant to allow black enrollment in colleges and universities, and in the South, where slaveholder’s were still powerhouse businessmen, slaves would never be allowed to become more educated than their owners. The reluctance of the White leaders to allow blacks to formally be accepted into higher education programs held blacks back from achieving what many aspired to, and were fully capable of, experience.

Historically black colleges and universities, otherwise known as HBCUs, have played an integral role in advancing the education of underprivileged black teenagers since their inception after the American Civil War. They have had students extremely well known in their fields today, such as billionaire entertainer Oprah Winfrey, the first African American Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. Though their graduation rates tend to be around 1 in 3, they have produced a majority of successful African American professionals. For the continued advancement of African Americans, HBCUs are necessary for offering educational opportunities that their students had been historically denied and presently out of financial reach, while promoting strong family values and equality that may be lacking at traditional schools and displaying positive African American role models in their alumni and staff.

Does the unlearned history of the Black/ Africa-American community affect our position in society? If this unlearned history of the Black/African-American community was common knowledge would the world be different today?

1b. I am a woman, I practice Catholicism, I am 26 years old. As for my socio economic background I come from a middle class family. Growing up in the Congo we didn’t have much money, my parents did everything in their power to provide us with everything that we need to have the best possible life. For that reason my dad got a job here in Denver twenty plus years ago and we had to start all over. It was through the help of many family friends and relatives that we were able to have all the chances in life. My parents had to go to school and learn English and work at the same time. They had sacrificed a lot in order to make sure that we had everything in order to succeed in this

Being an African American woman in a Caucasian male dominated society, I have experienced my share of racial and sexual inequalities. Nonetheless, for the purpose of assignment only racial inequality will be discussed. As stated in last week’s assignment. For centuries, inhabitants of the earth have had an innate superiority complex, countries with greater weapons, numbers, technology and economic resources, created systems of inequality through domination of inferior-minority-groups, maintained and perpetuated through social forces.

Artwork has been an imperative part of Black culture, and many artist share their inspirations coming from African origins. From the beginning of slave societies to present day, African America artwork has contributed to large parts of United States artistic collection. Beginning in the early 1600 to 1800 “black art took the form of small drums, quilts, wrought-iron figures and ceramic vessels in the southern United States. These artifacts have similarities with comparable crafts in West and Central Africa.” The significance of the

My name is Michelle Williams-Agwagu and my ethnicity group is African American. African Americans came here by forced immigration. They were not invited here to America, and they certainly did not come here by choice. They were forced and taken on ships that brought them to America just to become slaves to the white people.

Jefferson Davis stated in the pre-Civil War years to a Northern audience, “You say you are opposed to the expansion of slavery... Is the slave to be benefited by it? Not at all. It is not humanity that influences you in the position which you now occupy before the country,'; (Davis, The Irrepressible Conflict, 447). The Northerners had not freed the slaves for moral issues; the white majority did not have anything but its own economic prosperity on its mind. The African Americans gained their emancipation and new rights through the battling Northern and Southern factions of the United States, not because a majority of the country felt that slavery possessed a ‘moral urgency’. As the years passed and the

Improving yourself is a great thing you could do, but what if you improved your whole community? African Americans have been together for numerous centuries, especially in the 19th century. Joined together, they have created things they never thought they could ever achieve. They improved themselves through communication, different preaching ways, and believing. African Americans had started to believe in God as a way of hope for them through the harsh times of slavery. Later, when they started to gain a higher voice, black leaders took a stand to speak out against slavery. Their Church is one of the things they could look forward to going to every time they were in a bad state of mind. They could go there to preach together as a community. The churches made by African Americans had joined them together to make something more than they ever thought they could achieve.

Many people have been surrounded by so many different cultures and ethnicities; one tends to lean on the culture that feels familiar and comfortable to them. The type of comfort that makes people reflect on their time with their loved ones is the very culture that they would relate to. There are so many different nationalities, in this melting pot called society; it’s interesting to get a feel of different backgrounds, history, food and the music that these different cultures experience on a day to day basis.

The Hundred year struggle for Black Americans would begin during Reconstruction, long before the civil rights movement would be headlining in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The struggle would not just be for freedom but also in terms of education and employment from the police brutality and general day to day discrimination. This abuse would compel individuals, such as the more famous Black civil rights leaders to launch efforts to assert their constitutional rights and improve their standing in society; through the use of media, that through time would be shown right in the home of Americans by Tv. Lobbying congressmen to support their cause from marches to Sit ins.