Places and forms of Power in the black American culture

              Places and forms of Power in the black American culture

The notion that I will present is the notion of places and forms of power and the theme is the African American culture,                                   
Completely excluded from the fine ideals of the Declaration of Independence, that all man were created equal. The question that we ask ourselves is how have African American achieved recognition?

After the Civil War that started in 1861 and ended in 1865, the slavery was abolished but the African American hadn't achieved recognition yet. To show that, we have studied an extract from the Black Codes established in 1865 and The Declaration of Independence. We compared the two extracts , and saw that there was a gap between what the Declaration was saying (That all man were equal and had unalienable rights) and the reality of the Black Codes that forbidden Black people to do the same things as the White. For example, this extract says that black people aren't allowed to marry white people,

Some black people decided to struggle against this unfairness, like in Harlem during the 20's et the 30's where there was a cultural movement named « The Harlem Renaissance ». Black Artists decided to struggle through art like Music, Painting, Photography and Literature. We have studied an extract named « Broken Dreams » from a novel written by an artist who was from this movement. 
This extract is an autobiography; it talks about the childhood of Maya. She says that during her childhood she was dreaming of becoming a white girl because she thought that it was better to be white in the society. This document shows that the pressure of the society has a big influence on kids, even the black ones.

After this movement, a new one started. It was the civil rights movement that was triggered by a woman named Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks was a woman that didn't wanted to leave her seat in a bus to a white like it was written on the Jim Crow Laws. After this, the people that supported Rosa Park's action started to boycott the Montgomery Bus.
The civil rights movement was born. This movement sought the African American recognition by the laws and the society.

M.L King  like other people struggled against the segregationist laws by using pacifist ways as civil disobedience or demonstration. One of the most famous demonstrations took place in Washington in 1963. During this demonstration, MLK made his famous speech: « I Have A Dream » The march is widely credited with helping to pass the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965).

Thanks to this Black People had finally achieved their recognition by the law. The best example is the election of Barack Obama as the first black president in 2008

We can conclude by saying that by using literature, music, art, photography films and sport and struggling for their rights, African American have taken control of their own identity and imposed universal recognition but still there is a long way before they achieve their recognition

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