The Souls of Black Folk: Defining Freedom through Literary Devices

In his The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B Du Bois uses metaphor to lay bare his perspective on the Freedom of the Blacks (Negros) by criticizing slavery, racism, and other prejudices orchestrated by the Whites. Looking at Chapter VI, “Of the Training of Black Men,” metaphor has been used to explain the inadequacy and pretense of whites’ mistreatment of Blacks in the name of giving them a better education. Du Bois (1903) uses the metaphor of the death ship and the curving river to show how the whites in the South perceived the Negros, believing they were a third being below the whites and animals (par.2). He uses walls, veil, and light as the obstacles impeding the Negros from becoming men, implying the issues limiting the African Americans from having freedom and accessing the resources like their white counterparts in the South. The light represents the potential and growth that Negros could experience if they were granted freedom and equal treatment as the whites.

Additionally, Du Bois (1903) exposits that one of the factors impeding a successful shift from slavery to citizens and freedom of African Americans is the education offered by the whites. According to him, the whites from the South introduced education in the name of helping African Americans. However, they failed to develop and equip the learning institutions where these Negros attend school. Instead, they developed the colleges and universities the whites attended to ensure the Blacks would remain behind and work for the whites’ industries. To this exposition, Du Bois (1903) uses a metaphorical phrase, “before the Temple of Knowledge swings the Gates of Toil” (par. 9). Temple of Knowledge here represents education, while ‘Gates of Toil’ means hard work. The metaphor here implies that African Americans must work hard to achieve the level of education and explains why African Americans experienced racial prejudices, harsh laws, and economic deprivation by the whites in their transition from slavery to freedom.

 

 

The Jungle Using Cultural and Historical Resources

The term “muckrakers” was developed by Theodore Roosevelt to describe a group of writers who devoted their time to exposing industrialization’s ills in the early twentieth century. The Jungle is a novel by Upton Sinclair in the early twentieth century. This novel mainly centered on the industrial and progressive revolutions (Blanchette, 2019). The Jungle was mainly written to expose the ills of the industrial revolution, especially the appalling working conditions in the meat-packing industry. The novel described the unhealthy working conditions of the meat packing industry, which had rotten and contaminated meat, which sparked a public outcry and resulted in new federal food safety laws (Graf, 2020). In the early twentieth century, a significant reform movement emerged during the progressive era, which mainly aimed at raising awareness of the problems resulting from the growth of factories and industries.

At the beginning of the progressive era, the main goal was to improve the lives of those living in slums. When factory jobs became common in most cities across the country, many people flooded the cities searching for jobs, resulting in thousands living in cramped, unhealthy spaces. As such, the Jungle by Upton Sinclair raised a public outcry against the unhealthy conditions in the meat-packing industry (Graf, 2020). The main aim of the novel was to gain sympathy for the working class while developing support for the socialist movement. Even though the public believed that The Jungle was aimed at raising awareness of the unsanitary working conditions of the meat-packing industry, Sinclair aimed at changing and revolutionizing the country into a socialistic society (Blanchette, 2019). Through his efforts in his novel The Jungle, Sinclair prompted the government to implement The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which otherwise made a social impact in the country.

 

References

Blanchette, A. (2019). Deindustrial Chicago and the ruralization of the jungle. Journal for the Anthropology of North America, 22(2), 86-89. https://doi.org/10.1002/nad.12117

Graf, R. (2020). Truth in the Jungle of Literature, Science, and Politics: Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Food Control Reforms during the Progressive Era. Journal of American History, 106(4), 901-922. https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaz676

 

Collaborative Writing Matters

Omar, Ahmed, Aissata, Sophia T.

Collaborative or collective writing is created when people are silenced, ignored, or intentionally left at a disadvantage. Shared goals and a variety of perspectives contribute to changing that.

CCNY students demanded five things that would help Black and Puerto Rican students on campus. It instead resulted in violence. The protest flyer expands on this, with Black and Latino students reaching for another beaten by a policeman during their protest—police who took over CCNY because the college administration could not handle it.

In Patricia Gilbert’s poem “Saturday Night,” the word supper connotes the last supper. That imagery signifies a communal gathering where everyone comes together despite their struggles. It is a reflection of what collaborative writing can do, especially when students’ work makes a political statement and tries to write change within institutions that do not want it.

Collective Writing as a Resource in Literature

Amy M. Bueno, Jasmina Drekovic, Ryan Chowdhury, Kevin Perolli

To what extent can we read or engage collective writing as literature? What are the benefits of such an exercise? The limitations?

There are many benefits to using forms of collective writing as literature. Variety in media continues to expand and grow in relevance. Collective writing such as a twitter thread during Black Lives Matter can be deemed as literature. Individuals may find it silly to classify a series of tweets as literature, however, one can gain personal insights on the outrage that took place that originated with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. This makes the tweets a vital part of history when speaking on civil rights. Using this definition one may classify media as literature when it creates importance and attention to a specific topic. The benefits go beyond personal anecdotes, the personal stories of how people were affected during a certain time amplify the trauma and heartbreaking reality that people have faced. Aside from factual evidence from textbooks and news outlets, having personal stories echoes the existing facts but also uses pathos in order to trigger emotions in their readers. However, the benefits do have limitations, as a collective may strongly feel a certain way about a topic. Although the feelings of every individual story are valid they can hold prejudices and biases that may feel like propaganda as personal anecdotes stray away from facts and focus more on how a certain event or topic made them feel. 

“I would say the larger part of the blood pulse and way of life of the community have been missed by the makers of this exhibit. Why should I go to the museum to reread the newspapers?” – David Rivera, Seek Matters Spring 1969 

With a powerful ending to their statement, how David Rivera feels is completely valid. When viewed individually from the collective however, it can be interpreted that they feel the newspapers lack credibility and authenticity in a way the museums exhibit that he visited was for him. Digital and physical news have become a vital source of information in the everyday lives of many people. If the general population were to grow distrust towards the news many will go about their lives without being aware of what is happening in the world beyond their own and how it could potentially impact them. 

 

Implications of Manifesto as Literature

Hudson Hooton, Kenia Torres, Michael Skrypnyk

Motivated by adversity, collective literature can empower people through expressing their ideas. Oftentimes this is in the form of manifesto, which turns attempts to activate words and turn writing into action. Labelling this work as literature solidifies it in history and allows it to be studied in a different sense. Engaging activism as literature can bring written material with real-world implications and speech-power into a new academic setting. On the other hand, classifying more and more types of written material as “literature” may make the study too broad. Perhaps a more specific categorization could allow for a better, hyper-focused, and narrow examination of activism writing and the history of activism. Is this a piece of literature or an artifact of history? How would categorizing it as one or the other change how we see it? We would need to examine this further and have more time on the assignment to answer these questions!

CUNY 1969 Protests in Class Discussion

Cover of Digital copy of “Seek Matters,” a literary zine created by SEEK (Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge) CUNY Students, Spring 1969

Objective:

Compose a blog post discussing Cuny 1969 Archival documents. Prize: Participation points added to replace a missing “Welcome to the Week” comment reply. Judges automatically get extra credit. 

Your blog post is a minimum of 6 sentences ( approx 250 words) in response to the few questions listed below:

  1. “What are the conditions that create collaborative or collective writing?”

2. “What are the qualities or characteristics of collective and collaborative writing?”

3. “To what extent can we read or engage collective writing as literature? What are the benefits of such an exercise? The limitations?”

Each group will respond to these questions with short answers (e.g. 2-3 sentences for each one) after reviewing provided documents linked below (in addition to homework that includes James Baldwin’s Letter to My Nephew” and review the Cuny 1969 Project:

Checklist for Blog post:

  1. An original title reflecting the focus of your post or what your group found most interesting
  2. Content that answers 3 questions about reading the Cuny 1969 archives
  3. ONE quote and or image from one of the documents
  4. Category “Collaborative Writing and Cuny 1969 In Class Blog Post”
  5. First and last names of ALL group members

Roles for groups (2-4 people in each group):

1-2 Scribes taking notes as you discuss

1 person to post the blog

2+ people to share with class/ student judges

Time management Approx 25-30 mins

5 mins to ask peers initial responses to questions

10 mins to read through the material (take notes while you read)

10 mins for composition and posting blog

2-3 mins for each group to share with judges (“Welcome to the Week” presenters for James Baldwin and Cuny 1969; Amara, Natalia, and Carty)

 

Directions for Judges:

  1. Go to the hallway or other space to look through materials and consider what you value or what your expectations are for Blog posts. I will visit with you and discuss your thoughts and discussion of material based on your deeper engagement.
  2. Compose a brief set of values you have and why (200 words) and email it to me to include with your final “winning selections for an in-class blog post on Cuny 1969.” You can only choose ONE group.

Class Trip Reflection Blog Post

One of the pictures I took from the Museum of the City of New York is of a Young Lords party poster. I found the Young Lords very interesting as they were originally a Puerto Rican gang from Chicago before forming into a national political and civil rights movement group. There were three New York based branches which lead to a lot of Puerto Ricans using these branches to get involved in the movement. The goal being to educate and bring awareness of the history and struggle of Puerto Ricans.Being Puerto Rican myself and living in New York all my life it was surprising to me that I had never heard of them before. Although it was a Puerto Rican Based group there were still members of all sorts of races, as the main goal was to bring attention to the shared terrible living conditions and experiences of all groups of people. There were inspired by the Black Panther party and were also controversial as our tour guide explained to us giving an example of when the Young Lords staged an occupation of Lincoln Hospital in The Bronx as a protest for better health care and better service by the hospitals staff.

Reflection for play Crumbs from the Table of Joy

Overall I really enjoyed the play Crumbs from the Table of Joy. While I thought it was a little slow in the beginning it definitely picked up a few scenes in. One of the things I found really interesting about the play was the role communism played throughout and the father’s obsession with father divine. It was very interesting to think about how different characters found different things to cling to for hope during hard times. For Lilly, it was communism since she believed that communism would eventually resolve all the injustices that were occurring. She also thought that as an individual you are in charge of taking action and standing up for what you believe to be right. Through the play she constantly encourages her niece to stand up for herself, especially when white people try to tell her what to do and try to define her worth. The father, on the other hand, puts all his faith in religion to fix all his problems. He blindly believes in everything and anything father divine tells him and has a very different mind set from Lilly. He believes that you should try and avoid conflict and encourages his daughters to do the same. When his daughter writes an essay that upsets one of her white teachers, the father demands that he apologize for offending her because he doesn’t want them to be on her bad side.

Reflection of the Museum of the City of New York

Whenever I go to museums I usually tend to wander around by myself and have never really gone on a tour with a guide. However, I really enjoyed this tour and found it very informative. One part that stuck out to me was when the guide explained the story behind a pair of shackles they had on display. The shackles had been placed on an African American woman and when she was finally liberated from them, she kept them and gave them to an activist to hold up at rallies and use them as a symbol of strength and resistance. I found that very surprising but was also amazed at how the meaning of an object that caused so much pain could be flipped and used as a symbol of strength and empowerment. I also learned a lot about the tragic triangle shirtwaist factory incident. The tour guide explained that mostly women worked in this factory and the working conditions were extremely tough. Women would work for multiple hours straight without breaks and in order to ensure that they didn’t take any breaks, the factory owners would lock the doors so that they couldn’t escape unless they had the key. One day one of the managers was careless with the cigarette he was smoking and ended up starting a fire in the factory. Because the doors were locked and the women couldn’t find anyone with the key, many of them jumped to their deaths and a lot of them died in the fire. As the guide was telling us about this, I was reminded of the harsh working conditions depicted in the Jungle and how a lot of these tragedies could have been avoided had the factory owner been less greedy and more humane. It’s good to see that improvements have been made in workplaces however, although we still have a long way to go to completely eliminate labor injustice. 

Reflection on Museum of the City of New York

The visit to the Museum of the City of New York was a great learning experience. I often found myself reading and researching about how New York City became the city that it is, and often read excerpts on the history of New York and immigrant stories. Visiting the exhibit in the museum of the city of New York shown us from different time periods and decades, this exhibit taught me a lot. We read about the early immigrant settlement in New York City and the existence of slavery in the city. We then moved onto the Industrial Revolution, where we learned about working conditions in the factories and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

We gradually moved into modern times during the era of War. World War I and World War II and its effects on the people of New York. What stood out to me the most was the last exhibit about the Black Lives Matter movement. Since that is the most recent and something that I have seen first-hand. A timeline of events had taken place since Trevaughn Martin’s murder in 2012 and gradually onto George Floyd’s case in 2020. I remember moving to the United States on July 3rd, 2013. I was in my uncle’s car on the way from the airport to their home in Old Westbury, when the radio jockeys were discussing Trevaughn’s case and talking about racial profiling and “stop and frisk,” all these terms I had no idea about. Eventually, my cousins explained it to me what those meant and that was basically the beginning of my impression that America may not be the perfect place I thought it would be before I moved. Then, onwards, I was always working with different non-profit organizations and have attended various protests for racial profiling and was actively supporting for justice for George Floyd.

That exhibit stuck out to me the most. Overall, the exhibit changed my perspective in many ways. As our host had said, “New York City’s history is all about social movements, and is full of activism and protests.” Since it is one of the most diverse cities in the world, it taught me how New York City eventually. Became home to these diverse groups of people.