1. The Protest Movement (1940-1959)

2. Influence of the Past Earlier African American Literature paved the way for literature of the Protest Movement Writers of the Protest Movement capitalizing on authenticity established by earlier writers

3. Historical Moment (1940s) NAACP working to dismantle Jim Crow laws Start of the Second Great Migration Jobs, education, voting Sharecropping End of WWII The Second Reconstruction After WWII, reasserting and reclaiming civil and political rights

4. Historical Moment (1950s) Rosa Parks and bus boycotts Separate means Unequal Plessey v. Ferguson overturned in Brown v. Board of Education Integration of Schools

5. Organizations Formed American Crusade Against Lynching Montgomery Improvement Association Formed in response to bus segregation Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. elected president The Congress of Racial Equality Southern Christian Leadership Conference Formed by Dr. King Also a response to segregation on buses

6. Organizations Heralded Non-Violent Protest

7. Living all their lives in a segregated society; ignored, stigmatized, or lampooned in the daily press, Negro Americans have learned that only in their own weekly newspapers can they find a record of their achievements (often overemphasized), a mirror of their emotions, and an expression of their yearnings for full citizenship and dignity. Other papers furnish none of these things. The best chance an ordinary Negro has to get into a white newspaper is by committing a crime. —"The Negro Press," The Reporter, December 6, 1949

8. The Black Press John H. Johnson forms Negro Digest, Ebony, and Jet magazines Promoting positive images of Black Americans Protests against inequality, a prominent part of society, are addressed in the black press Showing positive images of non-violent protest

9. Major Themes of the Protest Movement All fall under the umbrella of race and inequality Urban struggles Black men and Identity Black women in urban areas Economics Discrimination/Segregation

10. Black Women in Urban Areas First time taking a deeper look at struggles of women in cities Product of environment Despair Poverty DuBois’ “double consciousness”

11. Black Men and Identity Quest for self-identity Repression, degradation, betrayal Victim of his environment Forced to act by a racist environment Dominant culture offering little support Few opportunities for economic advancement

12. Styles of Writing Realism A faithful reproduction of reality Naturalism A harsher treatment of that reality Modernism A strong and intentional break with tradition

13. Any Questions?