Identy creation for effective emancipation: A study of black Americans’ activism from 1865 to 1965

Abstract

In the 1770s, the thirteen American colonies rejected the domination of Great Britain, and declared unilaterally their independence, after a long and hard war. The declaration of Independence then after drafted stated that “… all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Foe sure, in the then Americans’ mind, the phrase “all men” did not include the blacks, their then slaves. That is why it took them almost a century to see that Blacks too were men, and that as such, they also deserved liberty. Revisiting this past page of the American history undoubtedly stains the nation’s self-dedicated position as a beacon and champion of freedom, democracy, human rights and justice in the world. The American republic, as well as its framers then appear as a contrast, and as David K. Shipler has put it: “Thomas Jefferson was a complex as the society to which he gave direction. He abhorred slavery but never abolished it, not as governor, not as a president, not as a plantation owner.” Conscious of this ambiguity of the white American, and following the paradox and unkept promises of emancipation, the African-Americans have sought to create their own identity so as to to make their way through the American society to which they could no more exclude themselves. This literature analysis seeks to examine factors which have contributed to the construction of Black American identity. It examines phenomena from struggles to everyday hardness as products of the identity of the Black American. In other words, this has explored between assimilation and integration to find out what is realistically possible and how this can be an optimistic sign for the whole Black American future.