Idea of progress : How did artists during the segregationist period in the United States, fight against social injustices ?

Idea of progress

Content : 

• Introduction :
• Definition of the term : Idea of progress.
• Problematic : How did artists during the segregationist period in the United States, fight against social injustices ?
• Plan : I.  Art : a weapon against social injustices during the period of racial segregation in the United States...

          II. … Leading to a positive evolution of the society with more racial equality.

• Development :

    I. Art : a weapon against social injustices during the period of racial segregation in the United States…

- context

- the different forms of art

    II. … Leading to a positive evolution of the society with more racial equality.

- the impact it had on the society

- but is the modern society fully equal ?

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Harlem

By Langston Hughes, 1951.

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I have a dream (excerpt)

By Martin Luther King, 1963.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free.[pic 6]

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

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