APUSH Research Paper Essays

APUSH Research Paper Essays APUSH Research Paper Paper APUSH Research Paper Paper The late 1800s and early 1900s, during the era of post Emancipation, the United States was a period of identity exploration, enlightenment, and empowerment, as well as interdivision, discrimination, and adaptation for the African American peoples. Social revolutionists like Marcus Garvey and role modeled entrepreneurs like Madam CJ Walker were among the many blacks that influenced the national black community during their time of struggle and search for societal and economical direction. Walker and Garvey both strived for the advancement of their people, but had different long term effects on blacks and plans for the future. Walkers use of Eurocentric ideals to beautify Black features socially and economically carried her higher than any woman, let alone black woman, in the business world. Her use of advertisements created a standard of black beauty in America that would gain acceptance. Garveys efforts to create a movement glorifying Afrocentric culture and lifestyle resulted in criticism from his own people and federal attention. These historical fgures in the African American community were a part of a long lasting conflict of identity within the black race and the continuation of developing a black American culture completely different than African culture, creating a disparity between what it means to be African and African American. Madam CJ Walker, born Sarah Breedlove, was the first one of her family born into freedom in 1867 in Delta, Louisiana. With the time periods lack of indoor plumbing, central heating, and electricity, most Americans bathed infrequently, causing people like Walker to experience hair loss and scalp disease. Walker experimented with home remedies to find a cure. Soon, she developed her own line of hair care and moved throughout the ountry to major industrial cities like Pittsburgh and Indianapolis to spread its use. In Pittsburgh, Walker established Lelia College in 1908 to educated hair culturists and expand her empire. It was in Indianapolis that she opened her headquarters and factory. With her success, Walker believed in empowering the black community by providing a place where they can develop skills to become successful entrepreneurs. Her institutions taught and trained black women to build and manage themselves in the business world. She also gave lectures on social, economic, and political issues sponsored by black institutions. As time went on and blacks dispersed throughout American society, racial violence and discrimination in the South became the social norm. Jim Crow Laws enacted in 1876 during the annexation of Reconstruction legally separated blacks from whites and created the hatred of the black race. After the East St. Louis Race Riot, Madam CJ Walker united with the leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in their efforts to bring lynching as a federal crime. Through her efforts to support black advancement, Walker donated large amounts of her earnings to rganizations like the NAACP, black schools, orphanages, and retirement homes and was acknowledged in 1918 at the biennial convention of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) for making the largest contribution to save the Anacostia a $250,000 estate in New York which was built by the first licensed black architect in New York State, Vertner Tandy. Never before had a black woman from the south born of slave parents climb the social and economic ladder to success and become the wealthiest African-American woman in America and known to be the first self-made female American millionaire. Between the 1890s and early 1900s, blacks struggled with white acceptance, and often went to extreme measures to make themselves appear to have enough white blood in them to fend themselves from the worst types of discrimination. Slavery deprived Africans of the natural oils and herbs they used to maintain healthy hair, thus forming the definition of the word nappy as foaming to describe the kinky matted texture of the slaves hair which has become a way to further stigmatize Black hair. The nations social, political, and economic system had been determined by racial appearance and standards. Madam CJ Walkers hair care product advertisements often depicted European features on a black woman, insinuating that the more white you are, the more beautiful, socially accepted, and capable of achieving a better life you are. On one label, Walker herself is depicted with long, straight hair and light skin. This label sends the message to her customers that they too can achieve this luscious, Eurocentric hair when they use this product, ensuring a more appealing and Americanized view of black beauty. Another ad for Madam CJ Walkers miracle products shows a woman with White features, ossibly portraying that Walkers products could work on any type of hair, or advertising a look that everyone should achieve to maintain their society-approved womanhood. Despite Walkers astounding accomplishments as a post- Emancipation black woman, her inventions and goals toward helping blacks achieve success contributed to the appreciation of Eurocentric culture, ideal of self-hatred within the black communities, and growth of the belief that African features were not beautiful. These adaptations to American societal standards were a means of survival for Walker and ther blacks who used Eurocentric ways to create a culturally accepted life for themselves. These ways of living and gaining recognition in the white communities created a divide between blacks who glorified and strived to uphold Afrocentric traditions like Marcus Garvey. Jamaican political leader, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr. was born in 1887 and became many things including a resolute proponent of the Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements. He founded many pro-black Communities League, the Black Star Line, part of the Back-to-Africa movement, which promoted the return of the African diaspora to their ancestral lands. His ability to actualize a mass movement and economic empowerment for Africa created the ideal of Garveyism. Influenced by Booker T. Washington, Garvey became intelligent as a child from reading books from his fathers extensive library. He attended Birkbeck College in London, taking Eurocentric education to use to his advantage in applying his knowledge to leading a nation of mentally and economically broken people. The early 1900s in the northern states of America was a period of Black advancement and pride. During the Harlem Renaissance era, when blacks developed a culture of rts, literature, politics, and a new social identity, Garvey began publishing his widely spread newspaper, Negro World, in August of 1918. As the editor, he used the paper as a means to spread black nationalism through an everyday primary source to those of African ancestry at home and abroad. Garveys Negro Magazine gave blacks a literary social life (inspiration) that was never attainable as slaves. The magazine was strong with words of motivation and pride that encouraged blacks to keep fighting and be proud of their ancestry. This decision of following Eurocentric or following Afrocentric ideals and culture divided blacks along intellectual lines. Ga o. ey was criticized by his own race for wanting to empower blacks and bring them back to their homeland, where they can populate and live without the poverty, violence, and racism in America. In an excerpt from the article Africa for Africans from Garveys paper, Negro World, he speaks on those who are opposed of his efforts to continue the Pan-African Movement. One editor and leader went so far as to say at his Pan- African Congress that American Negroes could not live in Africa, because the climate was too hot. All kinds of arguments have been adduced by these Negro intellectuals against the colonization of Africa by the black race. Some said that the black man would ultimately work out his existence alongside of the white man in countries founded and established by the latter (Garvey). Garveys written ideas of people going back to their original continents to restructure cultural peace are expressed in this excerpt from Negro World. He writes about his feelings towards the Negro intellectuals, he calls them, who are in denial and opposed to his ideas of an Afrocentric empowerment movement. The criticisms and oppositions from educated blacks in seeing themselves inherently different from Africans follows the issue of the growing distance between Africans and African Americans. It also presents the fear that white supremacists will have yet another reason for racial violence towards blacks, as expressed in a letter sent to Harry M. Daugherty, United States Attorney General. African American leaders opposed to Garveys plans to spread among Negroes distrust and hatred of all white people, write this source entitled, Garvey Must Go, in hopes to enforce Federal involvement to capture Garvey. This letter tries to make clear that not all blacks follow Garvey, to make known that these specific blacks in New York writing the letter are good and obedient civilians. This document describes Garvey as a foreign violent menace to all Americans and seems to want security from the whites in power so they dont begin to think that all blacks in America are preparing to rebel. And so the interdivision amongst blacks intellectually and economically, resulted in Garveys long-term goals positive way to advance Negro Americans in society, however, inspired religions, such s the Nation of Islam and Rastafari movement, and inspired more Afrocentric pride in the years of the Harlem Renaissance and further development of Americas black culture. The combination of Eurocentric and Afrocentric cultures began to create the African American culture. Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller was a celebrated black female artist and the daughter of a barber and hairdresser/wig maker in 1877. In Philadelphia, she was encouraged to use her creative mind to sculpt. As she became older and influenced by Eurocentric culture, she was able to get a decent education nd study art under sculptors in France. Upon arriving back to Philadelphia in the early 1900s-20s, she realized her art style became subdued. She began engaging in the African American experience by creating pieces rooted in black culture during the Harlem Renaissance. Her sculpture Ethiopia Awakening displayed a woman in African garments symbolized her appreciation for her African heritage and symbolized what was happening to the black community as a whole during the Renaissance and spread of Garveyism. Female artist Augusta Savage was also nfluenced by African American leaders like Garvey and W. E. B. DuBois, this black woman artist was inspirational during the period of black excellence in music, art, literature, and ideals†the Harlem Renaissance. Savage not only sculpted pieces that projected black culture, history, and united pride, but busts of both Garvey and DuBois, symbolizing their leadership as admirable and responsible for the flourishing of the Afrocentric black community in the 1920s. This racial consciousness and gratification for the black race benefitted in American society as well. This infant of African American culture embodied American education and values as well as African features and traditions. The cultural transformation of the Black Community during the late 1800s and early 1900s influenced all aspects of being black in America. By adapting Eurocentric values African Americans were able to fight and survive in American society. Madam CJ Walker, Marcus Garvey, and a united but divided black community, who were stripped of their kingdom, language, and customs during slavery, used the coexistence of Afro and Eurocentric ideals, traditions, and cultures to create one of their own.