PERIOD 3 WARM-UP: SILENT READING TIME!!!
Read silently for 10 minutes. Keep in mind that you may
forfeit your points if you a) are not reading, or b) are
distracting another from reading. When you are done,
create a reading log (as a warm-up) with the following
information:
10/4/11
Silent Reading
Title of the Book
Starting page #- Ending pg. #
Brief summary of what you read.
Bring Black Boy from here on out.
We will finish taking notes on Black Boy
History in a moment.
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Keep all notes for this class in a separate section.
Anybody who still needs Black Boy?
Portfolio pieces from non-English classes are
due on Thursday, October 20th
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Speak to any teachers who have not given you a
portfolio assignment yet.
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Literary Response and Analysis 3.12: Analyze
the way in which a work of literature is
related to the themes and issues of its
historical period. (Historical approach)
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1917: U.S. enters World War I; more than
200,000 black soldiers serve.
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At war, blacks are treated much better in Europe.
(Britain abolished slavery 40 years before the U.S.)
Some Blacks choose to stay in Europe; others come
back to U.S. after experiencing better treatment.
 They want to know why serving their country doesn’t
earn equal treatment.
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1917: War and cotton crop failures start a
“Great Migration” of blacks to the urban
North.
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Richard’s family is affected by this.
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1919: Jamaican-American poet Claude McKay
writes a poem that tells blacks to take control
of their lives and speak out.
A black literature movement began called
The Harlem Renaissance
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novelists, poets and essayists wrote about the black
experience.
expressed racial pride AND outrage
at social injustices.
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! We must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
Source: Claude McKay, “If We Must Die,”
in Harlem Shadows: The Poems of Claude McKay
(New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1922).
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Goals of H.R.:
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voice pride in heritage
use writing to fight social injustice.
1929: the Harlem Renaissance ends as Black
writers can no longer make money on their
work.
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Influenced by the Harlem Renaissance,
Richard Wright begins his own writing.
“I wanted to build a bridge of words between
me and the world outside, the world which
was so distant and elusive that it seemed
unreal.” (Wright 384).
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“Jim Crow” = laws and manners that
mandated segregation in the American South
from 1877-1960.
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“Minstrels Shows” were spectacles created by
Whites, for Whites to mock and laugh at
representations of Blacks.
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Blacks were represented by whites as singing, dancing,
grinning fools.
The stereotype included the ideas that blacks were
lazy, stupid, uncivilized and unworthy of integration.
(Why was this stereotype created?)
Jim Crow laws, which
oppressed blacks, were wrongly
justified by such stereotypes.
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Jim Crow laws took away rights of blacks.
People who supported these laws believed
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blacks were inferior to whites
the two races should be kept separate.
Blacks were not supposed to…
…hint that a white person was lying.
…demonstrate superior intelligence.
…cuss at whites
…laugh at whites
…comment on the
appearance of white
females (males).
Blacks could vote, if they could prove that they
did not break the following rules/regulations:
 Grandfather clauses: you couldn’t vote unless
your ancestors before the Civil War could.
 European-American Primaries: Only
Democrats could vote and only EuropeanAmericans could be democrats.
 Literacy Tests: you could only vote if you
passed a test that revealed your ability to read
and write.
 Poll Taxes: fees charged to poor Blacks.
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Why are these rules unfair?
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Early abolitionists first questioned racism
through photography that showed how
similar blacks and whites could be.
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Blacks worked hard and made progress
through the court system due to lawyers like
Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP.
Late 50’s and early 60’s: people of different
races stand up to end segregation.
Cool-down: Now that you understand more about
the historical setting of Black Boy, answer the
following:
1. Explain at least one value that was challenged
but that would have been worth fighting for
during this time period.
2. What are some of ways that you would fight for
this value?