Crystal Wilkinson

2020 ◽  
pp. 539-547

Reared by her grandparents on their farm in the Indian Creek community of Casey County, Kentucky, Crystal Wilkinson writes fiction, poetry, and essays about the rural and small-town experiences of African Americans in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Wilkinson’s exploration of this overlooked element of the contemporary African American experience places her in a group of Kentucky artists associated with the Affrilachian Poets, of which Wilkinson was a founding member. Inspired by poet Frank X Walker’s concept of “Affrilachia,” an acknowledgment of the African American presence in and influence on Appalachia, Wilkinson and her colleagues have explored African American connections to rural and small-town places, families, and communities. Wilkinson’s work includes two volumes of short stories—...

InNavis, an excerpt from the novel The Queen of Palmyra byMinroseGwin, Florence, a young White girl glimpses the racial tensions in her small town of Millville in a subtle but significant interaction between her Mama and the customers of her cake business. Mama's insistence on referring to African-Americans as "Negroes" (a more respectful address, according to Mama's African-American acquaintances) instead of "colored" upsets some of her "Cake Ladies," as Florence calls them, but Mama is supported by her friend,Navis. When Florence asks whether Mama plans to make Florence's father say it, too, Mama slaps her and sends her to her room. Later, Florence sees her mother's upset reaction but doesn't quite understand it fully.


2002 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 607-632 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Brawley ◽  
Chris Dixon

Between 1941 and 1945, as the U.S. military machine sent millions of Americans——and American culture——around the world, several thousand African Americans spent time in Australia. Armed with little knowledge of Australian racial values and practices, black Americans encoutered a nation whose long-standing commitment to the principle of "White Australia" appeared to rest comfortably with the segregative policies commonly associated with the American South. Nonetheless, while African Americans did encounter racism and discrimination——practices often encouraged by the white Americans who were also stationed in Australia during the war——there is compelling evidence that their experiences were not always negative. Indeed, for many black Americans, Australians' apparent open-mindedness and racial views of white Britons and others with whom African Americans came into contact during the war. Making use of U.S. Army censors' reports and paying attention to black Americans' views of their experiences in Australia, this article not only casts light on an aspect of American-Australian relations that has hitherto recieved scant scholarly attention and reveals something about the African American experience, but also offers insights into race relations within the U.S. armed forces.


1999 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-157
Author(s):  
Dawud Abdul-Aziz Agbere

African-American Islam, especially as practiced by the Nation oflslam, continuesto engage the attention of many scholars. The racial separatist tendency,contrasted against the color blindness of global Islam, has been the focal pointof most of these studies. The historical presence of African Americans in themidst of American racism has been explained as, among other things, the mainimpetus behind African-American nationalism and racial separatism. Islam inthe African-American Experience is yet another attempt to explain this historicalposition. Originally the author's Ph.D. dissertation, the book spans 293pages, including notes, select biographies, indices, and thirteen illustrations. Itstwo parts, "Root Sources" and "Prophets of the City," comprise six chapters; there is also an introduction and an epilogue. The book is particularly designedfor students interested in African-American Islam. The central theme of thebook is the signifktion (naming and identifying) of the African Americanwithin the context of global Islam. The author identifies three factors thatexplain the racial-separatist phenomenon of African-American Islam:American racism, the Pan-African political movements of African-Americansin the early twentieth century, and the historic patterns of racial separatism inIslam. His explanations of the first two factors, though not new to the field ofAfrican-American studies, is well presented. However, his third explanation,which tries to connect the racial-separatist tendency of African-AmericanMuslims to what he tern the “historic pattern of racial separatism” in Islam,seems both controversial and problematic.In his introduction, the author touches on the African American’s sensitivityto signification, citing the long debate in African-American circles. Islam, heargues, offered African Americans two consolations: first, a spiritual, communal,and global meaning, which discoMects them in some way from Americanpolitical and public life; second, a source of political and cultural meaning inAfrican-American popular culture. He argues that a black person in America,Muslim or otherwise, takes an Islamic name to maintain or reclaim Africancultural roots or to negate the power and meaning of his European name. Thus,Islam to the black American is not just a spiritual domain, but also a culturalheritage.Part 1, “Root Sources,” contains two chapters and traces the black Africancontact with Islam from the beginning with Bilal during the time of theProphet, to the subsequent expansion of Islam to black Africa, particularlyWest Africa, by means of conversion, conquest, and trade. He also points to animportant fact: the exemplary spiritual and intellectual qualities of NorthAmerican Muslims were major factors behind black West Africans conversionto Islam. The author discusses the role of Arab Muslims in the enslavement ofAfrican Muslims under the banner of jihad, particularly in West Africa, abehavior the author described as Arabs’ separate and radical agenda for WestAfrican black Muslims. Nonetheless, the author categorically absolves Islam,as a system of religion, from the acts of its adherents (p. 21). This notwithstanding,the author notes the role these Muslims played in the educational andprofessional development of African Muslims ...


Lexicon ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Listiyaningsih Listiyaningsih

This graduating paper analyzes Jim Crow laws as reflected in Langston Hughes’ short stories “Breakfast in Virginia” and “Trouble with the Angels”. This study aims to identify the practice of Jim Crow laws as seen in “Breakfast in Virginia” and “Trouble with the Angels”. This graduating paper applies mimetic theory proposed by Abrams since it is the most suitable approach to be used to analyze the connection between the literary work and the reality. There are two types of data which are used in this paper. The primary data are the short stories entitled, “Breakfast in Virginia” and “Trouble with the Angels”. Meanwhile, the secondary data are the references that support the analysis and are taken from the internet browsing.Based on the data analysis, this research concludes that segregation is the practice of Jim Crow laws in these two short stories. The segregations are clearly seen mostly in public places. In “Breakfast in Virginia” the segregations happen in the train, specifically in Jim Crow car and in the dining car in Virginia. Meanwhile, in “Trouble with the Angels” the segregations are clearly visible in the hotel and in the theater in Washington. In “Breakfast in Virginia” the segregations are faced by African American soldiers during World War II. Meanwhile, in “Trouble with the Angels” the segregations are experienced by African American actors and the other African American citizens of Washington. These two short stories show that Jim Crow laws made African Americans life getting worse, especially in public places. Both in “Breakfast in Virginia” and in “Trouble with the Angels”, African Americans cannot use the same public facilities as the whites. They can only use public facilities specially provided for the African Americans which have improper conditions. During the practice of Jim Crow laws, their rights are denied. This is proved by the segregations that do not only restrict African Americans from middle or low class status but also restrict those who have a higher status regardless their influential contribution toAmerica. This condition is painful for them.


1992 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 12-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reginald J. Alston ◽  
Simphiwe Mngadi

This article provides information that is useful to rehabilitation counselors and human service professionals providing services to African Americans with disabilities. The potential double bias of being African American and disabled is examined in the article. Special focus is on the similarities in stigmas experienced by persons with disabilities and members of the African American community and how the interaction between minority race status and disability status effects the delivery of rehabilitation services to African Americans. The client-centered approach is described and suggested as a theoretical orientation to be adopted by rehabilitation counselors to lessen the impact of a double stigma on this population.


2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-113
Author(s):  
Aneesah Nadir

Islam in the African-American Experience is a historical account of Islamin the African-American community. Written by a scholar of African-American world studies and religious studies, this book focuses on theinterconnection between African Americans’ experiences with Islam as itdeveloped in the United States. While this scholarly work is invaluable forstudents and professors in academia, it is also a very important contributionfor anyone seriously interested in Islam’s development in this country.Moreover, it serves as a central piece in the puzzle for Muslims anxious tounderstand Islam’s history in the United States and the relationship betweenAfrican-American and immigrant Muslims. The use of narrative biographiesthroughout the book adds to its personal relevance, for they relate thepersonal history of ancestors, known and unknown, to Islam’s history inthis country. Turner’s work furthers African-American Muslims’ journeytoward unlocking their history.The main concept expressed in Turner’s book is that of signification, theissue of naming and identity among African Americans. Turner argues thatsignification runs throughout the history of Islam among African Americans,dating back to the west coast of Africa, through the Nation of Islam, to manyof its members’ conversion to orthodox Sunni Islam, and through Islamicmessages disseminated via contemporary hip-hop culture. According toTurner, Charles Long refers to signification as “a process by which names,signs and stereotypes were given to non-European realities and peoples duringthe western conquest and exploration of the world” (p. 2). The renamingof Africans by their oppressors was a method of dehumanization andsubjugation.The author argues that throughout the history of African-AmericanMuslims, Islam served to “undercut signification by offering AfricanAmericans a chance to signify themselves” (p. 3). Self-signification is anantithesis to the oppressive use of signification, for it facilitates empowermentand growing independence from the dominant group. In addition,“signification involved double meanings. It was both a potent form ofoppression and a potent form of resistance to oppression” (p. 3). By choosingMuslim names, whether they were Muslim or not, Turner claims that ...


Prose Poetry ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 224-248
Author(s):  
Paul Hetherington ◽  
Cassandra Atherton

This chapter discusses the relationship between prose poetry and very short literary forms, which are proliferating online and in print. While novels, short stories, lineated lyric poems, and dramatic works have been at the center of literary practice for centuries, contemporary writers are reinvigorating the understanding of genre and form — and some of their writing does not sit comfortably within conventional literary classifications. To an extent, this is true of prose poetry in general, and it is certainly true of hybrid works that contain, reframe, or transform prose poetry. This is not to suggest that all hybrid prose-poetical works are products of the late twentieth or early twenty-first century. There are many early examples of hybrid works that make use of poetic prose. However, many contemporary hybrid works that make use of very short prose forms are especially notable for their emphasis on an irredeemable sense of fracture, and such works are increasingly being accepted as central to the literary world. This recent growth in the popularity and esteem of very short literary forms provides a new and positive context for understanding prose poetry and its scholarship.


Author(s):  
Aneeka Ayanna Henderson

In Veil and Vow, Aneeka Ayanna Henderson places familiar, often politicized questions about the crisis of African American marriage in conversation with a rich cultural archive that includes fiction by Terry McMillan and Sister Souljah, music by Anita Baker, and films such as The Best Man. Seeking to move beyond simple assessments of marriage as "good" or "bad" for African Americans, Henderson critically examines popular and influential late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century texts alongside legislation such as the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and the Welfare Reform Act, which masked true sources of inequality with crisis-laden myths about African American family formation. Using an interdisciplinary approach to highlight the influence of law, politics, and culture on marriage representations and practices, Henderson reveals how their kinship veils and unveils the fiction in political policy as well as the complicated political stakes of fictional and cultural texts. Providing a new opportunity to grapple with old questions, including who can be a citizen, a "wife," and "marriageable," Veil and Vow makes clear just how deeply marriage still matters in African American culture.


Author(s):  
Marissa H. Baker

Hale A. Woodruff was an African American painter and educator associated with the Negro Renaissance and later with the New York Abstract Expressionists. Woodruff studied painting in France (1927–31) and later taught art at Atlanta University (1931–45), where he initiated an influential annual exhibition of African American art promoting artists from around the country. Woodruff’s paintings depict the hardships of rural poverty for African Americans in the South. His Amistad murals (1939) at Talledega College are representative of his early expressive figurative style, portraying African Americans with a lyrical physicality in a narrative of universal struggle and survival. In 1943 Woodruff was awarded the Rosenwald Fellowship and, soon after, left Atlanta for New York to teach at New York University (1945–68). There his style became more abstract as he incorporated Dogon, Ashanti, and Yoruba imagery into his paintings. Woodruff was a founding member of Spiral, a group that addressed the persistent difficulties black artists faced in America. Woodruff remained in New York until his death.


2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-74
Author(s):  
Saddik M. Gohar

The article investigates the dialectics between homeland and identity in the poetry of the Sudanese poet, Mohamed Al-Fayturi and his literary master, Langston Hughes in order to underline their attitudes toward crucial issues integral to the African and African-American experience such as identity, racism, enslavement and colonisation. The article argues that – in Hughes’s early poetry –Africa is depicted as the land of ancient civilisations in order to strengthen African-American feelings of ethnic pride during the Harlem Renaissance. This idealistic image of a pre-slavery, a pre-colonial Africa, argues the paper, disappears from the poetry of Hughes, after the Harlem Renaissance, to be replaced with a more realistic image of Africa under colonisation. The article also demonstrates that unlike Hughes, who attempts to romanticize Africa, Al-Fayturi rejects a romantic confrontation with the roots. Interrogating western colonial narratives about Africa, Al-Fayturi reconstructs pre-colonial African history in order to reveal the tragic consequences of colonisation and slavery upon the psyche of the African people. The article also points out that in their attempts to confront the oppressive powers which aim to erase the identity of their peoples, Hughes and Al-Fayturi explore areas of overlap drama between the turbulent experience of African-Americans and the catastrophic history of black Africans dismantling colonial narratives and erecting their own cultural mythology.


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