When I looked round the ship too, and saw a large furnace of copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted of my fate, and, quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck and fainted.
-Olaudah Equiano
It was literary movement of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s that began among French-speaking African and Caribbean writers living in Paris as a protest against French colonial rule and the policy of assimilation.
Négritude is the self-created object that negates the very objectivity of black existence itself—where humans are reduced to pure animal-objects (slaves)—in a becoming-human. It refers to a collective identity of the African Diaspora born of a common historical and cultural experience of subjugation.
They believed that the shared black heritage of members of the African Diaspora was the best tool in fighting against French political and intellectual hegemony and domination.
Why can’t we (African Americans) believe that our shared heritage is the best tool in fighting off American political and intellectual hegemony and domination?
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
1. Understand that there are successes and failure in all walks, and you shouldn’t give up because of a failure — it’s a step toward success.2. Always recall that no matter how talented and gifted you are, someone else has made it possible for you to be where you are, and those folks should be thanked.
3. Finally and most important, as you climb up the ladder of success, keep the door open and lift others as you climb.
Queen Latifah in Ladies First: Revelations of a Strong Woman.
How will Black youth negotiate their generational consciousness, especially regarding issues of race, gender, class, sexuality, and American democracy? How will their diverse patterns of participation in the privileges and penalties associated with the new racism shape their political consciousness? How might coming of rage during the period from Black Power to hip hop shape the political response of this generation toward racism, nationalism, and feminism?
