Research Assignment African American Cultural Memory (Research Paper Sample)

African American Cultural Memory
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African American Cultural Memory
Cultural memory is shaped by symbolic heritage which is brought to life in objects, celebrations, rites, monuments, sacred scripture, texts, and many other media forms that function as mnemonic activations. Cultural identity refers to the sense of belonging to a particular group. It is made up of the perception and conception of a group of people about themselves and is linked to social class, generation, locality, or any other type of social gathering that has a distinctive culture CITATION DAW15 \p 19 \l 1033 (Williams, 2015, p. 19). Some of the cultural groupings have accepted that their cultural identity can be decided by others while some people have chosen to determine on their own the cultural identity that best suits them.
African Americans-sometimes referred to as black Americans-are an ethnic group in America with a part or original decent from any of the African ethnic communities. The term African American may also be used when referring to people who are offsprings of the traditional African population who were taken into slavery in America. A huge number of the African Americans originated from central and West Africa. They are the descendants of the many enslaved persons at the borders of the present United States CITATION Car17 \p 58 \l 1033 (Davis C. B., 2017, p. 58). The long history about the African Americans started in the 16th century when individuals from Africa were taken as slaves against their wish to South America. In the subsequent century, slaves from West Africa were sold to Britain’s colonies in the North of America. After the formation of the United States, the African people became slaves with four million denied freedoms from the rampant slavery before the beginning civil war. They were treated as inferior citizens because their masters believed they could not be accorded the same social status as the original American inhabitants.
A look into the Poem “we shall go and get them”, what is clearly right for the forgetting and psychological disruption ends up being characteristic of the need for our revival of the all-important cultural memory CITATION Mea94 \p 12-13 \l 1033 (Meally, 1994, pp. 12-13). This goes further than any boundaries of national identity. It is about our cultural heritage and the sense of satisfaction that comes from knowing one’s origin or a sense of belonging. In the in-depth study of the literature of African Americans , I discover the need for combined racial significance from the meticulous to the collective form, for example, the urban district populated by Africans and Harlem which is in the south, a number of states in between and then to the continent of Africa.
These parts of America have been used as an example by many African American writers in order to aggravate a sense belonging to a place and to expand the cultural orientation frame for the illustration of the experiences of Africans by instilling that experience deep into their memory that unquestionably reshapes the history CITATION Mea94 \p 20 \l 1033 (Meally, 1994, p. 20). For instance,in a neighborhood such as Harlem, if you choose to enter Manhattan through the main Degan throughway at the intersection of the 145th street and the Lenox Street, you will find two clubs. One is named the Lagos bar while another is named the Zanzi-bar. At the intersection of Malcolm-X Boulevard Street and the well-known 125th street, traders have for several years run a market for , cassette tapes, dungarees, fruits, and vegetables. A sign just beyond this corner shows a market square for Africans.
Additionally, what someone might find from these areas and the naming is a kind variation in the history, because some of these persons were very important in Halem’s history CITATION Mea94 \p 22 \l 1033 (Meally, 1994, p. 22). However most important to note is that a relative newcomer in the area is the basis for the inhabitants to take charge of their personality as an African American should do. This naming system commemorates and also celebrates important figures in the African American culture. Anything which was done yesterday has to become a landmark of today. Invoking the memory of that individual or that historical moment is the only manner one can become conversant with them today. If one day you get lose your way in the higher Manhattan, you will have to recall the people who once lived there and also those who still live there, else you may never find the directions. In this manner, some individuals have been able to define themselves. This exercise of a people’s cultural memory creates a history in an area which never included African Americans, not until the beginning of the 20th century..
Originally, African Americans were not the dominant race in Harlem. Moreover, their dominance from the year 1915 in Harlem was a representation of the demographic change of the inhabitants. Later, the experience of the people started affecting changes signaling a revival of the people into a much-needed expression of cultural multiplicity. By choosing to keep the memory of their past of racial discrimination, African Americans are repopulating expansive continuities in Diaspora in Africa. Such a movement does not show a linear pattern and hence disrupts our perception of chronology. If history was only about chronology, others would have viewed Africa as the foundation of an awareness of race. African slaves were taken mainly to the South of America and later migrated to the North CITATION Dav16 \p 19 \l 1033 (Davis P. .., 2016, p. 19). A closer look at Harlem which is in the north shows that there is a direct relationship to the community in the South and by extension the community in Africa.
A study of newspapers, schools, and organizations founded by the black community in the 19th century shows some kind of reference to their African origin, for example, African Free School which was established in 1828. The purpose of these names was to acknowledge their historical origin and to serve as a reminder of their past of slavery. If the disruption of family and the loss of a clear ancestry have distanced African Americans from the important connection to their African identity, it means that they boost our preference for the way c...