Answer TWO of the following questions. Begin each essay by preparing a SHORT outline (no more than half of one blue book page) and then write your essay based on the outline. Both outlines and essays must be submitted. Please note: students are not expected to know every name and term referred to in the quotations below. The important thing is that you discuss all the available evidence which you are able to use, and which you find to be relevant, including that from your study of visual evidence and from the readings for the course.
I. “Cultural power allowed African Americans to define and create new images that replaced the distortion of the true appearance, intellect, religious practice, and family values of black people in American society. The new black cultural power had to fight the well-worn stereotypes of the dumb and lazy black man, the selfless mammy, and the promiscuous dark Venus. Black people were disfranchised and socially and economically marginalized. But in the arts, black people drove a wedge into the wall of racism through which they could explode onto America’s center stage.†(D.C. Hine et al, The African-American Odyssey)
Reflect on the above quotation and discuss African-American culture and politics in the 20th century, from the Harlem Renaissance to the 1960s.
II. Reflect on the following quotation and discuss African-American culture and society in the past twenty years leading up to the election of President Barack Obama.
“The closing of the twentieth century saw remarkable progress for African Americans even as part of the community remained mired in poverty and suffering. African Americans still experience the burden of racism that was so familiar to W. E. B. Du Bois, which prompts collective action and the maintenance of predominantly black churches, colleges, and social action groups. The black soul that he thought had so much to give America now flows freely through its art, language, and popular culture, especially in hip-hop. At the same time, increasing diversity in the ways that African-Americans live their lives has led to differences in how individuals understand their identities. Some, like Anthony Appiah, long for the possibility of asserting those identities in ways not limited by race. The tension between racial, class, gender, sexual, and other identities will shape the African-American odyssey as it moves through the twenty-first century.†(D.C. Hine et al, The African-American Odyssey)
III. Choose one work of art that the class viewed during our visits to the Brooklyn Museum or the Studio Museum of Harlem to write about ONE of the questions above. (This will substitute for one of the above questions).
