Unit 4: Selection Vocabulary 4

Segregation was widespread in the North as well as the South in the early 1900s. African Americans were banned from many white-owned businesses, including restaurants and hotels.

Many were sharecroppers who had difficulty surviving economically, especially when an insect infestation decimated the cotton crop during the war.

The suite of plays featured African-American actors and represented complex characters. The work rejected racial stereotypes frequently portrayed in the theater previously.

Jazz features improvisation, in which the musicians create music as they play rather than reading it from sheets of paper.

After serving as a diplomat to South American countries under President Theodore Roosevelt, Johnson became the first African American to serve as executive secretary of the NAACP.

Negative portrayals of African Americans extended beyond just minstrel shows and could also be found in fiction and motion pictures created by whites. African-American authors worked to dispel these images in two ways.

Over time, an African American community centered in the neighborhood of Harlem. The neighborhood swiftly became a vibrant and popular cultural center, the birthplace of a cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance.

Some African-American poets, such as Paul Dunbar, wrote poems in dialect, like “The Old Cabin,” which often departed a great deal in tone and content from the dialect poetry of the plantation tradition.

Another method of self-expression and racial pride seen in the anthology was an interest in “cultural pluralism,” which encouraged an interest in African roots while developing a unique African American culture.

Although The New Negro presented a range of diverse perspectives on questions at the heart of African American arts and culture, it was not wholly inclusive of African American perspectives.

One of the most beautiful parts of the Harlem Renaissance was the complexity of ideas circulating regarding art, race, and African American identity.

Neither Mrs. Hart, nor the Misses Hart, nor the small and busy Harts who amused themselves and the neighborhood by continually falling in the gutter on special occasions, had mentioned this fact to anyone, but all the interested denizens of that particular square could tell by the unusual air of bustle and activity which pervaded the Hart domicile.

The party was a grand success. Even the intensely critical small fry dancing on the pavement without to the scraping and fiddling of the string band, had to admit that.

Papa Hart spent one half his time standing in front of the mantle, spreading out his coat-tails, and benignly smiling upon the young people, while the other half was devoted to initiating the male portion of the guests into the mysteries of "snake killing."

The visitor, a rather good-looking young fellow, with a worried expression smiled somewhat sarcastically as he heard a sound of scuffling and running within the house.

The day seemed so gray in contrast to the softening influence of the night, the grief which could be hidden then, must now come forth and parade itself before all eyes.

Den hit seems I see a vision
Of a dearah long ago
Of de childern tumblin’ roun’ me
By my rough ol’ cabin do’.

But dey’s somep’n’ dearah to me,
Somep’n’ faihah to my eyes
In dat cabin, less you bring me
To yo’ mansion in de skies.

I kin hyeah de way–off bayin'
Of my mastah’s huntin’ dogs,
An’ de neighin’ of de hosses
Stampin’ on de ol’ bahn flo’

But at times my t’oughts gits saddah,
Ez I riccolec' de folks,
An’ dey frolickin’ an’ talkin’
Wid dey laughin’ an dey jokes.

But at times my t’oughts gits saddah,
Ez I riccolec’ de folks,
An’ dey frolickin' an’ talkin’
Wid dey laughin’ an dey jokes.