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African American Issues

In each section of Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform and Renewal, editors Manning Marable and Leith Mullings present a collection of African American writing that cuts to the heart of some of the many issues plaguing African Americans during specific periods in AmericaÆs history. In Section 2, Frederick DouglassÆ ôWhat the Black Man Wantsö addresses the issue of suffrage and the intenseù and justifiedù desire of the African American to achieve political representation in a post-Civil War America. In Section 3, Thurgood MarshallÆs ôSegregation and Desegregationö explodes one of the major themes of the first half of the 20th Century: the legitimacy and validity of separate-but-equal legislation. In Section 4, Malcolm X conveys the failings of a thinly-veiled, racist American state during the Civil Rights era, and endorses an unflinching, separatist ideology in ôThe Ballot or the Bulletö.

In 1865 Frederick Douglass asserted the following: ôNo class of men can, without insulting their own nature, be content with any deprivation of their rightsö (126). By this, he expressed a crucial goal for emancipated slaves during the Reconstruction Periodù the right to vote and be counted as proper citizens of the Union. Douglass knew that unless African Americans were made full citizens, with full political suffrage rights, they would never be adequately represented, nor even properly understood as ôfreeö men at all. A class of men that cannot vote, Douglass insisted, cannot enjoy liberty. For Douglass, time was of the essence; on the heels of the Emancipation Proclamation, he did, with great prescience, perceive that abolitionists must strike while the iron was hot and extend political rights of suffrage to the black citizenry immediately. Should too much time be allowed to pass, he argued, the ôdisposition to learn righteousnessö (126) such as the one prevalent in 1865 would grow cold, and the b...

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African American Issues. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 20:51, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1701347.html