Week 1 
Periods 3-4 ：Historical context

Read the Historical Context and finish the homework and test in class.

Homework (After class):

1.Watch the video clips about the Civil Rights Movements

2.Read Cultural Identity and Black Awareness on the course website and complete the oral homework: A 5-minute speech on the importance of one’s cultural identity, and handin your audio work by the endof  the 2nd week

Historical context of Everyday Use

作业中上传Question: What is the conflict of the short story about?

“Everyday Use” (1973) is included in the Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, 2^nd edition, 1981. “Everyday Use” is one of the best-written short stories by Alice Walker. The story is very simple. With the same theme of Walker’s other works, “Everyday Use” still focuses on the relationship among black people. It describes three women: the mother and her two daughters Dee and Maggie. The two daughters are in sharp contrast in every conceivable way: appearance, character, personal experiences, etc. The story reaches its climax at the moment when Dee, the elder daughter, wants the two old quilts but is flatly refused by the mother, who intends to give them to Maggie, the younger one. The old quilts, made from the pieces of clothes worn by grandparents and great-grand-parents and stitched by Grandma’s hand, symbolize the heritage of the black people. Their different feelings about the quilts reveal their different attitudes towards their heritage as blacks. 

作业中上传 Questions: 

1. Under what circumstances was the short story written? 

2. What were the changes happening to the black people at that time?

3. What message (theme) did Alice Walker intend to deliver through the short story? 

“Everyday Use” is set in the late 1960s or early 1970s, a tumultuous time when many African Americans were struggling to redefine and seize control of their social, cultural, and political identity in American society. There was also a greater attempt to recognize the contributions that African Americans had already made in America’s long history. At the time, both scholars and laypeople became interested in unearthing and reexamining the African American past. They were particularly interested in the aspects of African heritage that had survived centuries of slavery and were still present in African American culture. During this time, many blacks sought to establish themselves as a visible and unified group and take control of how their group was named. Black (and later Afro-American) replaced the term Negro, which took on offensive associations. Many black Americans, uninspired by a bleak history of slavery in North America, looked to their African roots in an effort to reconnect with their past.

The time period in which “Everyday Use” takes place was also an era when groups of all ideologies—some peaceful, some militant—emerged. The Black Panthers and Black Muslims were groups created to resist what they saw as a white-dominated society. Dee is possibly emulating the Cultural Nationalists, artists and writers who wore flowing robes and sandals and emphasized the development of black culture as a means of promoting freedom and equality. Walker may have created Hakim-a-barber with this new, younger, more militant generation in mind. When Mama describes the Muslims who live down the road, who lead a labor-intensive life, Hakim dismisses their hard lifestyle. He is unwilling to commit to the hard work of the cause and faith he claims to embrace. Ultimately, Walker's story is a critique of individuals who misapplied or misunderstood some of the ideals that black consciousness groups promoted during that time.

Black Power Movement

作业中上传Questions:  

1. How is Black Power Movement related to the Civil Rights Movements?

2. What aims did the Black Power Movement intend to reach?

Black Power was a political movement that arose in the middle 1960s, that strove to express a new racial consciousness among Blacks in the United States. The movement stemmed from the earlier civil rights movements. It represented racial dignity and self-reliance (i.e. freedom from white authority in both economic and political arenas).

Led in some ways by Malcom X, the Black Power Movement encouraged the improvement of African American communities, rather than the fight for complete integration. The Black Panther Party for Self Defense was truly the vanguard of the Black Power Movement

Some African Americans sought cultural heritage and history and the true roots of black identity as their part of the movement. This was thought of as the "consciousness" aspect of the Black Power Movement. The recognition that standards of beauty and self-esteem were integral to power relations was also a significant aspect of the movement. Other interpreters of the Black Power Movement as related to the artistic realm. The artists of Black Power likewise emphasized the central importance of self-representation and productive autonomy.

One main point of the Black Power Concept was the necessity for Black people to define the world in their own terms. At times this included a call for revolutionary political struggle to reject racism and imperialism in the United States.

Civil War (1861-1865)

Questions:  

1. What caused the Civil War?

2. What is the immediate outcome of the Civil War?

In the early 19th century, slavery began to assume greater importance as a national issue. In the early years of the republic, many leaders had supposed that slavery would die out. As late as 1808, when the international slave trade was abolished, many thought that slavery would soon end. But during the next generation, the South became solidly united behind the institution of slavery as new economic factors made slavery far more profitable than it had been before 1790. Chief among these was the rise of a great cotton-growing industry. Sugarcane and tobacco, two labor-intensive crops, also contributed to slavery's extension.

The country was divided into states permitting slavery and states prohibiting it. In 1820, politicians debated the question of whether slavery would be legal in the western territories. The Missouri Compromise permitted slavery in the new state of Missouri and the Arkansas Territory but it was barred everywhere west and north of Missouri. Sectional lines steadily hardened on the slavery question. Politically, the 1850s can be characterized as a decade of failure in which the nation's leaders were unable to resolve, or even contain, the divisive issue of slavery.

After Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, eleven states left the Union and proclaimed themselves an independent nation, the Confederate States of America: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. The American Civil War had begun. Four years later, the Confederates surrendered. The Civil War put an end to slavery; it also made clear that the country was not a collection of semi-independent states but an indivisible whole. In December 1865, Congress ratified the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery.

Homework: Watch the video clips to learn more.