The African-American Literary Traditions (Research Paper Sample)

Student’s Name
Professor Name
Course
Date
African-American literary tradition Research Paper
The literary tradition of African-American literature suggests that African Americans’ culture is that of the oppressed people. The authors of all African American literary writings place the African American race and society as suppressed and oppressed by the White people. The African American writers were social creatives who used their artistic and creative expressions such as poems, stories, and speeches to appeal to people’s emotions and exhibit the African American’s plight. The Black writer and their literary writings were important because they used art to build the self-identity of the Black people and address racial inequalities that African Americans experienced.
Christianity
The slave narratives, including the narratives of fugitive slaves such as Frederick Douglass, were a dominant literary genre that documented the harsh conditions of life under slavery, the spiritual damage suffered under the hands of their White slave owners, and escaping from the South to the North. Throughout his narrative, Douglass creates a distinction between true and false Christianity. Douglass explains that he was not against religion but was against the “Christianity of this land,” which meant the religion of slaveholding (118). Abolitionists had shown that their meaning of Christianity was very different from that of the slaveholders. To be a good Christian meant rejecting slavery. White Christian slave owners justified slavery by arguing that they were influencing “heathens” to change using Christianity (Weisenfeld 2). Slave holders’ Christianity did not show their goodness but showcased their hypocrisy in justifying their brutality. The central Christian teachings offered by slaveholders concentrated on racial hierarchy rather than equality and slave liberation.
Many African Americans got guidance from religion. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was no exception to this practice. In her collection of poems, Harper addressed the inhumane practice of slavery and argued that it stripped away their decency. In her poem, Forest Leaves, Harper used a sermon-like style to spread the message of hope to her fellow African Americans. “Yes, Ethiopia, yet shall stretch, Her bleeding hands abroad, Her cry of agony shall reach, The burning throne of God” (Harper line.1-4). The poem gave people hope that the oppression and suffering they were enduring would come to an end one day. Most African Americans got inspiration and messages of hope about their future from the Bible (Weisenfeld 3). Harper’s poems showed her extensive knowledge of Christianity and its teachings. At the same time, she gave her Black people hope that their suffering would end because God had heard them.