Here's the reading for the week. We will begin by exploring and studying race questions in America.
We will discuss African American writer, W.E.B. DuBois and challenge his assertion that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line â?" the relation of the darker to lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and islands of the sea."
You will think about this tough issue Americans faced and explore what specific voices rose up during these times and dared to cast into words what they were experiencing as seen in African American writer, Frederick Douglass. W.E.B. DuBois W.E.B. DuBois, the first black Harvard Ph.D. graduate, and a founding member of the National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was the first to cite education as the best avenue for economic advancement and lead 20th century African American thinkers, and all thinkers, American and beyond, to truly explore the color-line as the biggest problem in America for years to come and urge them to take immediate action to address this issue.
W.E.B. DuBois invites all readers, regardless of ethnic background, to consider his proposition that the color-line will continue to be America's number one problem.
From our modern perspective, it is our task to decide if we agree or disagree with DuBois's statement. Do we find that DuBois was correct in his prediction that issues of race and culture would be at the focus of American social, political, and artistic developments, or do we find that the interaction has taken on a lesser or different role than that which DuBois predicted?
Please be sure to include the following in your assignment submission:
1. Write a formal, 5-paragraph essay in APA format, including a cover page, in response to this question. Base your answer on your own observations and support your assertions quoting from your assigned readings.
2. Read the assigned readings. Highlight quotes, summarize, or paraphrase from this week's readings and be sure to include an in-text citation in proper APA format (Author, year, p. X).
3. We must choose a position. Do not sit the fence on this topic. The goal is to make a strong assertion and prove it, or support it, by quoting from the readings. Include three quotes in your essay.
4. Create a strong thesis for your essay. A thesis states your main idea in a sentence. A sample thesis (which you are free to use) might be: W. E. B. Dubois claims that the color-line will continue to be America's number one problem, which may be seen in or disputed by the (chose to agree or disagree) sample writings by __A__, __B__, and __C__ (insert 1, 2, or 3 writers from your assigned reading).
5. Be sure to include an APA reference page.
In exploring his writings, you should first consider what it was like to make such a strong statement given the lynching, slavery, and violence that infused life for African Americans.
Then, we must read and consider DuBois's words as gifts placed before us, as words preserved that will give us a deeper glimpse into what it meant to exist in a time that is now gone. Finally, we must recognize times passage and consider where our minds, hearts, and lives meet up with the color-line issue and ask ourselves: Is the color-line still relevant today?
As we read his address before the Chicago Conference of the National Association of Colored People in 1926: "Criteria of Negro Art," these are the facts and questions that will inform our reading. Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass was an outspoken and instrumental leader in the antislavery movement. His conviction was that "people want to do what is best," but that "they must be shown that to do right is best" (Bryant, 2010, p. 3).
Following this, Douglass writes, "What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages...to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to knock out their teethâ?S?" (p. 17). He says as well, "There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him" (p. 17).
In this speech, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July, Douglass ties his concerns to all humanity and what it means to enjoy the freedom that the Fourth of July represents.
He gives us words that we can consider, discuss, and fully explore from our own vantage point: today, but we cannot soon forget the turmoil slaves faced in this period of history. Put Yourself in the Author's Shoes Size ten, eleven, thirteen, it does not matter, but you will want to place your feet in the shoes of those you read throughout this course.
Placing yourself in their shoes means, for example, that when we think about Douglass, can we even imagine giving a speech in front of our enemies, facing a multitude of individuals who may not believe in us, and making a bold statement: for the slave, there is no independence, freedom, or Fourth of July.
When we do this, the words we read cascade over us and infuse and inform our thoughts. It becomes exciting to feel the power and bravery of a man who was willing to stand, alone, during a tumultuous time and speak his mind. You may even ask yourself: would I have such daring?