Culture Transcending Oppression Throughout African American History
Culture Transcending Oppression Throughout African American History
Throughout American history African Americans have found themselves squandered under the notion that they weren’t intelligent or civilized enough to partake in “sophisticated” culture. As we can observe in history and through art and writing over the years African Americans developed their own enriching culture and blazed new paths to opportunities in religion, education, and art.
When African Americans were brought to America they were often forced to convert to Christianity. This conversion did not represent their true beliefs and was often for the purpose of raising their social status (on the small scale it could be) by fitting in more with their enslavers and therefore being more digestible and “respectable” for white people. “Slave conversion..represented an infringement on their ‘liberties.’” For them, Protestantism was about freedom and whiteness” (Harvey). Yet, African Americans were degraded on the basis of religion, and told they were going to hell. African Americans reclaimed their power by fully adopting and devoting themselves to the Christian religion. In her autobiography, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, Harriet Jacobs recounts the time when a young slave girl died during childbirth.
Appallingly the slave’s mistress vilified the young women through comments of her unholy nature, and condemned her to hell in her final moments. Unfortunately stories such as this one are not uncommon to the time, and even today some religious individuals view black people as less deserving of salvation. Despite such untoward notions, African Americans have historically banded together and founded churches and communities in even the hardest and most desolate circumstances.
Education has long since had an air of prestige and exclusivity. Many groups have had to fight for their right to knowledge. African Americans, especially in the era of slavery, were almost completely deprived of education. It was a great feat to so much as learn to read and write, and yet many magnificent African American poems, novels, etc. come out of this time period. In both Jacob’s, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, and Booker T. Washington’s, “Up From Slavery”, the authors recount the great effort they had to exhaust in order to simply gain access to education. Jacobs spent the greater part of 7 years hiding out in an attic space, the conditions were inhumane and nearly unlivable, and still she used every resource to get books and read using the light from a small peephole. Washington had to fight tooth and nail to attend a school. They both faced disrespect throughout their entire careers due to their race. In “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, Jacobs repeatedly undermines herself in order to remain palatable to her white audience. She even has a white editor preface her novel in an attempt to prove it is truly her own.
Art transcends cultural divides and is the very essence of our humanity. During the slavery era it was incredibly challenging for African Americans to express their culture in almost any facet. Often communities would turn to work songs or clandestine expressions of religion in order to connect and persevere. Over time such songs gave way to Black spirituals and in the early 20th century the Harlem Renaissance exploded culture and art beyond imagination. It is impossible to interact with these pieces of art, even today, without feeling the deep soulful connection each artist had to their work. What sticks out to me in particular is the meta-narratives expressed through Blues and Jazz poetry. Langston Hughes in particular published poems in both Blues and Jazz styles. His use of musical elements evoke a particularly strong emotional reaction. Hughes truly gets to the heart of African American culture during his time. One work in particular "Jazzonia" sticks out to me due to his blending of religious imagery and themes with jazz music. The poem delves into the high importance of music to the souls of African Americans at the time, through both its overall importance as well as extreme ties to worship. Works, such as those by Hughes, not only express the musical nature of their inspirations but illustrate beautiful pictures of the musicians who created them. A great deal of change has been brought about through poetry and music which could not have been achieved in any other capacity.
It is incredibly moving to see how instead of feeling defeated or succumbing to feelings of unwelcome perpetuated by the exclusionary mindset of white art and culture at the time, African Americans instead invested in their own culture and created raw and meaningful art that is still relevant and potent today. Despite tragic circumstances of the creation of said art and culture, a vivid and illuminating humanity can be traced throughout African American history.
Paul Harvey, Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World. By Katharine Gerbner, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 86, Issue 4, December 2018, Pages 1153–1155, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfy029 https://academic.oup.com/jaar/article/86/4/1153/5046752?login=true#no-access-message
Hughes, Langston. “Jazzonia.” Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org/poem/jazzonia
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Hi Olly, I completely agree with you and like the way you summarized examples of how African Americans overcame extreme barriers and found their own ways to flourish. It's definitely empowering to see the perseverance of pursuing ambitions and honoring culture despite huge obstacles, both physical barriers and societal discrimination. I also liked how you included multiple kinds of cultural expression and how it represents different ways people fought through oppression to create an outlet for themselves and make their voices heard one way or another.
ReplyDeleteHi Olly, I liked the way you brought together threads from multiple different areas of culture to illustrate your main thesis. I appreciate your analysis of the role Christianity played in African Americans' lives--how it went from a form of oppression and justification of slavery to empowering, giving hope, and creating community despite the challenges they faced. The way you point out that religion is weaved into the art African Americans created just speaks to the way they were able to reclaim Christianity.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog! I really like the way you weave in religion throughout your blog, talking about its presence across time and art forms in the black community. I really agree about the way African Americans used religion as a form of empowerment and made it their own despite Christianity often being wielded as a weapon of oppression during slavery. It was also interesting how you connected education and art with religion as other forms of expression for the black community despite the challenges and systematic oppression they faced.
ReplyDeleteHi Olly,
ReplyDeleteI liked how you showed the evolution of how Black artists overcame struggle through the course of this unit. While there has been oppression since the origins of Black American history, people have resisted and expressed themselves in unique ways. I also liked how you mentioned the personalized religious identity that was developed.
Hey Olly, I love how you bring all these ideas together. Sometimes I take my education for granted. My education gives me my grounding. Having to practice Christianity in order to obtain some status but still without an education sounds like a lot of difficulty. The effort that Booker T. Washington had to put in just to get a education, that was just handed to me, is astounding. You did a really good job at representing the things they had to go through.
ReplyDeleteOlly, I really like your commentary on these topics blended together -- the themes we see in all of our readings really are tied together closely. I was particularly interested in your analysis of religion in African American culture, where it's both portrayed as a way to bring hope and joy to the community but also as a tool of oppression and enforcing white supremacy. I also found it interesting how Christianity reigned supreme over individuals' understanding of where they belonged in society.
ReplyDeleteHey Olly, I really like the way you recognize the many ways African Americans rose above oppression and carved space for themselves in predominately white spaces. Education is something I feel like many people take for granted but when you look back and see how there was a time where it was almost unusual to receive an education (especially as a black person) it really puts things into perspective. Also, I really like how you mentioned how Christianity was pushed onto many African Americans and used as a way to oppress them further and how many of them took their Christianity and created their own community inside their religion.
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ReplyDeleteHey Olly, I really agree with your insights in this blog. You did a great job connecting different aspects of African American culture to show their resilience and perseverance when facing adversity. Your analysis of how African Americans took their oppression and used that to empower themselves through various methods was profound. Additionally, showing Christianity as something that brought them together and gave hope was another positive. Overall, strong blog.
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ReplyDeleteHi Olly, it's awesome how you managed to pull together all the various art mediums we've learned about so far into a journey of expression for African-Americans. There were times where I felt a disconnect from one art form to another, especially going from autobiographies to jazz and blues poetry; but I really appreciate how you've outlined the various paths that Black artists took to express themselves, and how they've empowered many generations of African-American people. All these forms have had their unique impacts on audiences and are imbued with different meanings and emotions, and I think you've captured that really well. Great blog!
ReplyDeleteOlly, your insightful interpretation of how African Americans used religion, education, and art to resist oppression and preserve their culture shows how creativity and determination helped black communities survive and thrive despite facing systemic racism. Your reading challenges me to think about how these efforts were part of a collective cultural resistance. Additionally, I liked how you showed Christianity as a light, allowing communities to have hope.
ReplyDeleteHi Olly! I'm so glad you talked about the struggles African Americans had to face to partake in education and forms of media because that's such a deep-seated problem in America, where education has been so exclusive. I've read stuff about seeing the longer lasting effects of educational discrepancies between racial groups, which definitely would relate to what you talked about in a later context. One thing that just stands out as so hypocritical to me is the treatment of the girl who died while in labor and how she was scorned by people who forced religion upon her in the first place.
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