Mid Century Minority Writers

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Mid Century Minority Writers
The early and the mid of the twentieth century was a difficult time for the blacks who were in America. The challenges were common to all. Despite the fact that the black Americans in America came from different countries, their predicament in America was the same. They faced similar problems whether one was learned or not. Considering that they all faced the same challenges, there were those who succumbed to them while others died fighting and the determination of things being different in future. The significant difficulties these black men was racial discrimination. They were viewed as an inferior race by the whites in all aspects. They were looked down upon, and they had no equal right with the white men in America.
According to Baldwin’s, Sonny’s Blue, there was a huge separation between the blacks and the white. Despite the fact the author is an algebra teacher; he has to continue living in the poverty-ridden Harlem coupled with a lot of violence in the neighborhood. The book focuses on the suffering of the black people in America. The other depicts the jazz music in a way that was used by the blacks to find themselves.This was by giving them an opportunity to speak themselves out; the narrator says: “For a moment the tale of whether we are in difficulties, and whether delighted and how we may win is not new, this must be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell; it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness.” (Baldwin) Baldwin listens to his brother Sonny play the piano and learns that he is saying what troubles him in the mind and the heart when he relates his concerns after the death of his daughter, he says “My pain caused his real.” (Baldwin).
According to Baldwin, Sonny’s Blue, and Gwendolyn Brook poems, we are Cool and The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till, drug use was a haven for the young black Americans. Sonny and seven boys in the poem we are cool find themselves in a social turmoil where no one around them understand them and their needs( Baldwin).They turn to drugs that help them acquire a feeling of achievement and be able to take life easy. When they are high on these drugs, they are oblivious of the hate of the American and the languishing poverty they are forced to live in.
In the Battle Royal and The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till, we see the character struggle to fit in in the society of the whites but, no matter what the effort they put the whites view them as aliens and inferior. In the Battle Royal, the narrator puts an effort in being seen as an intellect by the whites, but they scorn him. He is invited to give a speech, but first, they are demanded to fight with his peers before an audience of drunken American men who force them to do weird things. They are viewed as toys. The narrator is angered till he says social equality instead of social responsibility in his speech (Bloom).
Malcolm and Martin Luther King call for the awakening of the blacks to fight for the justice. In king’s speech before those who attended Lincoln Memorial, he says he has a dream where there is freedom for all. He says that: “in the dream I can see my former sons of the slave eating on the same table and at some point the kid of the slave would lead in America all emanates to this hallowed point to inform America of strong current urgency. There is no time to engage in the pressures of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. “Now this the time to generate exact democracy promise. Now it is the period to ascend from the unknown and confine segregation valley in the sunlit way regarded as justice. Now this is the juncture to raise regions from the quicksand’s racial based injustice heading to the solid rock of brotherhood” (King and Nelson).
Ellison and Baldwin depict the bitterness that is in the hearts of the blacks; they see that the blacks want to use the venom to fight for equality (Baldwin). It is unlike Martin and Malcolm who understands that the freedom of the blacks and the senses of justice for all would be achieved through agreement between the two parties, especially when the whites drop their bad attitude. Martin leaves a legacy of using his opportunity to deliver a speech before the two races on the importance of getting rid of racial injustices and embracing the art of brotherhood in all the American endeavors (King and Nelson). Malcolm left the legacy of awakening the blacks to get rid of self-hatred and embrace that they are important regardless of what the whites say about them (X and Haley).
References
Baldwin, James. Sonny’s Blues. Stuttgart: Klett Sprachen, 2009. Print.
Bloom, Harold. Gwendolyn Brooks. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2003. Print.
Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. New York: Vintage International, 1995. Print.
King, Martin Luther, and Kadir Nelson. I Have A Dream. New York: Schwartz & Wade Books, 2012. Print.
X, Malcolm, and Alex Haley. The Autobiography Of Malcolm X. Print.