The decades between the 1940s and the 1980s became an era of great change for the United States, particularly in regards to the racial dynamics and discourse surrounding African Americans. Following the peak of the Harlem Renaissance, the United States found itself in the midst of two wars: the country's literal involvement in the second World War and the figurative war regarding the democratic failures involving race and the treatment of African Americans. While literature at this time had been useful in reaching a wide audience of people of all races, many authors began to distance themselves from the texts of the Harlem Renaissance, which were thought to appeal more to the ideals of white Americans rather than reflect the growing anger and tension regarding social and economic disparities felt by black Americans. As public demonstrations and calls for justice and equality began to make their way into mainstream news and publications, individuals in the black community emerged from the masses to be voices for the many, and through their ideas and demands for equality came the Black Power Movement which in turn produced the Black Arts Movement, a period of appreciation and emphasis on black history and culture in hopes to achieve social liberation. By harnessing the momentum of the changing African American discourse created by the Black Power Movement, the Black Arts Movement embraced black nationalism and historical pride and spurred a political awareness and activism whose energy mirrored that of the social climate.
1941- A. Philip Randolph, organizer of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, organized a march on Washington D.C. to protest segregation in the war industry workforce, which prompted President Franklin D. Roosevelt to pass the Fair Employment Act.
Richard Wright- Native Son (1940)
"I know I oughtn’t think about it, but I can’t help it. Every time I think about it I feel like somebody’s poking a red-hot iron down my throat. Goddammit, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we ain’t. They do things and we can’t. It’s just like living in jail. Half the time I feel like I’m on the outside of the world peeping in through a knothole in the fence"
1948 President Truman ends segregation in the military
Ann Petry- The Street (1946)
“She held the paper in her hand for a long time, trying to follow the reasoning by which that thin ragged boy had become in the eyes of a reporter a 'burly Negro.' And she decided that it all depended on where you sat how these things looked. If you looked at them from inside the framework of a fat weekly salary, and you thought of colored people as naturally criminal, then you didn't really see what any Negro looked like. You couldn't because the Negro was never an individual. He was a threat, or an animal, or a curse, or a blight, or a joke.”
1954- In the case Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court voted to end segregation in schools, overturning the ruling of Plessey v. Ferguson
Ralph Ellison- Invisible Man (1952)
"I'm a student of history, sir," another interrupted with dramatic gestures. "The world moves in a circle like a roulette wheel. In the beginning, black is on top, in the middle epochs, white holds the odds, but soon Ethiopia shall stretch forth her noble wings! Then place our money on the black!"
1955- Rosa Parks, secretary of the Montgomery, Alabama chapter of the NAACP, was arrested after refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man.
James Baldwin- Notes of a Native Son (1955)
"I knew about Jim Crow but I had never experienced it. I went to the same self-service restaurant three times and stood with all the Princeton boys before the counter, waiting for a hamburger and coffee; it was always an extraordinarily long time before anything was set before me; but it was not until the fourth visit that I learned that, in fact, nothing had ever been set before me: I had simply picked something up. Negroes were not served there, I was told, and they had been waiting for me to realize that I was always the only Negro present."
1963- A civil rights march on Washington D.C. led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. attracts over 200,000 demonstrators.
Martin Luther King, Jr.- I Have a Dream (1963)
"The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges."
1965- Malcom X is assassinated in Manhattan, New York.
Malcolm X- The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)
"In fact, by then, I didn't really have much feeling about being a Negro, because I was trying so hard, in every way I could, to be white. Which is why I am spending much of my life today telling the American black man that he's wasting his time straining to "integrate." I know from personal experience. I tried hard enough."
1968- Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
Amiri Baraka- Slave Ship (1967)
"When we gonna take our own place, brother/ Like the world had just begun/ I mean, when we gonna lift our heads and voices/ Show the world who we really are/ Warrior-Gods, and lovers, The First Men to walk this star"
1971- Supreme Court approves the use of busing to achieve racial diversity in schools.
Maya Angelou- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970)
"The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic admiration."
