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American Literature Videos 58 videos

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American Literature: Pre-Civil Rights Movement 6933 Views


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The Pre-Civil Rights Movement... preceded the Civil Rights Movement. (If you got that, lucky guess.) It took place prior to the mid-1950s, and was spurred by the efforts of people like James Baldwin, whose book Sonny's Blues changed the way people looked at minorities' rights. These efforts encouraged--and eventually resulted in--the desegregation of public places.

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Transcript

00:02

pre civil rights movement.....

00:19

two-four-six-eight we want love no more hate non-violent protesting is [Woman protesting]

00:24

one of many ways that groups of people can express their frustrations or

00:27

discomfort with what's going on in the world around them one of the most

00:31

effective and well known eras protest was the civil rights movement the era

00:36

unlike the civil left's movement which was all about pencils and desk for South [Man scribbling on paper with a pen]

00:41

paws the civil rights movement was a push from people who believed that

00:44

everyone was entitled to basic human liberties you know stuff like voting and

00:48

being able to sit wherever you want on a bus you may know a little something [Woman takes seat on a bus]

00:52

something about the civil rights movement but do you know what happened

00:55

to kick start it into motion well to be fair it wasn't just one thing that

00:59

happened it was several decades of stuff so slavery was abolished done away with

01:04

in 1865 with the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment to the US [13th Amendment appears]

01:07

Constitution neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a

01:12

punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall

01:15

exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction

01:19

woohoo party time everyone's free...Not so fast as soon as slavery was given the

01:26

boot all of the former slaves immediately went into practicing law and

01:30

medicine and wait that didn't happen in reality a lot of people particularly [Doctor appears with a patient]

01:35

southerners weren't all that stoked that slavery had left the building and they

01:39

took this out on former slaves in some seriously nasty ways they basically used

01:44

scare tactics like the threat of being lynched or even burned alive to keep

01:48

former slaves from owning properties becoming involved in government or even

01:52

attempting to challenge segregation as it had been for years

01:55

in the 1880s southern states came up with what are known as Jim Crow laws [Jim Crow laws meaning appears]

02:00

which effectively kept segregation between black and white people in most

02:03

every walk of life alive and thriving by the time 1900 rolled around 35 years

02:09

after the 13th amendment went into effect, things were

02:14

still really bad for african-americans about 90% of them

02:17

still lived in the south where living conditions were the worst but things in

02:21

the north weren't a whole heck of a lot better [African-american eating dinner in a poor home]

02:23

northerners still treated african-americans as second-class

02:26

citizens who didn't have any basic rights like voting and access to equal

02:30

housing and employment opportunities the great migration of african-americans

02:33

happened around the time World War one was getting hot and heavy huge numbers

02:37

of former slaves rushed into the cities to take factory jobs opened up by white [Former slave appears at factory]

02:41

men going off to the war when the war was over though African Americans were

02:45

sent to the back of the bus once more so to speak World War two actually enacted

02:50

some positive changes for racial relations in America Adolf Hitler's

02:54

intense racism against the Jewish population to Germany and Europe

02:57

resulted in roughly 6 million Jewish people being murdered during the Second [Jewish dead bodies appear]

03:01

World War it doesn't get a whole lot worse than that

03:03

Hitler was known around the world as the Time Magazine's most vile human being in

03:08

existence and believe it or not his racist views weren't all that popular [Hitler telling jokes on a stage]

03:13

this translated into civilised Americans also coming to terms with the idea that

03:17

racism on the homefront wasn't such a good thing either in the 1940s through

03:22

the 60s many formerly colonized African and Asian countries were gaining their [African and Asian woman walk out of their prison cell]

03:26

independence this spurred African Americans into action in the US and got

03:31

people thinking about what true freedom and independence might look like for all

03:34

races in the nation the Cold War a non-violent war that was actually more

03:39

of a competitive relationship between America and the former Soviet Union to

03:42

have the most weapons be the first nation to walk on the moon etc also

03:46

helped Americans become more accepting of minority races politicians understood

03:50

that it would look better if America appeared to be racially tolerant America [Group of people chanting]

03:54

would be able to get more nations on her side if she was a place of tolerance and

03:58

acceptance yeah that is totally superficial but that's just kind of how

04:02

politics works in 1954 the monumental Brown versus Board of Education case

04:08

effectively desegregated American schools by law a previous case Plessy

04:13

versus Ferguson had allowed segregation in schools based on the concept that the

04:18

schools were separate but equal Shaw the court said when reviewing these facts [Judge appears]

04:22

during Brown separate is not equal and this ruling

04:25

is bunk the new ruling is that kids of all colors can go to the same schools [Judge bangs gavel]

04:29

case closed we talked about this case as being

04:32

monumental because it changed the way both white and black people in America

04:35

thought about race after brown and all the way up through the late 1960s

04:40

proponents for equal rights among races in America came together to protest [People protesting]

04:44

injustice and challenge the current system of politics and social relations

04:48

in the nation african-americans and white civil rights activists alike saw

04:52

that major change could be possible and they began mobilizing

04:56

in great numbers they fought for the right to vote equal access to public

05:01

facilities like lunch counters water fountains and movie theaters equal [People walking into movie theater]

05:05

opportunities in schools housing options and employment opportunities above all

05:10

though the civil rights activists fought for freedom from discrimination based on

05:14

a person's skin color while this notion seems simple in theory it's an issue

05:18

that's still a huge deal today all people over the age of 18 may have the

05:23

right to vote in America but the debate about whether or not rights are actually

05:27

equal for everyone is still a hot item on many people's minds as you might [Man's head open and inequality appears on brain]

05:31

imagine there are some super amazing literature music and art that came out

05:35

of the civil rights era there's something about social unrest that seems

05:38

to make people quite creative James Baldwin was an amazing figure associated

05:44

with the civil rights he was an African American author who wrote poetry novels

05:48

plays essays and more more importantly he was active in the civil rights [Baldwin protesting]

05:52

movement in his own ways James Baldwin born in Harlem in 1924 was the grandson

05:57

of a slave and the son of a single mom mom remarried a Baptist minister who

06:01

helped teenage James get a job as a youth minister and a church he wasn't [Baldwin appears as a church minister]

06:05

interested in pursuing a career in the church but James did say those three

06:09

years in the pulpit I didn't realize it then that is what turned me into a

06:13

writer really dealing with all that anguish and that despair and that beauty

06:17

in high school James showed off his writing skills by publishing a whole [James writing a play]

06:20

bunch of poems plays and short stories in the school's magazine his writing

06:24

career didn't immediately take off though since James had to go right to

06:27

work after graduation in order to help support his huge family while working [James appears at fast food restaurant window]

06:31

for the US Army laying railroad tracks James tasted discrimination for real he

06:36

was often not allowed to go into bars or restaurants with his coworkers yes because

06:40

he was black he moved to Greenwich Village and landed a writing fellowship

06:45

that allowed him to just write even though James was pursuing his passion

06:49

life as a gay black man in the 1940s and 50s was not all that much fun he got hit [James walking with white man]

06:55

with double discrimination everywhere he went

06:58

James worked on getting some short stories and essays published before he

07:01

won another fellowship and hightailed it off to Paris during his time in the city [James by the Eiffel Tower]

07:06

of love James was able to view his personal history and that of African

07:10

Americans in a different way since he was separated from it he said once I

07:15

found myself on the other side of the ocean

07:17

I see where I came from very clearly I am the grandson of a slave and I am a

07:22

writer I must deal with both in 1953 James semi autobiography go tell it on [Go Tell it on the Mountain book appears]

07:28

the mountain was published and people ate it up he wrote about the real

07:32

struggle of growing up in Harlem in a way that no other author had done

07:36

Baldwin won even more Awards that funded more writing projects like

07:40

Giovanni's Room a story that focused on the topics of race and homosexuality in

07:44

1955 when the book was published people were not used to reading about such [Person picks up book]

07:48

topics and the book received mixed reviews James essay work also helped to

07:53

secure him a spot as a notable name in the civil rights movement

07:56

James writing in all forms gave him a powerful voice of protest and activism

08:01

why don't we take a closer look at one of Baldwin's books Sonny's blues it's a

08:06

really dark story but an important one that you're not likely to forget after [Person picks up Sonny's Blues book]

08:10

reading it Sonny is a heroin addict from Harlem who gets busted for selling drugs

08:14

and ends up doing time his older brother the narrator of the story reads about

08:19

Sonny's arrests in the paper and feels bad but doesn't do anything about it [Sonny arrested on front of newspaper]

08:23

the narrator loses his little girl and contacts Sonny who moves in with his

08:27

brother and family Sonny is a gifted piano player and his brother credits his

08:31

wild musician lifestyle and other musicians we're getting Sonny into [Sonny partying with musician]

08:35

drugs in the first place which Sonny argues is ridiculous

08:38

the two come to terms with each other and life when Sonny plays a show at a club

08:42

and the narrator has an aha moment of getting what Sonny was telling him about

08:46

life being tough and all... one of the things that makes this such an awesome

08:50

story about race is that Baldwin never comes out and whacks us over the head [Hand with hammer whacks girl on the head]

08:53

with it all of the major themes addiction family suffering have ties to

08:58

race or racism Sonny admittedly feels out of control in his own life he doesn't

09:03

have a lot of hope for a positive future as a young poor black man in Harlem and

09:07

he turns to heroin it makes you feel in control sometimes you've got to have

09:13

that feeling Sonny saw drugs as his only coping mechanism and it's not like he [Sonny with a syringe and man hands him a spoon]

09:18

was alone lots of people in desperate situations

09:20

find solace in using drugs and alcohol the way Baldwin writes about Sonny

09:25

situation makes the reader understand that life for black people in 1950s

09:29

Harlem is no picnic he personifies the setting of busted up housing projects

09:34

and hopeless people showing us how segregation tears down the black [Page turns over from book]

09:38

community we hit a hundred and tenth Street and started rolling up Lenox

09:42

Avenue and I known this Avenue all my life but it seemed to me again as it had

09:46

seemed on the day I'd first heard about Sonny's trouble filled with a hidden

09:50

Menace which was its very breath of life yeah Harlem doesn't exactly sound

09:55

inviting the racism becomes more blatant when the narrator's mother tells him the [Narrator and Mum appear together]

09:58

story about how a car full of white men killed her brother her sadness and

10:03

terror are obvious when she explains how her husband handled the situation till

10:07

the day he died he weren't sure but that every white man he saw was the man that

10:11

killed his brother boom this murder only perpetuated the existing culture of fear

10:17

that African Americans in the early 1950s were living in and while Sonny's

10:21

blues might be fictional work the parallels to real life are all too real

10:25

this passage also connects family to the overarching concept of race there is a [Passage in novel appears]

10:29

personal history of violence against the family by white people this cuts even

10:34

deeper than the bigger picture of racism that happened against black people as an [Scissors cuts a picture of African-American family]

10:38

entire race because of the incident with her brother-in-law the narrator's mom

10:41

tells him you've got to hold on to your brother and don't let him fall no matter

10:45

what it looks like is happening and no matter how evil you gets with him she

10:49

might not come right out and say it but Ma expects the narrator to protect her

10:52

baby Sonny from the evils white men cause because that's what mothers do [Mum appears with bright shining light behind her]

10:56

the theme of suffering is tied back to race as well every single character in

11:00

this story suffers in some way and a lot of it has to do with their race the

11:04

narrator sees his young students suffering in the same way he and his

11:07

brother did these boys now were living as we'd been living then they were

11:12

growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling

11:16

of their actual possibilities for young men in Harlem in the 50s there weren't a [Young men together in a street in Harlem]

11:20

ton of options they were broke black and held down by society who didn't want

11:25

them Sonny expresses not just his own suffering but is the voice of pain for

11:30

many you don't know how much I needed to hear from you I wanted to write you many

11:34

a time but I dug how much I must have hurt you us and so I didn't write but

11:37

now I feel like a man who's been trying to climb out of some deep real deep and

11:41

funky hole and just saw the sun up there outside I got to get outside it's a

11:47

vicious cycle Sonny was suffering so he turned to drugs the drugs got him locked [Sonny running down a street and police car appears]

11:51

up which caused his family grief and Sonny was too ashamed to get into touch with

11:55

his family when he needed them the most seriously heavy stuff and Baldwin really [Baldwin typing at his desk]

11:59

knew how to take real-life suffering and turn it into fiction while keeping the

12:03

important essence of realism in place this was how he could be an activist

12:07

just by evoking the power of words words can be weapons of change if you know how [Man holding dictionary protesting]

12:12

to wield them properly and James Baldwin sure had the gift of word wielding at his

12:16

fingertips with words no one has to get physically hurt though their effects can

12:20

be even stronger than guns or knives or bazookas though the civil rights [Soldier fires bazooka]

12:24

movement has changed we still see remnants of it in modern society as long

12:28

as people feel oppressed by society there will be struggle and not that fun

12:32

hey I think I might like you do you like me how do we do this kind of struggle

12:37

though heartbreak is certainly no laughing matter [Man in bed crying]

12:40

sorry just got dumped not everyone can handle a strong independent protester

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