Rise Above...Never To Go Under!

In class, my students are currently exploring Harlem Renaissance (aka The New Negro Movement) Poetry and it's relationship to The First Great Migration and 1920's America...

"Rise Above...Never To Go Under!"
Seattle: 1935

and "The African-American Expression" of...freedom...justice...social criticism...hope...pride, anger, etc...in the face of extreme post-WWI segregation...violent race riots..."celebratory" lynch mobs...

"Rise Above...Never To Go Under!"
Birmingham: 1963

I strongly feel that all great poetry, music, art, and critical thought draws from past, current, and "future hope" experiences...I hope my students truly feel the lessons to be learned in these poems and take inspiration from the struggles of the past...to rise above in this current generation...never to go under!

 

America: 2014?

Listen to "Rise" by Richie Spice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er-E209x998

 

Tableau

Locked arm in arm they cross the way
The black boy and the white,
The golden splendor of the day
The sable pride of night.

From lowered blinds the dark folk stare
And here the fair folk talk,
Indignant that these two should dare
In unison to walk.

Oblivious to look and word
They pass, and see no wonder
That lightning brilliant as a sword
Should blaze the path of thunder.

 

                                             - Countee Cullen (1925)