MASARYK UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Department of English Language and Literature

Discovering African American Culture through

African American Literature
Thesis

Brno 2005

Supervisor: Written by:

PhDr. Irena Přibylová, Ph. D. Magdaléna Hájková

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the teachers of the English Department at the Faculty of
Education who have influenced my opinions about foreign language teaching and
teaching itself.

My grateful thanks belong to PhDr. Irena Přibylová, Ph.D. for her kind help,
comments, and valuable advice that she provided me throughout the thesis as my
supervisor.
 3

Declaration:

I hereby declare that I worked on the thesis on my own and that I used only the
sources mentioned in the bibliography.

I agree with this diploma thesis being deposited in the Library of the Faculty of
Eduaction at the Masaryk University and with its being made available for academic
purposes.

...............................................
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CONTENT

Content ..…………………………………………………………………………. 4
1 Introduction ………………………………………………………………….... 5
2 African American English ……………………………………………………. 8
2.1 The origin of AAE …………………………………………………….. . 9
2.2 The status of AAE ………………………………………………………10
2.3 The lingustic features of AAE ………………………………………… 10
2.3.1 Speech events in AAE ……………………………………….. 11
3 History of African American literature …………………………………….. 12
3.1 Time chart ……………………………………………………………... 12
3.2 Harlem Rennaisance …………………………………………………... 18
3.2.1 Young generation ……………………………………………. 19
3.2.2 Inspiration in the South ……………………………………… 19
3.2.3 Inspiration in music ………………………………………….. 20
3.2.4 More representatives ……………………………………… ... 21
3.3 Literature after 1970 ................................................................................ 21
3.3.1 The inner diversity and problems of African American
community ................................................................................ 22
3.3.2 The search for identity .............................................................. 22
4 African American writers and their selected works ....................................... 24
4.1 Langston Hughes ....................................................................................... 25
4.2 Martin Luther King, Jr. ............................................................................. 30
4.3 Amiri Baraka ............................................................................................. 31
4.4 June Jordan ................................................................................................ 37
4.5 Toni Morrison ........................................................................................... 43
4.6 Yusef Komunyakaa ................................................................................... 47
4.7 Walter Mosley .......................................................................................... 54
4.8 Gloria Naylor ............................................................................................ 60
4.9 Rita Dove .................................................................................................. 66
4.10 Introduction to poetry ............................................................................. 72
5 Questionnaire ...................................................................................................... 74
5.1 Questionnaire form ................................................................................... 74
5.2 Commentary ............................................................................................. 75
6 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 78
Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 81
Appendix ................................................................................................................. 86
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1 INTRODUCTION

African American authors and artists present an important part of American culture
and literature. Their work and contribution to culture in general was being rejected and
overviewed for a long time. On account of the former slavery and racial segregation, they
were regarded as inferior and so were their thoughts and works. This has been already in
process of change, but works of African American authors can be found only in the
anthologies of American literature published after 1990; except for the most famous
publications.
Literature written in English offers a wide range of books and authors. I decided to
focus on contemporary literature, for I find it topical and interesting, and for it is usually
less presented and even less discussed in Czech schools. I chose African American
literature, because of three main reasons. Firstly, I personnaly like it. Secondly, African
Americans underwent an immense social change in history and they are likely to reflect
this in the literature. Books written by African Americans provide a special kind of
experience that cannot be granted by literature in Europe or in other continents. Finally,
in a few past years, there has been the rise in popularity of black actors (Will Smith, Hale
Berry), black singers (Beyoncee, Jay-Z), and black music and culture in general (rap, hip
hop, r&b). This contemporary middle-stream pop industry has its largest consumers in
adolescents. The young are naturally interested in these celebrities’- their idols’ lives. As
most of the contemporary black artists come from the U. S., this pop industry could
bridge over the gap that may be perceived between Czech students and texts by African
American writers

As I passed courses of literature at the university, I created an idea of how to work

with literature in my future work as a teacher. During the teaching practice I found out
with a regret that in English classes there was usually very little space contributed to
literature in general, the contemporary one was presented rarely. As a result, the present
work is aimed to be used during summer schools, optional courses of reading, or in extra
lessons for interested students. On the other hand, with the Educational Framework
Programme comming, the content of the thesis can be incorpored into a School
Educational Plan, if the focus of school alows it.
 6

The objectives of the present work were therefore assigned as follows:

To present selected texts by nine African American writers of the second half of
the 20th century.

To propose how the texts can be employed in English lessons in third and fourth
years of Czech grammar schools.

To put emphasis on the education towards tolerance and multiculturality.

The present project is created to serve as a guideline or an aid for teaching

contemporary African American culture and literature; ideally in the third or fourth year
in ELT (English Language Teaching) in Czech grammar schools. The aim is to provide
students with texts, characters and stories, that will broaden their mind and provoke their
thinking of various social and ethnic groups and minorities. Consecutive reflexion,
discussion and argumentation are emphasised over the reading itself. The instrument, the
literature, should encourage students to see and feel the reality from many different
angles.
The present work is designed to serve as an instrument in contemporary educational
trend – education towards tolerance and multiculturality. All of the selected texts are set
in the United States. Students will discuss enthusiastic essays about “Negro identity” at
the beggining of the second half of the 20th century, study fates of unordinary black
characters during the 1970s till they reach recent history with its wide range of themes,
problems and emotions depicted in works by African Americans.

As the texts are primarily provided in English language, students are also supposed
to widen their language skills, to acquire new vocabulary, and to observe stylistically or
graphically marked texts and language structures.This developement in linguistic field is
nevertheless not stressed as crucial one, in contrary, student’s language progress should
be a natural accessory output of the literary and mental work.

The structure of the present work is divided into six main parts. The first chapter is
an introduction. The second chapter deals with a chronological overview of African
American literature. Attention is paid to possible links to synchronical events in the
politics and public life of the United States of that time. The third chapter discusses and
illustrates the role and status of African American English within the today’s United
 7

States. The fourth chapter is the main and the broadest part of the present work and deals
with the texts of African American writers, their analysis and suggestions for their use in
English lessons. The fifth separate chapter is dedicated to a questionnaire for secondary
school students that was constructed and administrated in order to get an idea about the
adolescent’s awareness of African American culture and literature and about their
willingness to learn more. The last chapter concludes the achieved aims and comments
the creation of the present work. Materials for furthter classroom use are included in the
Appendix.

Texts by nine African American writers of the second half of the twentieth century
will be introduced. Every text is presented in a unifying scheme: a brief presentation of
the author’s life and work, the text itself, and suggestions how to work with the material
in lessons. Each text is provided on separate sheet of paper to facilitate possible future
use in practice. The main focus is to work with texts to broaden student’s mind and
ability to reflect, think over, and contemplate about various aspects hidden in selected
works. In the consequence, not large attention is payed to the lives and life stories of
authors. On the other hand, students will be always encouraged to find out more
information if they need or desire to search for it for better understanding or widening the
knowledge.
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2 AFRICAN AMERICAN ENGLISH

This chapter introduces attitudes towards the origin and status of African American
English (AAE). I chose Lisa J. Green’s book African American English as a main
reference book for the present part. Lisa J. Green is Assistant Professor in the
Department of Linguistics at the University of Texas, Austin. Her book is clearly
organized and it is the first textbook to provide a full description of AAE as a system. Its
features will occur in the selected works and students should be therefore familiar with
the variety and ought not to confound it with slang.
I find the best way to open this chapter is to provide an example of AAE together
with its translation to Standard English. Here are opening lines of Alice Walker’s The
Color Purple (1982) with the following translation done by a class of June Jordan’s
students in one of her courses in 1985.

You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy.
Dear God,
I am fourteen years old. I have always been a good girl. Maybe you can give me a sign letting
me know what is happening to me.
Last spring after Little Lucious come I heard them fussing. He was pulling on her arm. She say
it too soon, Fonso. I aint well. Finally he leave her alone. A week go by, he pulling on her arm
again. She say, Naw, I ain’t gonna. Can’t you see I’m already half dead, an all of the children.1

“Absolutely, one should never confide in anybody besides God. Your secrets could prove
devastating to your mother.”
Dear God,
I am fourteen years old. I have always been good. But now, could you help me to understand
what is happening to me?
Last spring, after my little brother, Lucious, was born, I heard my parents fighting. My father
kept pulling my mother’s arm. But she told him, “It’s too soon for sex, Alfonso. I am still not feeling
well.” Finally, my father left her alone. A week went by, and then he began bothering my mother,
again: Pulling her arm. She told him, “No, I won’t! Can’t you see I’m already exhausted from all of
these children?
(Our favourite line was “It’s too soon for sex, Alphonso.”) 2

1
June Jordan. “Nobody Mean More to Me than You” (Unidentified source. 407.)
2
June Jordan (Unidentified source. 408.)
 9

2.1 Origin of African American English

Crucial and determining for making an appropriate attitude to AAE should be

knowledge of its origin and evolution. Nevertheless, like in most cases, there is no
universal explanation of the roots of AAE. Green provides in her work a clear overview
of theories on the origin of AAE.1 One of the theories claims that the beginning of AAE
is dated to the period where first African slaves were brought to America, when they
were thrown into a place, people and language they did not know. In the need to
understand and to be understood, they simplified and modified the language they heard,
which was, of course, English. Another theory believes that the basis of AAE structurally
comes out of West African languages and its similarity to English is only superficial.
Other theory considers the basic role of African languages in structure and sound system
in contemporary AAE, and asssumes pidgin2, Jamaican Creole3 and Gullah4 to be basic
constituants of AAE.

In general, the theories do not interfere as it could be perceived at the first sight.
They only grade different components differently according to what they consider to be
the most influential or constituing element. All the presented views are based on research
data and to obtain them, researchers based the investigation on comparative data from
different varieties of non standard English, pidgin, Caribbean Creole, woodoo texts and
interviews with ex-slaves, as Green summarizes.5 On the other hand, it seems that the
theories do not incorporate the data from African languages. They mention the relation of
AAE with them, but one is not reassured that researchers investigated African languages
in depth for there are extremely rare notes on concrete and particular words or sounds.
Yet, as Green claims, an analysis of African languages should be done beforehand of any
other analysis if a research dealing with the origins of AAE should be considered serious.

1
Lisa J. Green. African American English. ( Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002). 8-9.
2
A form of speech that usually has a simplified grammar and a limited often mixed vocabulary, and is used
principally for intergroup communication. (West African pidgin, e.g.)
3
Creole is a language resulting from the acquisition by a subordinate group of the dominant group, with
phonological changes, simplified grammar and an admixture of the subordinate group’s vocabulary, and
serving as the mother tongue of its speakers.
4
The language of the Gullahs one of a group of negroes inhabiting the sea islands and coastal districts of
Southern Carolina, Georgia, and a small part of Florida.
5
Green 8.
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2.2 Status of AAE

The present status of AAE is also under investigation; approaches and attitudes
vary and so does their justification. Although there are various theories that dispute
whether AAE is slang, dialect, or language of its own, the most recent works tend to
perceive AAE as a variety of English in which the slang plays an important role. Green’s
textbook is one of them.
The exploration of linguistic aspects of AAE began in the 1960s. However, AAE
was a subject in an inquiery for sociolinguistics and a few other external sciences. The
pure linguistic studies were produced mostly from the 1980s. June Jordan was maybe the
first one to design a university course on AAE (Black English) in 1985. A vivid
discussion on AAE was raised by so called Oakland controversy.1 Nevertheless, the
resulting idea of teaching AAE as a subject next to the mainstream school English did
not find many supporters. Walter Mercer expresses one of the possible reasons for
rejection. “Regardless of the “genuineness” of the dialect, regardless of how remarkably
it may add flavor and soul to a poem or song or novel, regarless of the solidarity it may
lend to a political rally, I say, it is illogical, nonsensical, and harmful to teach an innocent
black child that it’s quite all right to say ‘I done gone to school.’”2

2.3 Linguistic features of AAE

Green underlines that AAE is governed by a system and should not be therefore
presented as a list of separate items. She proves it by exploration of AAE in all linguistic
levels. Green studied lexicons and their meaning, syntax, phonology and speech events in
AAE. Her textbook deals with the listed items in a great detail.
For the purpose of the present work, speech event patterns will be introduced here
in greater detail because they will occur in the selected texts (in written form). Besides
that, students can identify them in many r&b or hip hop songs by African American
artists currently played on radio.

1
It was claimed that the children’s first language (AAE) is so different from the school-taught mainstream
English, that it prevents them to understand in school and causes their failure.
2
Green 216.
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2.3.1 Speech event patterns

Call and response represents the basic model of interaction between many African
Americans and therefore can be heard in streets as well as in churches. Almost all speech
events in AAE follow the pattern. The exchanges may lead to a great amusement on one
hand, on the other they can bring down a sensitive person who has no idea about their
rules. Most visible in the dozens but characteristics of all mentioned types, the interaction
between speaker and listener and the listner’s feedback are very important.
Here is a list of the most frequent speech events with a short explanation.
• Playing the dozens can be simply described as a mean game. It is a set of
exchanges where the speakers are trying to bear down each other by critisizing him but
mostly his family. The statements are exaggerated which implies that they cannot be true
and should not therefore hurt the person to whom they are delivered. Nevertheless,
playing the dozens with somebody outside a group of ‘buddies’ can come to blows.
Sometimes signifying is supposed to be a ‘lighter’ version of playing the dozens, because
it presupposes the speakers themselves to be the only aim of verbal attacs, family and
friends are excluded.
• Rapping is decribed as a stylized speech; examples are easy to find in popular
songs, in particular in the ‘branches’ of music like rap, hip hop and r&b.
• Loud-talking can be immensely rude if a partner does not know its rules. It is the
situation, when someone says a line that was alloted to somebody else loud enough to be
heard by people outside the original conversation.
• Toasts are performed when someone wants to render homage to somebody, they
are usually narrated in the first person singular, and the lines are prepared beforehand and
include a hero and his brave achievements.

The problematics of AAE is being under investigation and discussion of theorists,

therefore one cannot conclude simply and explicitely on its status and origin. In this
chapter I pointed at some theories to demonstrate the evolution of AAE itself and
opinions about its origin and status. I also offered short list of AAE speech events that
will occur in the selected texts and students should be able to recognize them.
The next chapter focuses on the history of African American literature and provides
the brief summary of chronologically ranged important dates and events that may have
affected it.
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3 HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE

In the folowing section, I would like to give an overall view of African American
literature, on the background of historical and political events that marked its
developement. As I focus on the latest production of African American writers, the very
beginnigs of their tradition will not be discussed in great details. On the other hand, the
history is very important and for that reason any period should not be ommited. To deal
with the lenght of nearly four hundred years of African American literature history, the
chapter is supplemented by a time chart. The chart was compiled from different sources,
nevertheless the Norton Anthology chart served as a base. Due to the aim of the present
work, important period of Harlem Renaissance and literature after the 1970 will be
discussed in greater detail.

3.1 Time chart

The chart was based on the folowing sources: Gates and McKay’s Northon
Anthology, Davidson’s Nation of Nations and Encyklopedie Diderot.

USA HISTORICAL EVENTS1 AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERARY AND

2
CULTURAL EVENTS

1492 Discovery of America

1607 Three ships with settlers from Europe

land in America, giving to the place
name of Jamestown

1619 Twenty Africans are brought to

Jamestown, Virginia, and sold as
servants

1641 Massachusetts is first colony to

legally recognize slavery

1
A few important events that did not take place in the U.S.A. are also included, printed in lighter font.
2
Some important authors and events others than African Americans are also included, printed in lighter
font.
 13

1645 First American slave ship sails from

Boston following the “triangular trade
route”. African slaves are taken to West
Indies in exchange for sugar, tobacco,
and wine, which are then sold for goods
in Masachusetts.

1652 Rhode Island passes first North

American law against slvary

1662 Declaration that mother’s status

determines whether a child is born free
or into slavery (Virginia)

1663 English “guinea” gold coin first

minted celebrating slave trade.; it was
used until 1967

1688 Pennsylvania Quakers sign first

oficial written protest against slavery

1734 “Great Awakening” religious revival

begins; Methodist and Baptist churches
attract blacks by offering “Christianity 18th and 19th century Vernacular tradition
for all”

1740 South Carolina outlaws teaching

slaves to write. (In response to Stono
Rebellion when 30 whites were killed.)

1756-63 African Americans fight in French

and Indian War

1758 First black Baptist churchin colonies

is erected in Virginia 1746 Lucy Terry writes ‘Bars Fight’, the
first poem written by an African
1770 Slave trade responsible for 21% to American (not published until 1895)
55% of capiton increase in English
economy 1760 The first poetry published by an
African American – Jupiter Hammon,
1775-83 American Revolutionary War An Evening Thought: Salvation by
Christ with Penintential Cries
1776 Declaration of Independence (“all
men have a natural right to life, liberty 1771-1832 Walter Scott (UK)
and the pursuit of happiness”) declares
the American colonies independent and 1773 Phillis Wheatley, Poems on Various
officially names them the United States Subjects, Religious and Moral
of America
 14

1777 Vermont is one of the first states to 1800-1870 spirituals (“Swing Low, Sweet
abolish slavery in state constitution. Chariot”; “Go Down, Moses”)

1787 Constitution ratified, classifying one 1870-1890 gospels (“Stand By Me”)

slave as three-fifths of one person for secular rhymes and songs (“Run,
congressional apportionment and Nigger, Run”)
demanding return of fugitive slaves to
masters. 1800-1900s ballads and work songs (“Pick
a Bale of Cotton”)
1794 U. S. Congress prohibits slave trade
with foreign countries

1798 Georgia is last state to abolish slave

trade

1803 Louisiana Purchase doubles size of

the United States (stretches from the
Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Border
and west from the Mississippi to Rocky
Mountains)

1808 United States outlaws importation of

new slaves, but law is widely ignored;
Britain abolishes slave trade

1815 Underground Railroad is established

to help slaves escape to Canada

1820 Missouri Compromise allows Maine

into Union as free state, Missouri as
slave state and outlawing slavery in all
new Northern Plains states
1821 African Grove Theatre, first all-black
1836 U.S. House of Representatives passes U.S. acting troupe, begins performances
first “gag rule”, preventing any in New York City
antislavery petition or bill from being
introduced, read, or discussed 1845 Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the
Life of Frederick Douglass, an
1838-39 Trail of Tears (driving American Slave, Written by Himself
Amerindians from their homeland after
Indian Removal Act passed in 1830) 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s
Cabin
1849 Massachusetts Supreme Court
upholds “separate but equal” ruling in 1850s Collected folk tales by Charles
first U.S. integration suit Chesnutt and Joel Chandler Harris

1859 Last U.S. slave ship lands in Alabama 1853 William Wells Brown, Clotel

1860 South Carolina secede from Union
1861-1865 American Civil War
1863 President Abraham Lincoln issues
Emancipation Proclamation, freeing
slaves in rebel states
1865 Slavery is outlawed by 13th
Amendment; Ku Klux Klan founded in
Tennessee
1867 First Reconstruction Act grants
suffrage to black males in rebel states
1870s half the children in the U.S. receive
no formal education at all; one
American in five cannot read
1875 Civil Rights Act gives equal tratment
in public places and acces to jury duty
1876 40 percent of African American
children enrolled by the new public
school system
1877 Federal troops’ withdrawal from
South, officially ending Reconstruction
1890 Oklahoma is first state to grant
suffrage to women
1909 National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) founded by Du Bois
1910-30 Great Migration of over one
million southern blacks to norhtern
cities
1914-18 World War I (United States enters
WWI in 1917)
1919 Prohibition rattified
1920 Ratification of 19th Amendment that
grants suffrage to women
15
1872 William Still, The Underground Rail
Road: A Record of Facts, Authentic
Narratives, Letters
1874 Brown, The Rising Son; or, The
Antecedents and Advancement of the
Colored Race
1884 Mark Twain, Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
1893 Paul Laurence Dunbar, Oak and Ivy
1895 Booker T. Washington delivers
Atlanta Exposition Speech; Dunbar,
Majors and Minors
1900 Publication of compiled book about
African American history A New Negro
for a New Century
1903 W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black
Folk
1912 James Weldon Johnson, The
Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man;
Claude McKay, Songs of Jamaica
1916 Angelina Weld Grimke’s Rachel is
the first full-lenght play written,
performed, and produced by African
Americans in the twentieth century
 16

1923 Oklahoma declares martial law to Ku 1917 Russian Revolution

Klux Klan (KKK)
1917-35 Harlem Renaissance
1929 Stock market crash, Great Depression Blues and jazz singers - Duke Ellington,
begins Lewis Armstrong, Bessie Smith

1930 Nation of Islam founded (by W. 1922 Claude McKay, Harlem Shadows
D. Fard)
1923-25 Marcus Garvey, The Philosophy
1933 President Roosvelt pushes “New and Opinions of Marcus Garvey;
Deal” through Congress; Prohibition Magazines Crisis and Opportunity
ends sponsore Annual literary contest

1935 National Council of Negro Women
founded; the median income of married
black couples is only 34% that of white
couples
1936 Jesse Owens wins four gold medals at
“Nazi Olympics” in Berlin
1923 Jean Toomer, Cane; James Joyce,
Ulysses
1925 Alain Locke, The New Negro;
Countee Cullen, Color; Josephine
Baker becomes sensation in Paris; F. S.
Fitzgerald, Great Gatsby

1939-45 World War II (United States enters 1926 Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues
war after Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor in 1941) 1929 Martin Luther King born, Willam
Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
1943 First successful “sit-in” demonstration
staged by Congress of Racial Equality 1934 LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) born
(CORE)
1935 Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men
1945 Atomic bombs dropped on Japan,
WWII ends, UN begins opereations 1937 Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching
God
1948 President Truman approves
desegregation of the military and 1938 Richard Wright, Uncle Tom’s
creates Fair Emloyment Board Children

1950-53 Korean War 1940 Wright, Native Son; Robert Hayden,

1955 Marian Anderson is first African
American singer to perform at the
Metropolitan Opera in NYC;
Disneyland opens; Bus Boycott in
Montgomery, Alabama (starts with
Rosa Parks)
1956 101 southern congressmen sign
“Southern Manifesto” against school
desegregation
Heart-Shape in the Dust
1942 Margaret Walker, For My People
1945 Wright, Black Boy; Gwendolyn
Brooks, A Street in Bronzville
1946 Ann Petry, The Street
1947 Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man; Yusef
Komunyakaa born

1960 Sit-in staged by four black students at 1950 Gwendolyn Brooks wins Pulitzer
lunch corner in North Carolina; Student
Non-violent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC); half of all black Americans
live in central cities
1962 Riots break out after Supreme Court
orders University of Mississippi to
accept James H. Meredith as first black 1952 Rita Dove and Walter Mosley born
student – federal troops are employed to
restore order and ensure Meredith’s
admission
1963 Civil rights “March on Washington”;
King emprisoned; Civil Rights Bill;
John F. Kennedy assassinated
1965 Malcolm X assassinated in NYC;
Watts riot is most serious single racial
distubance in U.S. history
1966 Senator Edward W. Brooke becomes
first elected black senator since
Reconstruction; “Black Power” concept
is adopted by CORE and SNCC
1965-75 US combat role in Vietnam,
Vietnam War
1967 Worst race riot in Detroit kills 43;
major riots in Newark and Chicago;
Supreme Court overturns law against
interracial marriage
1969 Armstrong and Aldrin on the
Moon, Woodstock music festival
1972 Watergate scandal
1978 Supreme Court disallows quotas for
college admissions but gives limited
approval to affirmative action programs
1983 Vietnam Veterans memorial in
Washington
1986 Reagan-Gorbachev summit (end of
Cold War), Challenger space shuttle
disaster
17
Prize for Annie Allen (first African
American to win Pulitzer Prize in any
category); Gloria Naylor born
1951 Langston Hughes, Montage of a
Dream Deferred
1953 Eugene O’Neill dies; James Baldwin,
Go Tell It on the Mountain
1957 Jack Kerouac, On the Road
1959 Lorraine Hansberry, Raisin in the Sun
1960s Black Arts movement
1961 Joseph Heller, Catch-22; Ernest
Hemingway dies; LeRoi Jones, Preface
to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note and
Dutchman
1963 Martin Luther King delivers I Have a
Dream speech, then emprisoned, writes
Letter from Birmingham Jail
1965 (Malcolm X) Alex Haley, The
Autobiography of Malcolm X
1967 Langston Hughes dies
1968 John Steinbeck dies, Martin Luther
King assassinated
1970 Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye; Maya
Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings
1972 Ismael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo
1975 Nzotake Shange’s For colored girls
who have considered suicide/when the
rainbow is enuf is second play by an
African American woman to reach
Broadway
 18

1976 Alex Hayley awarded special Pulitzer

1989 L. Douglass Wilder of Virginia is first
elected black governor; General Colin
Powell becomes first black Chief of
Staff for U.S. Armed Forces
1990 The Gulf War begins (U.S.A.
supports president of Iraq Saddam
Hussein)
Price for Roots
1982 Alice Walker, The Color Purple
(awarded Pulitzer price in 1983); Gloria
Naylor, The Women of Brewster Place
1987 Dove wins Pulitzer Prize for Thomas
and Beulah (1986)

1991 Persion Gulf War ends, Kuwait 1990 Jamica Kincaid, Lucy; Walter Mosley,
liberated Devil in a Blue Dress; Johnson’s
Middle Passage wins National Book
1992 Bill Clinton electer President Award

1995 “Million Man March” in Washington 1992 June Jordan, Technical Difficulties ;
organized by Nation of Islam minister Derek Walcott is first West Indian to
Louis Farrakhan win Nobel Prize for Literature

1996 Bill Clinton re-elected President of

1993 Toni Morrison is first African
US American to win Nobel Prize for
Literature; Maya Angelou reads On the
1999 USA joins NATO against Yugoslavia, Pulse of Morning at Clinton
Clinton impeachement trial inauguration, becoming the first black
poet to participate in a U.S. presidential
2000 George Bush elected President inauguration

2001 Terrorist attack on World Trade 1995 Jamaica Kincaid, The Autobiography
Center of My Mother; Rita Dove, Mother Love

2003 War in Iraq begins 1996 Walter Mosley, A Little Yellow Dog;
Baraka, Transbluesency
2004 Saddam Hussein captured in Iraq;
George Bush re-elected President 2004 Baraka, Somebody Blew Up America;
Rita Dove, American Smooth
2006 Situation in Iraq is still precarious;
Barack Obama is a black democrat 2006 Baraka, Tales of the Out & the Gone
presidential candidate for elections in
2008; Hillary Clinton is Obama’s
democrat rival

3.2 Harlem Renaissance

The period of Harlem Renaissance is supposed to be the golden age of African

American intelligence and literature. This age is limited approximately by the years 1917
 19

to 1935. As Johnson suggests, the term of “renaissance” - rebirth, is not as proper as it

may seem, for it is in fact the first blossom of fiction (belles-lettres) that resulted from
various social changes.1 Harlem, a quarter of New York City, was one of quickly
growing neighbourhoods in the North. Originally designed for the middle and upper class
white families that did not filled them, it offered wide streets and nice houses for African
Americans whose number was growing over the past years and over the years to come.
The number of African Americans in Harlem reached already 200,000 by 1930.2 Harlem
therefore constituted a large basis for African American population. A considerable
portion of African American writers came or come from this part of the U.S. biggest city.

3.2.1 Young generation

The leaders of the Harlem Rennaisance movement were young intellectuals, artists
and writers of the new generation that had already the chance to attend courses at
universities and gain degrees.3 Educated and aware of their roots, they desire to prove
their qualities and confess the pride of being black. In comparison to the previous
generation of writers and artists, there was a significant difference in their works. In
contrary to what the old generation considered to be crucial and inevitable in works of
black artists, the young generation was trying to stay out of the political issues and
engagement. The young wanted to free themselves not only in the content but also in the
form of their works. Some of the old generation went on with the young freeing and
optimistic spirit, others, like W. E. B. Du Bois for instance, did not hesitate to critize
their works judging them as “immoral”, as Rampersad records.4

3.2.2 Inspiration in the South

The situation of blacks in the South did not differ much from those of slavery
times. As Rampersad puts it, legal separation and continuing lynching proved that in the
eyes of many whites, black continued to be less than human.5 In spite of that, the South
was the homeland of one of the most important writers of the Harlem Renaissance – Zora

1
Charles Johnson, “Spisovatele pameti”, Spektrum 65/1989: 32.
2
North by South. Kenyon College. 3 Apr. 2007. <http://northbysouth.kenyon.edu/1998/harlem-
home/index.htm>
3
So called ‘The Talented Tenth’ as the number of educated expressed 1/10 of the African American
population.
4
Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay, eds. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature
(New York: Norton, 1997) 934.
5
Gates and McKay 930.
 20

Neal Hurston (1891-1960). Her Mules and Men (1935) and Their Eyes Were Watching
God (1937) reflected the beauty of Southern vernacular and country traditions. Although
produced after the end of the Harlem Renaissance movement, these works are considered
to be of the best that resulted from the Harlem Renaissance era. Other work that deals
with South is Jean Tommer’s novel Cane (1923). The book inspired and motivated many
young authors by its new style rooted in modernism, combining poetry, prose and songs.
Striking was not only the new form, but also the atmosphere of its content that expressed
author’s experiences from the life in South and in Washington D. C. “Cane recovered
both the beauty and the pain of African American life in the South and as celebration of
racial self-discovery it recuperated an identity that had been undetermined and distorted
by racial oppression and economic victimization”.1

3.2.3 Inspiration in music

The 1920s were also time of black music. It was the music that had a great
influence not only on writers but also on all the nation of the United States and later it
spread all around the world. Blues and jazz gave new spirit to the literature, especially to
poems. The twenties were marked by the great generation of black musicians as were
Duke Ellington, Lewis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. Black music has been so strong and
inspiring that even many contemporary authors admit being influenced by the blues or
jazz rhytm, sound and authenticity.
One of the first and best known books of poetry to combine words with music is
The Weary Blues. The collection was written by Langston Hughes (1902-1967), poet,
essayist, intellectual, and the leading spirit of the movement. The essay The Negro Artist
and the Racial Mountain (1926), in which he stresses and fiercely defends the influence
of family background, street life and exploiting the colour (‘blackness”), can be viewed
as a manifesto for himself and his contemporaries.2 He was very productive throughout
all his life and therefore his works can be identified even in 1950s, as for example the
appreciated collection of poems Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951).

1
Emory Elliott, gen.ed. The Columbia history of the American novel (New York: Columbia UP, 1991) 419.
2
Wikipedia. 2 Apr. 2007. 3 Apr. 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langston_Hughes>.
 21

3.2.4 More representatives

Among other remarkable authors should be certainly mentioned Counté Cullen –
Color (1925), Claude McKay – Harlem Shadows (1922) and Home to Harlem (1928),
and Wallace Thurman – editor, critic, and author of novel Blacker the Berry.

The Harlem Renaissance movement was drawing to an end in the mid thirties. The
Great Depression which broke out in America in the early thirties hurried the process. In
1935, so called Harlem Riot bursted out. People in Harlem were expressing their
disagreement with the situation of those days. Not to be confused – the writers and artists
involved in the Harlem Rennaisance were not all aware what was the reality. It is highly
probable that most of African Americans who were not engaged in the movement, did
not even suspect that the movement existed. The Depression Years with its problems and
uncerntainety violated the optimism set up by the young black generation of the Harlem
Renaissance. Nevertheless, the benefit of the young and enthousiastic generation did not
disappear, for the next generation would take on.

3.3 Literature after 1970

From the 1970s, writers and artists continue in tendencies which were introduced
by the previous generation and put up to their African roots. Literature opens to the flood
of woman writers, partly probably as a reaction to mostly man-dominated last decade.
Other argumentation is proposed by Ruland and Bradbury who claim that thanks to the
fight for rights of black people, a larger group of population – women, realized that they
were forced to accept their roles in mostly white, but man dominated world; so women
decided to muscle in, too.1 One way or another, the most important break is in the reality
that women writers picture in their works. For the first time, we do not see a
‘monolithical’ black community, in contrary, literature reflects the real life with all the
predjudice, hatred, racism within the black community. Up to these years, it used to be
only the white people who caused problems and was the originator of all the evil in
black’s life. Reasons for the important change may be various, although one will prevail.
In the past, from the beginning of African American presence in America till the success

1
Richard Ruland, and Malcolm Bradbury. Od puritanismu k postmodernismu. (Praha: MF, 1997) 369-370.
 22

of the Civil Rights Movement, blacks were oppressed so hard and continuously, that they
needed to hold together very closely in order to be able to gain a little progress in their
rights and status. Though the fight against racial predjudice and discrimination has not
ended till today, the seventies were already liberate enough to break down the tie.

3.3.1 The inner diversity and problems of African American community

As the inlook to the diversity of black community reveals relations between its
members and as the literature is produced predominantly by female authors, it gets close
to observe the role of woman, woman-mother and mother-daughter relationship.
Examples can be found, among others, in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970), June
Jordan – His Own Where (1970), and Alice Walker – The Color Purple (1982). Another
focus of the 1970s and 1980s literature is that on the sexual identity and preference of
African Americans. It is probably for the first time when the topic is openly inquired in
fiction. June Jordan’s A New Politics of Sexuality (1991) is one of works that represents
this trend. If the sexual identity was being discussed, one can assume that it originated in
or soon turned to question of identity in general.

3.3.2 The search for identity

One can assume that the search for the identity is natural for every human being.
From the very beginnig of their presence in America, the black were immersed into
slavery, their basic human rights have been often violated as the African Americans were
subject to constant humiliation. The search of identity is pictured in the literary works.
One guideline can be contents of literary works, starting from slave narratives in
the 19th century, through dreams of the 1920s and the following rage of the 1950s and the
1960s, reaching the inner diversity in the 1970s, and continuing in the 21st century in
ficton, poetry and prose that does not differ significantly from the mainstream literature
for it is one of its constituents.
Another distinctive feature of search for identity can be the notion for black people.
At first, black people reffered to themselves in literary works “negroes”, then “Negroes”,
later “coloured people”, “black people”, till the evolution reached today’s label “African
American”. Today, “Negro” is a highly offensive term, “black” is neutral and “African
American” is considered to be the only “politically correct” expression, although some
people strongly disagree with the term. As Amiri Baraka claimed in an interview,
 23

“African American” is a term for specific nationality and not every black man you will
meet will be an “African American”, in comparison with the term “black” which is
common for all black people and is therefore right.1
All the generations with all their movements and streams had one common aim –
the effort to picture their view of the world in which they try to find themselves. As with
new blood comes new spirit, generations varied in their ideas on the world and relations
covered under its lid. The majority of the black who escaped slavery felt hatred and
wanted to forget this part of their people’s history. Generations after sought back though.
They realized that the time of slavery must not be forget, because of the influence it has
on contemporary society.
Social changes can be usually observed in long-time period and therefore it is hard
to believe that once the slavery and apartheid is over, the identity of black people will be
onlooked as if the history has not existed at all. Still, there are black neighbourhoods,
schools with predominantly white or black pupils and students.

The way the literature changed during 1970s is beneficial mainly for its depicting
the real present life of black Americans with all its problems and pathologies that are
naturaly present in every nation or culture. It can be seen as a declassifying message that
black people have the same problems as any other society and want to be therefore taken
as any other society. Simply, no discrimination nor affirmation is desired from their side.
Although or for the colour of their skin is different from that of the white majority, they
want to be treated equal. Regrettably, this desired state is still not established in reality,
though efforts have been made on both sides. Anyhow, it would be very naive to hope
that after more than three hundred years of slavery or segregation, all men will be treated
equal within a flow of one single human generation.

1
Hana Ullmanová. “Nepotřebujeme žádné klony USA!” MF DNES 25th Oct. 2003: B3.
 24

4 AFRICAN AMERICAN WRITERS AND THEIR

SELECTED WORKS

The present chapter is divided into nine main undersections, each one is dedicated
to an African American writer’s life, work, selected text and suggestions for the use of
the text in school practice. A deeper analysis of the text itself is not provided, for the aim
is discovering the texts by students and the developement of their thoughts. Literature
and poetry especially should always involve the reader’s interaction as it appeals to his or
her experience and feelings. Students at schools are often discouraged from reading
when they are forced to “guess” one single possible “right” meaning. Consequently, a
teacher wishing to follow the designed lessons should not demand any “right” answers
from students.
However, some of the selected works may seem not to be appropriate for the
secondary school learners. As the present work is designed for the third or fourth year of
Czech grammar school, students should be on the level of English to get over the laguage
difficulties. Concerning the core and value of the selected texts, I believe that students
are able to think in depth and find the texts therefore enriching. I refer here to one of Rita
Dove’s statements, which can be applied to these selected texts and grammar school
students, too. “I believe even 5-year-olds can get something from a Shakespearean
sonnet...as long as you DON’T tell them, ‘This is really hard.’”.1
The Suggestion parts include prereading or warm up activities as well as follow
up questions. The majority of provided possibilities how to start or finish the topic are
based on questions. With one or two exceptions, the organization in class is up to the
teacher. The original thought is that students usually work in groups of 2-3, come up with
some conclusions and share them with other students in a circle; the follow up questions
then serve as a base for furhter discussion that can develop from what has been said. On
the other hand, different students, topics and forms demand different approach.
Sometimes it may be useful to hide the title of a poem and let students figure out their
own, sometimes to give the title and let them figure out the poem, etc. Objectives are
stated in the beginning of each Suggestions and the teacher should bear them in mind
when he or she prepares their lesson plan.

1
Poetry archive. 2005. 15 Apr. 2007
<http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=6719>
 25

4. 1 Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

4.1.1 Biography
Born in 1902, Langston Hughes witnessed as a young student the beginings of the
Harlem Renaissance1, and let himself carried by the emotive feeling of proudness to be
black. Hughes soon became the leading spirit of the movement. As a brilliant poet,
essayist, writer and intellectual, he produced many works that expressed the fierce voice
of the Harlem Renaissance movement. Hughes was one of the very first writers who
could make their living through writing. Unlike the other authors of that time, Hughes
continued writing after the end of the Harlem Renaissance and was in favour with new
tendencies in literature that came after 1940s. Hughes’ popularity was world-wide; even
some Czech poets (e.g. Josef Kainar) admitted having been influenced by his poetry.

4.1.2 Work
Hughes’s wrote his first remarcable poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” in 1921,
but his first collection of poems was The Weary Blues published in 1926. It was widely
accepted for the novatory use of blues form in poetry. Although the next collection Fine
Clothes to the Jew (1927) is now considered Hughes’ finest single book of verse, critics
of that time gave it very harsh evalution.2 They disliked probably most the fact that
Hughes decided to picture black people of low working-class and even some rude or
erotic aspects of their life. This attitude towards own community had to wait to be
appreciated till 1970s.3 Hughes reacted by a brilliant essay “The Negro Artist and the
Racial Mountain” published in the Nation, that became a manifesto for the new
genaration of young artists. Later Hughes sough inspiration in his childhood to create his
first novel Not without Laughter (1930). Then, a certain shift to the left can be marked in
Hughes work, for he starts to publish his essays and poems in New Masses, a journal
controlled by Communist Party. Hughes easily passed the end of the Harlem Renaissance
movement, for he was busy in many other areas. In 1930s he wrote plays and published
his first collection of short stories The Ways of White Folks. Hughes also published his
autobiography The Big Sea (1940), where he overviewed the Harlem Renaissance

1
For Harlem Renaissance see section 3.2.
2
Gates and McKay 1252.
3
For literature of 1970s see section 3.3.
 26

movement. A number of essays, poems, collums, and books followed; the book of verse
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951) among them.

4.1.3 Reading
OBJECTIVES
Cultural Historical Literary
 to show the ways how  to show that  to observe the
black people in literature reflects figurative language
America saw history of poetry
themselves  to compare the  to think of what it
 to realize the barriers dreams of black means to be a writer
which cultures build people in the (or an artist)
and should also pass 1920s with the
 to think of what is a reality of present
dream and how to world
achieve it

 Hughes, Langston. “I, Too”. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Gen. Ed.
Paul Lauter. Lexington: D. C. Heath ans Company. 1619.

 Langston, Hughes. “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”. The Norton
Anthology of African American Literature. Eds. Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., and Nellie Y.
McKay. New York: Norton, 1997. 1267-1271.
 27

I, Too

I, Too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed –

I, too, am America.

1925
 28

From “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”

One of the most promising of the young Negro poets said to me once,
“I want to be a poet – not a Negro poet,” meaning, I believe, “I want to
write like a white poet”; meaning subconsciously, “I would like to be a
white poet”; meaning behind that, “I would like to be white.” And I was
sorry the young man said that, for no great poet has ever been afraid of
being himself. And I doubted then that, with his desire to run away
spiritually from his race, this boy would ever be a great poet. But this is
the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America – this
urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial
individuality into the mold of American standardiazation, and to be as little
Negro and as much American as possible.
(...)
We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our
individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are
pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are
beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If
colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure
doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we
know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.
1926
 29

4.1.4 Suggestions
Poem Warm up
Think about things, deeds and actions that most people do and that you do, too. When
you have a couple of items, pick them up and convert them into a short poem. Start or
end (each) line with words “ I, too”. (Time limit can be 5-10 minutes.)

Poem Follow up
a) What is your immediate response/reaction to the poem?
b) Who is the “company” and why do they send the speaker to kitchen?
c) Does it make the speaker angry? Why so/not?
d) Where do you realize the speaker’s colour of skin?
e) How do you understand the poem, can it be applied to wider context than a house
with a “kitchen”?
f) Consider the year of publication. What can you say about the atmosphere in the black
society at that time, knowing that the poem reflects it? (reality/dream)

Essay Prereading
a) Think of famous and respectable people in Czech Republic, then in world.
b) What makes them famous and respectable?
c) What characteristics shoud a man have to be able to achive his goals?
d) Think of examples that can support your arguments. Be ready to stand for them.
(Class is invited to intervene, ask for explanation and elaboration.)
e) Now concentrate on yourself. What influences your personality? Brainstorm and then
try to range the aspects in order of importance.

Essay Follow up
a) Why a great poet must not be afraid of themselves? Can we say it about other
professions, too?
b) What is the “mountain” Hughes speaks about?
c) Consider the year of publication. What can you say about the atmosphere in the black
society at that time, knowing that the essay reflects it?
d) Could you identify such a “mountain” in your own life? What is it and why?
e) Try to summarize the last article in one sentence. (e.g. L’ art pour l’art)
 30

4. 2 Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

4.2.1 Life and activities

A Baptist minister, political activist and Civil Rights movement leader, Dr.
Martin Luther King cannot be probably considered a literary writer like the other writers
in the present selection. Neverheless, King is author of many speeches and letters that
marked history. King served as a reverend and devoted his life to fight for the civil rights
of black people. King alongside organized peaceful protest demonstrations, delivered
speeches, negotiated with clerks and presidents. In 1964 he was the youngest Nobel Prize
awardee for his contribution to nonviolent resistance and equal treatment for all races.1
Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968.

4.2.2 Reading and listening

OBJECTIVES
Cultural Historical Literary
 to discuss the forms of  to become more  to know the form of
non-violent and violent familiar with the public speech
resistance to Civil Rights together with its
oppression along with movement and performance
their consequences reasons that had  to identify the facts
 to identify the rights led to it used for
that should be never argumentation
denied to any human
 to think of what is a
dream and how to
achieve it

 Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have A Dream”. Usinfo.state.gov. U.S. Department of

State's Bureau of International Information Programs. 7 Apr. 2007.
<http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/38.htm>
 Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have A Dream” American Rhetoric. 7Apr. 2007.
<http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm>

1
Wikipedia. 4 Apr 2007. 7 Apr. 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_luther_king>
 31

I decided to include this work for four main reasons. Firstly, Martin Luther King
is a personality that students are or will be familiar with from History lessons and
therefore it should be better acceptable than something altogether new. Secondly, I
believe that learners of English (at appropriate level) should know the speech. Thirdly, it
is delivered in spoken, not written form and students can enjoy the original author’s
delivery. Fourthly, both the text and the audiovisual record of the speech are legally
downloadable from the internet, and therefore easily accessible to students.
The text of the speech with links to web pages are included in the Appendix.

4.2.3 Suggestions
If the school disposes of a computer study room and headphone sets, students can
be taken there and simultaneously watch and listen to the recording, having texts in front
of them. If there is no such equipement, teacher can play the audio recording in class; or
encourage students to watch video at home or in a library. In any case, students start by
reading the short introduction to the topic.1 Key words should be explained beforehand.
For the pace of speech is moderate, reading before listening is not necessary, though
possible. During listening, students can follow the text or just watch, the choice is up to
them. Because of the lenght of the recording, I suggest fixing the number of listenings
from standard three to two. After the listening, I recommend leaving space for student’s
questions.
A bridge to past can be done by remembering Hughes’s poem “Negro” and the
discussion about dreams. (Which dreams did black people have and were they achieved?
What is the reaction of black people? Etc.)

4.3 Amiri Baraka / LeRoi Jones (b. 1934)

4.3.1 Biography
Baraka was born LeRoi Jones in a middle-class family in Newark, New Jersey.
Baraka was gifted and graduated at the age of 15. On the other hand, Baraka must have
been very extravagant as a teenager. His reflections on the early part of his life follow –
“When I was in high school I used to drink a lot of wine, throw bottles around, walk

1
See Appendix 1.
 32

down the street in women’s clothes just because I couldn’t find anything to satisfy
myself.”1 At the age of 18, Baraka enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D. C.
The atmosphere of the university world was so tight that Baraka did not stay there more
than two years and left. However, he had managed to attend classes of several famous
black scholars whose influence was certainly reflected in Baraka’s works. One of them
was Sterling A. Brown who introduced young Baraka to themes and techniques of
African American music. Having left Howard, Baraka joined the air force and served
three years in Puerto Rico. After being discharged, Baraka moved to Greenwich Village
in New York and became a part of the Beat scene which was already formed by Gregory
Corso, Allan Ginsberg, and other artist around them. Baraka gained reputation as a music
critic, contributed to several magazines and in the late 1950s started to create his own
poetry which raises attention even today. During the early 1960s, Baraka is famous and
popular for his attacking and, to a certain extent, cruel poetry which reflects the heated
atmosphere of that time. As time went, Baraka’s opinions shaped, he became the member
of the Nation of Islam and changed his name from LeRoi Jones to Amiri Imamu Baraka.
In the mid sixties, Baraka founded the Black Arts Repertory/School which became the
basis for the Black Aesthetic movement.
Baraka has been one of the most creative and prolific writers during the last forty
years. New collections of his poetry are published almost every two years. Baraka’s
poetry expresses the author’s harsh opinions on the contemporary President Bush and
Secretary of State Rice’s international policy.

4.3.2 Work
Baraka is the author of over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history
and criticism, a poet icon and revolutionary political activist who has recited poetry and
lectured on cultural and political issues extensively in the USA, the Caribbean, Africa,
and Europe.2 Baraka is also famous for his poetry performance, when he lets himself the
freedom to occasionally change or expand the poem as he improvises with the jazz
music.
His first volume was Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, published in 1961
and was appreciated for its technical innovations. Baraka shares his experience from

1
Gates and McKay 1877.
2
Amiri Baraka. 15 Mar. 2007. <http://www.amiribaraka.com/p2.html>.
 33

Cuba in Cuba Libre (1961) and retrospectively in The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones
(1984). In the 1960s, Baraka publishes his second book of poetry, The Dead Lecturer,
writes essays and several plays, including The Slave, The Toilet, and the most famous
and the most popular one, The Dutchman. Baraka also co-edited Black fire: An
Anthology of Afro-American Writing (1968) with Larry Neal. Some of the lately
published Baraka’s titles: Transbluesency (1996), a book of selected poems from years
1961-1995, The Essence of Reparations (2003), a new collections of essays on American
history, and Somebody Blew Up America And Other Poems (2004).

4.3.3 Reading
OBJECTIVES
Cultural Historical Literary
 to discuss the tension  to decode the  to observe the
between black people author’s figurative unusual form of the
and white people and language using poems and their
people of different historical facts graphics
races in general  to review what  to reveal writer’s
 to learn how historical caused/causes the figurative language
experience is reported tension between
races

 Baraka, Amiri. “Wise I”. Fooling with words. PBS. 13 Mar. 2007.

<http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/mainlst_baraka.html>.

 Baraka, Amiri. “Monday in B-Flat”. Fooling with words. PBS. 13 Mar. 2007.

<http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/mainlst_baraka.html>.
 34

Wise I

If you ever find

yourself, some where
lost and surrounded by enemies
who won’t let you
speak in your own language
& instruments, who ban
your oom boom ba boom
then you are in trouble
deep trouble
they ban your
oom boom ba boom
you in deep deep
trouble

humph!

Probably take you several hundred years

to get
out!

Monday in B-Flat

I can pray
all day
& God wont come.

But if I call
911
The Devil
Be here
in a minute!
 35

4.4.4 Suggestions
Warm up “Wise I”
Tell students that the class is going to have a noisy beginning of the lesson. Announce to
students that they are not allowed to say a word, but they can shout, scream, mumble,
fizzle, snuffle, etc. for 3 seconds as soon as you say “start” and that they have to stop
immediately as you say “stop”. As the teacher you may wish to clasp hands instead, ring
a bell or find different signal. Practise it more times, the length of pauses is variable.
Then, ask students to produce always the same sound (each student has his or her own),
and to add a movement of their body as they produce the sound. Again, pracise it more
times, encourage students to move from their chair, but at the moment you signall “stop”,
nobody can move. Improvise with the pauses to make the whole production rhytmical,
students should enjoy it. Calm them down by taking a deep breath and sighing out (done
by the whole class all at once).
Consequently, ask them to sit down and write down the sound they were producing,
encourage them. What does the sound remind them of? They can put it down as well.
Finally, ask students to write a few lines, that would feature the written sound in case you
do not like saying explicitely “write a poem”. Volunteers read aloud their lines to the
class. By this activity, students are more likely to evaluate Baraka’s use of “oom boom
ba boom” in “Wise I”.

Prereading “Monday in B-flat”

Students work in groups. Hand out or write on a blackboard the title and do not say it is a
title of a poem. Given the title of a text, students are asked to write down all words that
could appear in it. If they are puzzled, whole class can brainstorm what “B” could mean,
which can get them on a path. Students should announce, after a minute or two, how
many words they have and whether they need more time to finish. Draw a chart on the
blackboard. Write down how many words each group have. Group may present their list
of words. Then hand out and/or read the poem. Did any of their words appear in the
poem? How many? Put the results on the blackboard, you may count percentage of
succesful tips.
 36

Follow up
“Wise I”
a. Is there anyhing in the poem that you would not expect to find in a
poem? What is it?
b. Look at the title, who is “I” and why is he “wise”?
c. (How would you describe a wise person? – old, experience, ...)
d. Does the speaker try to warn you? Specify.
e. What can be the “oom boom ba boom”?
f. What “instruments” can the speaker mean?
g. Do you feel the rhytm of the poem? How did the author achieve it?
h. If you were inspired by the Baraka’s poem, you may like fix the few
lines you wrote at the beginning of the lesson.
i. Volunteers can read aloud the fixed version or the original one and
explain why they decided / did not decide to change it.

“Monday in B-flat”
a. What is 911?
b. Who is the speaker? (sex, age, colour of skin, opinions, address...)
c. Why is 911 for him close to Devil?
d. Who is “Devil” in the poem?
e. Who is “God” in the poem?
f. Are the two paragraphs in contradiction? Specify.
g. The poem is short, try to say it in your words.

Listening (optional)
Teacher may wish to play “911”, a song recorded by Wyclef Jean and Mary J. Blidge,
African American r&b singers in 2002. The CD that featured “911” is called Ecleftic – 2
Sides A Book. The song is slow and words comprehensible and therefore I suggest letting
students listen and relax. Lyrics are attached in the Appendix.
 37

4. 4 June Jordan (1936-2002)

4.4.1 Biography
Jordan was born in Harlem in a working-class family. Her father was a postal
clerk, her mother worked as a nurse. Both of her parents escaped from their home in
Jamaica to get out of the poverty into the desired United States. Jordan began writing
early as a child – at the age of seven. As years passed, she moved through many
influential tendencies, currents and trends and she gained a truly literary appreciation.1
Jordan’s mother’s unfullfilled desire to become an artist and her later possible suicide
could have quite strong influence on Jordan’s later writing. After passing many life
experiences, she was a columnist for The Progressive and tried to pass her knowledge
and enthousiasm as a teacher onto students at the University of California at Berkeley
where she taught African American and womans’s studies. She died of cancer in 2002.

4.4.2 Work
June Jordan was one of the most procreative and prolific writers of the late 20th
century. She published books for children, about seven collections of poetry, three plays
and four books of political essays. She gained awards for her work and mainly her
activism. All her works thrive with passionate enthousiasm and zeal for any subject she
broached, which is most visible in her essays and her poetry work. This Jordan’s ardour
can origin, among others, in the fact that she travelled in Africa and visited coutries of
the Central America; she had the chance to get to know places and people that later
appeared in her writings that can be found very emotive and fierce.

4.4.3 Reading

 Jordan, June. “A New Politics of Sexuality”. The Norton Anthology of African

American Literature. Eds. Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay. New
York: Norton, 1997. 2238-2241.

1
Gates and McKay 2227.
 38

OBJECTIVES
Cultural Historical Literary
 to show diversities in  to think of the  to become familliar
understanding the level of tolerance with the form of essay
contemporary world throughout the  to identify what
 to think of tolerance centuries predetermines a
 to discuss persuasive essay
homosexuality

Sexuality is seldom discussed in schools so students should be interested in text

immediately as they read the title. On the other hand, this work is very long and difficult
for secondary school students. However, it is worth the effort to read it. I cut out a few
paragraphs to make it simpler and more understandable. The text below is the shortened
version, how to work with it most effectively is explained in the next section 4. 4. 4.
 39

From “A New Politics of Sexuality”

As a young worried mother, I remember turning to Dr. Benjamin Spock’s

Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care1 just about as often as I’d pick up the
telephone. He was God. I was ignorant but striving to be a good: a good Mother. And
so it was there, in that best-seller pocketbok of do’s and don’t’s, that I came upon this
doozie of a guideline: Do not wear miniskirts or other provocative clothing because
that will upset your child, especially if your child happens to be a boy. If you give your
offspring “cause” to think of you as a sexual being, he will, at the least, become
disturbed; you will derail the equilibrium of his notions about your possible identity
and meaning in the world.
It had never occured to me that anyone, especially my son, might took upon me
as an asexual being. I had never supposed that “asexual” was some kind of positive
designation I should, so to speak, lust after. (...)
Years passed before I came to perceive the perversity of dominant power
assumed by men, and the perversity of self-determining power ceded to men by
women.
A lot of years went by before I understood the dynamics of what anyone could
summarize as the Politics of Sexuality. (...)
When I say sexuality, I mean gender: I mean male subjugation of human beings
because they are female. When I say sexuality, I mean heterosexual institutionalization
of rights and privileges denied to homosexual men and women. When I say sexuality I
mean gay or lesbian contempt for bisexual modes of human relationship.
The Politics of Sexuality therefore subsumes all of the different ways in which
some of us seek to dictate to others of us what we should do, what we should desire,
what we should dream about, and how we should behave ourselves, generally. From
China to Iran, form Nigeria to Czechoslovakia, from Chile to California, the politics of
sexuality – enforced by traditions of state-sanctioned violence plus religion and the
law – reduces to male domination of woman, heterosexist tyranny, and, among those
of us who are in any case deemed despicable or reviant by the poweful, we find

1
First published in 1946, Spock’s book is the best-selling American book on child care and was for years,
especially in the 1950s and 1960s, regarded by new parents as the bible of child rearing.
 40

intolerance for those who choose a different, a more complicated – for example, and
interracial or bisexual – mode of rebellion and freedom.
We must move out from the shadows of our collective subjugation – as people of
color/as women/as gay/as lesbian/as bisexual human beings.

I can voice my ideas without hesiation or fear because I am speaking, finally,

about myself. I am Black and I am female and I am a mother and I am bisexual and I
am a nationalist and I am an antinationalist. And I mean to be fully and freely all that I
am!
Conversely, I do not accept that any white or Black or Chinese man – I do not
accept that, for instance, Dr. Spock – should presume to tell me, or any other woman,
how to mother a child. And, likewise, I do not accept that anyone – any woman or any
man who is not inextricably part of the subject he or she dares to adress – should
attempt to tell any of us, the objects of her or his presumptuous discourse, what we
should do or what we should not do.
(...)
If you can finally go to the bathroom wherever you find one, if you can finally
order a cup of coffee and drink it wherever coffee is available, but you cannot follow
your heart – you cannot respect the response of your own honest body in the world –
then how much of what kind of freedom does any one of us posess?
Or conversely, if your heart and your honest body can be controlled by the state,
or controlled by community taboo, are you then, and in that case, no more than a slave
ruled by outside force? (...)
Freedom is indivisible; the Politics of Sexuality is not some optional “special-
interest” concern for serious, progressive folk.
(...)
Last spring, at Berkeley, some students asked me to speak at a rally against
racism. And I did. There were four or five hundred people massed on Sproul Plaza,
standing together against that evil. And, on the next day, on that same plaza, there was
a rally for bisexual and gay and lesbian rights, and students asked me to speak at that
rally. And I did. There were fewer than seventy-five people stranded, pitiful, on that
public space. And I said then what I say today: That was disgraceful! There should
have been just one rally. One rally: freedom is indivisible.
 41

As for the second, nefarious pronouncement on sexuality that now enjoys mass-
media currency: the idiot notion of keeping yourself in the closet – that is very much
the same thing as the suggestion that black folks and Asian-americans and Mexican-
Americans should assimilate and become as “white” as possible – in our
walk/talk/music/food/values – or else. Or else? Or else we should, deservedly, perish.
(...)
Finally, I need to speak on bisexuality. I do believe that the analogy is interracial
or multiracial identity. I do believe that the analogy for bisexuality is a multicultural,
multi-ethnic, multiracial world view. Bisexuality follows from such a perspective and
leads to it, as well.
(...)
If you are free, you are not predictable and you are not controllable. To my mind,
that is the keenly positive, politicizing significance of bisexual affirmation:
To insist upon complexity, to insist upon the validity of all of the components of
social/sexual complexity, to insist upon the equal validity of all of the components of
social/sexual complexity.
This seems to me a unifying, 1990s mandate for revolutionary Americans
planning to make it into the twenty-first century on the basis of the heart, on the basis
of an honest human body, consecrated to every struggle for justice, every struggle for
equality, every strugle for freedom.
1991
 42

3. 4. 4 Suggestions
Warm up
Students are told that the title of the next text they are going to read and work with is “A
New Politics of Sexuality”. In groups of 3-4 they try to figure out the form (poem,
speech, ...) and the content of the text, characters (if any), words that may occur in the
text, etc. They may also like trying writing a short introduction to the announced title.
Creativity is welcomed. Time limit may vary according to students’ zeal from 5 minutes
for the indifferent to 20 minutes for the enthousiastic so they have time to finish their
ideas and put them down. Groups can share their work with class.

Reading
For the text is long and demanding, it may be cut into short paraghraphs with translated
vocabulary attached. Each student then picks up one paper from a pile, reads it, and tries
to find out where his part fits by reading other students’ papers. The whole text should be
then analogically reconstructed. Cards with the cut text and translated vocabulary are
attached in Appendix. Code for quick correction is “JORDAN SEXUaLITY”.

Follow up
Reading of the whole essay was probably difficult. Students should be given some time
to range ideas in their head. Teacher can then ask: What are your reactions? Did you like
it? Why? Did you dislike it? Why? Students should point at lines that influenced their
opinion. Further discussion can then follow.

Questions on the “form” of an essay

a. Who is the author? What can you say about him/her? Support your
points using the text.
b. Did the author persuade you? If yes, how did he/she achieve it?
c. If not, what prevents you from accepting her opinions? (By this
question students should already discover that author is a women.)
d. What does the author believe you believe or know?
e. What is the author trying to do?
f. How does the writer want or hope that we would respond?
 43

The questions should help the students to get deeper in the essay and to realize what
aspects make it persuasive for one and indifferent for other. The fact that they will
discover that the writer makes a character of himself and that she refers to items she
hopes the audience will accept could help them creating their own essay. Besides, they
should be able to formulate aspects of the form of essay. The “definition” of essay can be
done by brainstorming in small groups of 3-4, then one smaller groups should agree with
another and finally the class should agree of some typical characteristics. Teacher can
help hesitating students by asking: Does the essay have a strict form? Is is based on a
research? What kind of arguments is used? Etc.
Possible student’s findings: relatively open form, persuasive, based on author’s
interest and opinion, author does not bother with opinions that stand opposite to their
opinions; uses narrative (like a story), meditation (like a poem), interaction (like a play).1

Questions for further discussion. Students are always asked to explain their opinion and
support it with arguments. Discussion may involve the whole class or start in groups of
three. Summary should be done with the whole class.
a. What do you think about the following sentence from the text, “If you
are free, you are not predictable and you are not controllable.”
b. Is our society free?
c. How do you understand the repeated phrase “Freedom is indivisible”?
d. What are positive and weak aspects of such freedom?
e. Do you think that today’s world is male governed?
f. Should be something done about that? What would you do?

4.5 Toni Morisson (b. 1938)

4.5.1 Biography
One of the most important contemporary representatives of African American
literature, with a full name Cloe Anthony Wofford, was born in an industrial city of
Loraine, Ohio. She was the second of four children in a black working-class family.
1
Modified from: Richard W. Beach, and James D. Marshall. Teaching Literature in the Secondary School.
(San Diego: HBJ, 1990) 360.
 44

Morrison displayed an early interest in literature. She enrolled Howard and Cornell
Universities for humanity studies and continued her academic career at Texas Southern
University, Howard University, and Yale. During the years at Howard University she
changed her first name from “Chloe” to “Toni”, explaining that “Chloe” was too difficult
for people to pronounce.
In 1958, Morisson got married, had two children with her husband and divorced in
1964. After the divorce Morrison moves to New York City where she works as an editor,
specializes on African American literature. She played an important role in establishing
the African American literature into the mainstream American literature.
Morrison was awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. She was the first African
American to receive Nobel Prize. In 2005, Oxford University awarded Morrison an
honorary Doctor of Letters degree.

4.5.2 Work
Probably because of where she was born, and because she wanted to step out of a
certain stereotype, Morisson’s works take place in black villages rather than in the urban
North or the rural South, traditional settings of African Americans’ work. Her first novel
The Bluest Eye (1970) was immensely succesful so were her following titles: Sula
(1974), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981), Beloved (1987), Playing in the dark
(nonfiction collection published in 1991), Jazz (1992), Paradise (1998), and Love (2003).
Morrison has also worked as an editor at headquaters of Random House, famous New
York publisher. From 1989 to 2006 Morrison held the Robert F. Goheen Chair in the
Humanities at Princeton University. She currently holds a place on the editorial board of
The Nation magazine.1

4.5.3 Reading
The extract is from the first third of the book (page 68 in English original and page
82 in Czech translation). Author draws look on young black women who grew up
differently than the average black population. Further on in the book, reader meet
Geraldina, who was brought up in the described way, and her family.

1
Wikipedia. 5 Apr. 2007. 7 Apr. 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison>.
 45

OBJECTIVES
Cultural Historical Literary
 to observe and  to consider the  to catch the
understand black reasons why meaning of a word
community’s inner literature starts to that has no direct
diversity bring a negative equivalent
 to think of what may image of a black
influence one to man or woman when
change their behaviour the author is also
African American

 Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: WSP, 1970.

 Morrison, Toni. Nejmodřejší oči. Trans. Michael Žantovský. Praha: Odeon, 1983.
 46

From The Bluest Eye

They go to land-grant colleges, normal schools, and learn how to do the white man’s
work with refinement: home economics to prepare his food; teacher education to instruct
black children in obedience; music to soothe the weary master and entertain his blunted soul.
Here they learn the rest of the lesson begun in those soft houses with porch swings and pots
of bleeding heart: how to behave. The careful developement of thrift, patience, high morals
and good manners. In short, how to get rid of the funkiness. The dreadful funkiness of
passion, the funkiness of nature, the funkiness of the wide range of human emotions.
Wherever it erupts, this Funk, they wipe it away; where it crusts, they dissolve it;
wherever ot drips, flowers or clings, they find it and fight it until it dies. They fight this
battle all the way to the grave. The laugh that is little too loud; the enunciation a little too
round; the gesture a little too generous. They hold their behind in for fear of sway too free;
when they wear lipstick, they never cover the entire mouth for a fear of lips too thick, and
they worry, worry, worry about the edges of their hair.
1970

Chodí do státních vyšších škol, na pedagogické instituty, a učí se, jak nejlépe pracovat
pro bělochy: Učí se domácímu hospodářství, aby jim mohly připravovat jídlo, pedagogice,
aby mohly vychovávat černé děti v poslušnosti; hudbě, aby potěšily unaveného pána a
pobavily jeho otupělou duši. Tady si osvojí zbytek látky, kterou se začaly učit v těch
příjemných domech s houpačkami na verandě a s květináči srdcovek: jak se správně chovat.
Pečlivě se cvičí v šetrnost, trpělivosti, mravnost a dobrých způsobech. Zkrátka učí se, jak se
zbavit černého pachu. Toho strašného pachu vášně, pachu přírody, pachu širokého spektra
lidských emocí.
Kdykoliv se ten pach vzbouří, setřou ho; kde se srazí, rozpustí ho; kde ukapává, kvete
či přilne, tam ho najdou a bojují s ním, dokud nezmizí. Vedou ten boj až do hrobu. Smích,
který je trochu moc hlasitý; výslovnost trochu moc měkká; gesto trochu moc široké. Zatahují
zadky ve strachu, že by se jim příliš houpaly; když používají rtěnku, nikdy si nenamalují celá
ústa ve strachu, že by měly moc plné rty, a strachují se, strachují a strachují, aby se jim příliš
nekudrnatily vlasy.
 47

4.5.4 Suggestions

a. Think of possible ways to translate the funkiness, the Funk in Czech.

b. Compare your version with the translation of Michael Žantovský.
c. Would you like to be brought up like these young women? Why so/why not?
d. Does the author criticize or support this education and way of life? How can
you know it?
e. Summarize in one or two phrases the way of upbringing and education
described.
f. Let’s innvert the situation. Imagine you are a female member of white minority
in predominantly black/Roma/other society. You are not in the 1970s but in the
present time. What would be your education like so that it responds to the
model described? Write a paragraph on that.

4. 6 Yusef Komunyakaa (b. 1947)

4.6.1 Biography
This African American poet was born in the United States, in Bogalusa, a town
near New Orleans. His suggestive poems influenced by the rhythm of jazz and blues are
available in valuable Czech translation thanks to Prof. Josef Jařab. Komunyakaa was
born into the time of segregation in the South and into the time of Civil Rights
movement. During his life, he has published a few collections with different topics. Like
some other African American poets, Komuyakaa likes readings poetry in public, when he
can express the rhythm and musicality of his work.

4.6.2 Work
In Magic City, a book of verse published in 1992 Komunyakaa seeks inspiration in
his childhood and adolescence. Early Copacetic (1984) is, on the other hand, devoted to
the author’s passion for jazz. As a young man Komunyakaa fought in the U.S. army in
Vietnam in the 1960s. His experiences as a soldier in the Vietnam War, as Jarab clarifies
in his afterword (2003), must have been suppressed for a considerable amount of time
 48

when it suddenly and unexpectedly sprouted from the author’s subconsciousness.1 This
lapse of time hand in hand with still lively images of the dread of war create an unusual
suggestive, coherent and cohesive piece of poetry in the collection Dien Cai Dau (1988),
to which belong the folowing poems.

4.6.3 Reading
OBJECTIVES
Cultural Historical Literary
 to show history  to pick up  to compare various
through the eyes of one information on the interpretations of
its black participants Vietnam conflict poetry

 to see how historical  to gain wider  to reveal the

experience can be insight on the metaphors and
reported in a personal probematics figurative language
poem
 to think of an attitude
towards war in arts

 Komunyakaa, Yusef. “Facing It”. Internet Poetry Archive. University of North

Carolina Press. 11 March 2007. <http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/komunyakaa/facing_it.php>.
 Komunyakaa, Yusef. „ Před zdí“. Očarování. Comp. and trans. Josef Jařab. Praha:
Paseka, 2003.
 Komunyakaa, Yusef. “Tu Do Street”. Internet Poetry Archive. U of North Carolina P.
11 March 2007. <http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/komunyakaa/tu_do_street.php>.
 Komunyakaa, Yusef. „ Ulice Tu Do“. Očarování. Comp. and trans. Josef Jařab.
Praha: Paseka, 2003.

1
Josef Jařab, afterword, Okouzlení, by Yusef Komunyakaa, trans. Josef Jařab (Praha: Paseka, 2003) 93-94.

Facing It
My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way--the stone lets me go.
I turn that way--I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
49
Před zdí
Moje černá tvář bledne
a ztrácí se v černé žule.
Řekl jsem si ne, jen k čertu žádné slzy.
Jsem z kamene. Ale i z masa.
Můj zamlžený odraz mě pozoruje
jak dravý pták, profil noci
nakloněný k ránu. Hnu se
- a kámen mi dovolí vystoupit.
Změním směr – a jsem opět
v pomníku vietnamských veteránů,
jen na úhlu světla záleží,
kde se ocitnu.
Procházím těch 58 022 jmen,
Nejistý, zda nenajdu své vlastní
v kouřovém písmu.
Dotknu se jména Andrew Johnson;
zahlédnu bílý záblesk miny.
Jména se zatřpytí na halence ženy,
Ale když poodejde,
zůstávají ve zdi.
Svítivé tahy štětce, červená křidélka
ptáka napříč mým pohledem.
Nebe. Na nebi letadlo.
Obraz bílého veterána ke mně
připlouvá a jeho bledé oči
hledí skrze mé. Jsem okno.
On ztratil pravou ruku
v pomníku. Z černého zrcadla
se snaží žena vymazávat jména:
vlastně ne, jen češe chlapečkovi vlasy.

Tu Do Street
Music divides the evening.
I close my eyes & can see
men drawing lines in the dust.
America pushes through the membrane
of mist & smoke, & I'm a small boy
again in Bogalusa. White Only
signs & Hank Snow. But tonight
I walk into a place where bar girls
fade like tropical birds. When
I order a beer, the mama-san
behind the counter acts as if she
can't understand, while her eyes
skirt each white face, as Hank Williams
calls from the psychedelic jukebox.
We have played Judas where
only machine-gun fire brings us
together. Down the street
black GIs hold to their turf also.
An off-limits sign pulls me
deeper into alleys, as I look
for a softness behind these voices
wounded by their beauty & war.
Back in the bush at Dak To
& Khe Sanh, we fought
the brothers of these women
we now run to hold in our arms.
There's more than a nation
inside us, as black & white
soldiers touch the same lovers
minutes apart, tasting
each other's breath,
without knowing these rooms
run into each other like tunnels
leading to the underworld.
50
Ulice Tu Do
Hudba rozčísne večer.
Zavřu oči a vidím,
jak chlapi do prachu kreslí hranici.
Amerika se protlačuje membránou
mlhy a kouře, a já jsem zas malý chlapec
v Bogaluse. Nápisy Jen pro bílé
& Hank Snow. Ale dnes večer
vcházím do baru, kde dívky
uvadají jak tropičtí ptáci. Když
si objednávám pivo, madam
za pultem se tváří, že
nerozumí, a její zrak
sleduje každou bílou tvář, zatímco Hank Williams
vyzpěvuje ze světélkujícího jukeboxu.
Zrazujeme se navzájem tam, kde
nás jedině kulometná palba
dovede sblížit. Dále v ulici
si svoje místo drží i černí vojáci.
Zákaz vstupu mě vtahuje
hlouběji do uliček, kde hledám
něhu v hlasech
zraněných vlastní krásou & válkou.
V džungli u Dak To
& Khe Sanh jsme bojovali
s bratry těch žen,
které se teď chystáme vzít do náruče.
Spojuje nás víc než jen
Národ, když se černí & bílí
vojáci dotýkají v rozmezí minut
stejných milenek, cítí
vzájemný dech,
aniž by věděli, že ty pokoje
se sbíhají jak tunely
vedoucí do podsvětí.
 51

4.6.4 Suggestions
To facilitate student’s comprehesion, imagination and understanding, I suggest
speaking with class briefly about the Vietnam conflict and let the students watch a very
short part of a film on Vietnam War (e.g. Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal jacket). The
historical background could be taught by students themselves as they would be
encouraged to search for the information to present it coherently to the class in a form of
presentation. Details are listed in the following section.

Preparation
Students form groups of four. Each group will make research on one of the following
topics. After having done the research, groups prepare a presentation of the findings and
deliver it the class. One week time for research is suggested, one or two weeks for
preparing the presentation, which means that presentations should not be performed
earlier than three weeks after the announcement of topics. Teacher will propose available
sources. Time limit for presentations can be 10-20 minutes per each group, students can
use materials for demonstration, but they are strongly advised not to simply read text.

1) Vietnam War. Find out which states were involved and why. Find out where and how
long the war lasted. How is the war onlooked more than 40years later?
2) Vietnam War. Find out about specific combat strategies of belligerent armies.
3) Cold War. What was it and how was it linked to the Vietnam War?
4) The Media. Find out what books, movies or ther production were published on the
Vietnam War.
5) (Optional) Focus on the position of U.S. soldiers who are members of minorities in
the U.S. army during the Vietnam War.
6) (Optional) Who or what was “Hannoi Hannah”?

Sources available for research:

o School and town library – books on American history, wars; encyclopedias, etc.
o History teachers’ materials
o Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org> (or pages is Czech)
o Seznam. <http://encyklopedie.seznam.cz/heslo/180817-vietnamska-valka>

o Veterans History project, <http://www.loc.gov/vets//>

 52

o <http://americanhistory.about.com/od/vietnam/Vietnam_War.htm>
o <http://dmmc.lib.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Texts/Scholarly/North_Hanoi_Hannah_01.html>
o Studená válka. http://www.volny.cz/huhu/cw1.htm
o A forum on <http://forum.valka.cz/index.php/f/11>
o Further bibliography, printed as well as electronic, on

<http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/vietnam.html>

Reading
Students read poems two or three times, they have both the English and the Czech text.
Difficult words are explained by teacher if necessary. Students then listen to reading
aloud. A record of the author’s reading, which is available on-line, is highly
reccomended to use parallelly with the reading, for the rhytm and changes of pace are
marked and very interesting.

Follow up
a) What are your feelings after reading and hearing the poems?
b) Was the author’s reading different from what you have expected? In which
aspects?
c) In what aspects are the poems similar and in what do they differ?

Facing It1
a) At what point do you realize the setting of the poem?
b) What does the speaker reveal about himself?
c) What does he remember?
d) How could the white vet lose his arm "inside the stone"?
e) Why does the speaker mistake the woman brushing the boy's hair?
f) How many reflections are there?
g) Why does he change from "stone" to "flesh"?
h) What could "facing it" mean?
i) Is the speaker "facing it"?

1
Questions modified from an online source: Fooling with Words. 14 Mar. 2007.
<http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/main_lesson.html>.
 53

Homework
Write a poem about "reflection" in which you "face" something difficult to face.

Tu Do Street
a) Where is the poem set?
b) Why the speaker’s thought fly back to his childhood?
c) Why the woman at the bar pretends not noticing the speaker?
d) What does “playing Judas” mean?
e) What feelings or thought about the war poem reveals in you? Underline lines that
are the most strong for you.
f) What could the “underworld” and the “tunnels” mean?
g) With a partner, think about absurdity of war, is it somehow implied in the poem?
h) Find examples of absurdity in ordinary every day life.

Extension
In the beginning, as teacher announces the new topic, research, etc., students are also
informed about a final output of the topic – their own group project – a portfolio on the
Vietnam War. They can focus on any aspect they wish (history, movies, poetry, anti-war
movements, veterans, link to the present world conflicts, etc.), unless it is justificated and
fit into the covering label of Vietnam War. The form can be discussed with students,
project may include literary as well as art works by respected writers and artists, or by
students themselves, or both. Introduction and conclusion should be, however, done in
words. The projects should be then displayed in school so that everyone could enjoy the
students’ effort and results. More pragmatically, the fact that there is a task to do after his
or her group presentation should force the student to pay attention and make remarks
during other group presentations, for he or she may need the information afterwards. The
project should also encourage students to ask questions if they do not understand or need
reexplanation.
 54

4.7 Walter Mosley (b. 1952)

4.7.1 Biography
Walter Mosley was born in a section of Los Angeles called South Central, where he
later attended public schools. Mosley’s family background was linked to school, for his
mother was a Jewish schoolteacher and his father worked as a school custodian. Mosley
owes his narrative and litterary succes to his father, who as a gifted storyteller attracted
young Mosley to both the language and the tales from his growing up in south Texas and
Louisiana. The personality of Walter Mosley’s father can be traced in the main character
of most of Mosley’s stories – Easy Rawlins.1

4.7.2 Work
The character of Easy (Ezekiel) Rawlins is obviously the central link in Mosley’s
An Easy Rawlins Mystery series. Most of his stories are situated in afterwar Los Angeles.
Easy is a black man who can have any occupation but he always starts acting like a
detective. He is uncompromising, extremely intelligent and good-hearted. Simply, the
character of Easy is seen as a continuing in the tradition of a “hard-boiled” detective, the
term that was firstly introduced by Raymond Chandler through the character of his
detective Phil Marlowe. Another predecessor of Mosley work can be an African
American author Chester B. Himes with his characters of Coffin Ed and Gravedigge
Jones.
Some of Mosley’s published titles: Gone Fishin’ (written in 1980s but published
after succes of following titles in 1996 ), Devil in a Blue Dress (1990), A Red Death
(1991), White Butterfly (1992), Black Betty (1994), and A Little Yellow Dog (1996). All
of the books were highly succesful. In 1995, Mosley also published R. L.’s Dreams, his
first book that do not feature Easy and stands out of the Mystery line.

4.7.3 Reading

 Mosley, Walter. A little yellow dog. An Easy Rawlins Mystery. New York: Pocket
Books, 1996.

1
Gates and McKay 2594-2595.
 55

OBJECTIVES
Cultural Historical Literary
 to observe interactions  to find a black  to create a detective
 to observe the (racial) man’s aspects of story
tension involved in life in the 1960s  to reveal qualities of
professions characters

A Little Yellow Dog (1996), as it is obvious from the list of Mosley’s works,
belongs to the series of Easy Rawlins. In the present book, Easy is a head custodian in
one of the Los Angeles schools for black students in 1960s. He helps one of teachers who
is in troubles by looking after her little dog. However, this goodwill draws Easy in big
problems. To get out of the mess and police suspiction, he tries to solve on his own the
mystery of a murdered man in the school yard. Easy has gained a new life by being
appointed to his present position but the investigation leads him back to streets and
makes him use former skills and meet his old friends and enemies. As Easy traces back
what has happened to the murdered man, he faces predjudice and suspicions because of
his colour of skin, nevertheless he always knows what to do and deals with the situation
with a great skill.
The exctract is a compiled set of short parts from the first chapters of the book. I
wanted to catch the beginning of the story along with a few situatitons that reveal more
the Easy’s character, the background and which are at some point funny. This may
appeal students.
 56

When I got to work that Monday I knew something was wrong. Mrs Idabell Turner’s
car was parked in the external lot and there was a light on in her half of bungallow C.
It was six-thirty. The teachers at Sojourney Truth Junior High school never came
in that early. Even the janitors who worked under me didn’t show up until seven-
fifteen. I was the supervising senior head custodian. It was up to me to see that
everything worked right. That’s why I was almost always the first one on the scene.
But not that morning. (...)
I knocked but nobody answered. I tried my key but the door was bolted from
inside. Then that damned dog started barking.
“Who is it?” a woman’s voice called.
“It’s Mr. Rawlins, Mrs. Turner. Is everything okay?”
Instead of answering she fumbled around with the bolt and then pulled the door
open. The little yellow dog was yapping, standing on its spindly back legs as if he was
going to attack me. But he wasn’t going to do a thing. He was hiding behind her blue
woolen skirt, making sure that I couldn’t get at him.

(... The Sojourney Thruth Principal received a call blaming Easy for a robbery in
the school and calls Easy to come to his office.)
Principal Newgate, as he preferred to be called, always wore a dark suit with a
silk tie of bold and rich colors.
“Come in, Rawlins.” Newgate held up the back of his hand and waggled his
fingers at me.
“Mr. Newgate,” I said.
“Jacobi,” he said.
“Say what?”
“That jacket. Gino Jacobi line. Astor’s downtown is the only place that sells it.”
He knew his clothes. I did too. Ever since I wangled my job at the Board of Ed I
decided that I was going to dress like a supervisor. I’d had enough years of shabby
jeans and work shirts. (...)
“Aren’t you afraid to get those nice clothes dirty if you ever have to do some real
work?” Newgate asked.
“You said you wanted to see me?” I replied.
 57

Newgate had a smile that made you want to slap him. Haughty and disdainful, the
principal hated me because I wouldn’t bow down to his position. (...)

“You sure that you don’t know anything, Ezekiel?”

“No, Hiram,” I replied. I might as well have slapped him; no one called Principal
Newgate by his first name.

(... Easy meets his friend called Mouse)

We went out to my Pontiac and we drove off. I took a southerneast route because,
like I said, that was the 1960s and black men couldn’t take a leisurely drive in white
Los Angeles without having the cops wanting to know what was going on.

(...sergeant Sanchez interrogates Easy about the dead body found in the school
garden)
Sanchez had his eyes on me.
“Anybody here last night?” he asked. “About four or five in the morning?”
“Not s’posed t’be. Nobody works on Sunday, and nobody works that late
anyway.” Idabell Turner flitted across my mind but I turned my thoughts back to
Sanchez’s questions.
“Where were you when the body was found, Mr. Rawlins?”
“I went to pick up one of my men. His care broke down and he needed a ride.”
“You always give taxi to your janitors?”
“He’s my night man. If I don’t have a night man we won’t be ready for the
morning. The hour or so gets paid back with a full night’s work. Anyway, I took my
lunchtime to do it.”
Sanchez just stared. He was a living lie detector.
I was a living lie.
“You two can go now,” he said. “Mr. Rawlins, tell your people that I’ll be around
either this afternoon or tomorrow morning. I’ll need to talk to each one of them.”
“Will do,” I said. I wanted to cooperate. I wanted to do my duty. I didn’t have anything
to do with that man’s death. But the way Sanchez looked at me made me feel guilty –
maybe he could smell something that I had yet to sense.
 58

4.7.4 Suggestions
Preteaching
Let students figure out what the terms Junior and Senior High School mean and give
them short inlook into the U.S. educational system. Explain K-12 system and let them
compare it to the system they know from the Czech Republic.

Prereading
Tell students to imagine the following situation: It is early morning and there is a dead
cat found in front of the school door. It was a cat that belonged to one of the unpopular
teachers... What do you think will follow? Work in groups of 3-4, you have three
minutes.
This short activity should get students prepared for the detective genre. If students seem
to be puzzled, give them a few supportive questions, for example, will the teacher start
lesson as usual? Will he/she accuse somebody? Who did it? Was the cat poisoned or
shot? Etc. Groups then present their ideas to the class.

Follow up
Questions on the text – answer and be as specific as possible
a. Where is the story taking place?
b. How does Easy notice that something was wrong that morning?
c. Did the dog attack Easy?
d. Does Easy like the Principal and viceversa? How can you tell that?
e. Why would be cops interested in two black men in a car?
f. Is Easy frank in aswering sergeant Sanchez? Why/why not?

Further questions
a. Can you determine what colour is the characters’ skin? How do you
know?
b. Read through the situation at Principal’s office.
o Is it a conversation you would expect at such a place? If
not, what is unusual?
o Explain Principal Newgate’s attitude.
o How would you react being Easy?
 59

o How would you react being Principal Newgate?

c. Try to depict sergeant Sanchez – how does he look like? You can
draw him. What is he like?
d. Figure out reasons why Easy does not tell sergeant the full truth in
spite of the fact that he is not involved in the murder.
e. Now think about yourself:
o Do you speak truth all the time? If not, on what
occasion/condition are you likely to lie?
o Would you speak truth if this could cause you troubles?

A short language exercise is designed in order to facilitate students’ comprehension of

the text with which they are going to work.

Match pairs that go together and then translate the word to Czech.
Unknown word Letter; transl. Explanation in English
1. (parking) lot b. to get something by cheating, or to fake
something
2. janitor
c. scornful, showing no respect, proud
3. to show up d. a person who is responsible for looking after a
public building (here – school)
4. bolt
e. area of land used for parking cars
5. custodian
f. to arrive, come (to work), inf.
6. to wangle g. something you have to do that is morally or
legally right
7. Board of
h. a metal bar that you slide across a door or
Ed(ucation)
window to fasten it or lock it
8. shabby
i. ragged, old, worn, in bad condition
9. disdainful j. someone who looks after a school or a large
buiding
k. a group of people in an organization (school
10. to slap district, e.g.) who make the rules and important
decisions
11. duty
l. to hit someone quickly with your hand
 60

Writing
Choose one of the short extracts, use it as the beginning or the end of a story you will
make up. Work in groups of two or three and write it down. Approximate lenght is 100 to
150 words. Work can be done at school, or started there and finished at home. Teacher
can consider collecting stories and evaluating them. The evaluation should focus on
coherency and continuity of the story rather than on grammatical features. Originality
values, too.
Optional writing or drawing. Write a paragraph or more, or draw a picture that will
express Easy’s personality and character. Reinvest your asnwers on the questions.

Role play
Ask the class to brainstorm everything that they would change in their classroom,
corridors and school. Each pair of students then choses from the list two items that appeal
to them the most. Consequently, students toss a coin and one each pair then becomes the
director of the school and the other becomes the self-confident student who wants to
iniciate one of the chosen changes. Both the two in each pair have one or two minutes to
prepare their arguments, then five minutes for the preparation of their role play. Students
then perform their role play to class.
Note: Funny ideas and fierce argumentation on both sides are reccomended. Other
students may wish to support “the self-confident student” actively.

4.8 Gloria Naylor (b. 1950)

4.8.1 Biography
Gloria Naylor was born in New York City. From her early childhood she has borne
a respect for education and written word. It was passed on her by her mother, a dedicated
reader, who decided to remove the family from Mississippi, where black were not
allowed to enter libraries. After graduating from high school, Naylor joined the
Jehovah’s Witnesses and became a missionary. From 1968 to 1975 she served in New
York, North Carolina, and Florida. When Naylor disbanded with the Witnesses, she
enrolled in Brooklyn College where she gainded her B. A. in English and continued her
studies at Yale, where she gained a master’s degree.
 61

4.8.2 Work
Naylor’s first novel The Women of Brewster Place (1982) became immensely
succesful, it won American Book Award in 1983. Three other Naylor’s titles then
followed: Linden Hills (1985), Mama Day (1988), Bailey’s Cafe (1992), and The Men of
Brewster Place (1998). All these novels draw on Western sources as well as they reflect
the author’s African American female experience.1

4.8.3 Reading
OBJECTIVES
Cultural Literary
 to think of the role of relationships  to observe wide range of
in a small community similies and metaphors for an
 to observe the typical speech acts abstract notion
of African American English and  to produce own and rich
its meaning description of an abstract notion

From The Women of Brewster Place, “The Two”

 Naylor, Gloria. “The Two”. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature.
Eds. Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay. New York: Norton, 1997.
2544-2571.

The novel could be seen as one in the line of books that tend to portrait black men
in negative light. After appereance of the character of Cholly in Morrison’s The Bluest
Eye or Mr. Freeman in Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; Naylor comes with
a novel that portrays lives of black women in a city in the Northern part of the United
States. The women all have in common one thing – searching for a home, for they came
to Brewster from many different corners of the counry.
In “The Two”, Naylor tells a narrative of two nice lesbians, Lorraine and Tee, who
unwillingly move to Brewster having lost better housing nearer to the city. The story
though features a band of about five youngsters. These young boys wait one evening
when a fragile girl returns home and rape her one after another, just because she is

1
Gates and McKay 2543.
 62

lesbian. When she wakes up after a few hours from agony, Lorraine goes up the street
lunatic and perplexed; she kills old Ben, a friend of her with a large brick.
Naylor seems to stress the importance of relationship within a community. As “the
two” move in, skinny and light-skinned Lorraine would like to fit in with other women
but she is rejected and feels sorry. Self confident Theresa, on the other hand, does not
care about other people or neighbourghs. However, both of them have to bear the
predjudice and condemnation because of their sexuality from people they daily meet or
live next door. These are also the reasons why Lorraine and Tee have had to move more
times already.

a) The first extract is taken from the first pages of “The Two”. It is almost the
beginning; two women (fragile and sensitive Lorraine, and cheery and plump
Theresa) came to settle in Brewster Place and as time goes by a rumour emerges.

b) The second extract catches the following situation: Lorraine is going back from
work and meets her friendly neighbour, Kiswana. They have a chat at the front
door when a crowd of young boys passes by.
 63

a)

(...) And so no one even cared to remember exactly when they had moved into
Brewster Place, until the rumor started. It had first spread through the block like a sour
odor that’s only faintly perceptible and easily ignored until it starts growing in strength
from the dozen mouths it had been lying in, among clammy gums and scum-coated
teeth. And then it was everywhere – lining the mouths and whitening the lips of
everyone as they wrinkled up their noses at its pervading smell, unable to pinpoint the
source or time of its initial arrival. (...)
The smell had begun there. It outlined the image of the stumbling woman and the
one who had broken her fall. Sophie and a few other women sniffed at the spot and
then, perplexed, silently looked at each other. Where had they seen that before? They
had often laughed and touched each other – held each other in joy or its dark twin –
but where had they seen that before? It came to them as the scent drifted down the
steps and entered their nostrils on the way to their inner mouths. They had seen that –
done that – with their men. That shared moment of invisible communion reserved for
two and hidden from the rest of the world behind laughter or tears or a touch. In the
days before babies, miscarriages, and after intimate walks from church and secret
kisses with boys who were now long forgotten or permanently fixed in their lives –
that was where. They could almost feel the odor moving about in their mouths, and
they slowly knitted themselves together and let it out into the air like a yellow mist
that began to cling to the bricks on Brewster.
 64

b)

While they were talking, C. C. Baker and his friends loped up the block. These young
men always moved in a pack, or never without two or three. They needed the others
continually near to verify their existence. When they stood with their black skin, ninth-grade
diplomas, and fifty-word vocabularies in front of the mirror that the world had erected and
saw nothing, those other pairs of tight jeans, suede sneakers, and tinted sunglasses imaged
nearby proved that they were alive. (...)
The boys recognized Kinswana because her boyfriend, Abshu, was director of the
community center, and Lorraine had been pointed out to them by parents or some other adult
who had helped to pread the yellow mist. (...) C. C. Baker was greatly disturbed by the
thought of a Lorraine. He knew only one way to deal with women other than his mother.
Before he had learned exactly how women gave birth, he knew how to please or punish or
extract favors from them by the execution of what lay curled behind his fly. It was his lifeline
to that part of his being that sheltered his self-respect. And the thought of any woman who lay
beyond the lenght of its power was a threat.
“Hey, Swana, better watch it talkin’ to that dyke – she might try to grab a tit!” C. C. called
out.
“Yeah, Butch, why don’t ya join the WACS1 and really have a field day.”
Lorraine’s arms tightened around her packages, and she tried to push past Kiswana and go
into the building. “I’ll see you later.”
“No, wait.” Kiswana blocked her path. “Don’t let them talk to you like that They’re
nothing but a bunch of punks.” She called out to the leader, “C. C., why don’t you just take
your little dusty behind and get out of here. No one was talking to you.”
The muscular tan boy spit out his cigarette and squared his shoulders. “I ain’t got to do
nothin’! And I’m gonna tell Abshu you need a good spankin’ for taking up with a lesbo.” He
looked around at his reflections and preened himself in their approval. “Why don’t ya come
over here and I’ll show ya what a real man can do.” He cupped his crotch.
Kiswana’s face reddened with anger. “From what I heard about you, C. C., I wouldn’t
even feel it.”
His friends broke up with laughter, and when he turned around to them, all he could see
mirrored was respect for the girl who had beat him at the dozens. Lorraine smiled at the
absolutely lost look on his face. (...)

1
Woman Army Corps
 65

4.8.4 Suggestions
Follow up for a)
A rumour:
a. Can you explain what it is from the context?
b. Underline the expressions that author uses for its description.
c. Where do rumours come from? Where do they have their roots?
d. When you hear a rumour, do you pass it by? Why/why not?
e. Have you ever had to face a rumour? How did you feel?
f. Can you think of possible (extreme) consequences of a rumour onto the
involved person/people?
g. What environment favour rumours?
h. Think of other possibillities how to express a rumour (short writing
exercice).
Other questions
a. How do the women recognize that Lorraine and Tee are lesbians?
b. What is the women’s reaction? Highlight the part in the text.
c. How can you re-tell the highlited part?
d. Will the women be friendly to the girls or not? How do you know?
e. Can you reveal the colour of skin of any of the characters? Where?
Would the story make any difference if the colour of skin of any of
characters was different? How?

Follow up for b)
Possible questions and tasks
a. Cross out words from the text that you should never use when you speak
or write, at least when the language is not your mother tongue.
(individually)
b. Compare the words with your partner(s) and find reasons why you
should omit using these words.
c. How are the boys described? (Do you like them?)
d. Is the image of boys and their talk familiar to you? (Consider songs, TV,
books, ...) Share the ideas with your colleagues.
 66

e. Why does Kinswana suggest C. C. Joining WACS although he is a

man?
f. Is the language of all characters the same? What can you point out?

Playing the dozens1

a. Try to reveal what does “playing the dozens”mean and make your
definition.
b. Do you think you can experience “playing the dozens” in your
everyday life? If yes, how? If not, why?
c. Are there any rules concerning “playing the dozens”? If yes, coud you
formulate some of them?
d. How is the reaction of Lorraine and Kinswana different and why? Think
of more possible reasons.

Thinking
Have you ever been addressed in a street like Lorraine? How did you react?
What do you do if a stranger wants to start talking to you and he/she is not nice? Do you
scream, flee, call for help, ignore the stranger, start conversation, ...? What is the best
way to act in such a situation?

4.9 Rita Dove (b. 1952)

4.9.1 Biography
Dove was born in Akron, Ohio, in a family where education was greatly valued.
Dove displayed interest in literature by writing plays and stories at an early age.
Supported by her high school teacher, Dove then became interested in professional
writing. She did well in her studies, in 1970 she was among the top one hundred U.S.
high school seniors. Dove enrolled at Miami University in Oxford and graduated in 1973.
The same year she received a Fulbright scholarship to study at Tubingen University in
West Germany. She travelled in Europe, northern Africa, and Israel; the influence of
different cultures is reflected in her works.
1
producing creative and witty rhymed insults whose language is often rough in order to humble one’s
enemies
 67

Dove taught creative writing at Arizona State University and from 1989 she has
been teaching at the University of Virginia. She was awarded Pulitzer Prize in 1987, was
elected first black and the youngest Poet Laureate of the United States (1993-1995),
served as a Consultant to the Library of Congress, has received a Guggenheim, a Lavan
Younger Poets award, and a Walt Whitman award.
Dove is married and with her husband, a German-born writer, and their daughter
they live in Charlottesville, Virginia.

4.9.2 Work
Dove’s first poems were published in major periodicals only a year after her
graduation from Miami University. Her first volumes were Ten Poems (1977) and The
Only Dark Spot in the Sky (1980) were published as chapbooks and were later reprinted
in The Yellow House on the Corner (1980). Although judged to be too personal, The
Yellow house is appreciated for discipline in the form and for the way author combines
historical images with private ones. Dove’s experience from travelling abroad is reflected
in her second major volume, Museum (1983) where she performes interest in other
cultures. The next poetry volume, Thomas and Beulah (1986) is vaguely based on her
grandparent’s lives. Dove divided this collection in two parts, one contains events from
her grandfather Thomas’s perspective, the other section deals with the same events but
from her grandmother Beulah’s perspective. Interesting is that the author mentiones
historical events together with the private stories in the chronological order to provide the
reader a time path. Dove is celebrated for the economy of her style which she exhibited
in Thomas and Beulah as well in The Other Side of the House (1988) and in Grace Notes
(1989). Dove also published a book of short stories Fifth Sunday (1985) and a novel,
Through the Ivory Gate (1992). Her following collection of poems, Mother Love (1995),
is focused on mother-daughter relationship performed by characters of Greek Myths,
Demeter and Persephone. Next title, On the Bus with Rosa, was published in 1999.
Dove’s most recent book of poetry, American Smooth, was published in 2004.
 68

4.9.3 Reading
OBJECTIVES
Cultural Historical Literary
 to think of parental  to (re)discover the  to show influence of
love and “home”, and Greek Myths different cultures
what it means for one about creation of  to observe the play
(Does the meaning / the world of colours and its
importance of “home” significance
differ by culture?)

 Rita Dove, “Demeter’s Prayer to Hades”. The Norton Anthology of African American
Literature. Eds. Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay. New York:
Norton, 1997. 2594.
 Rita Dove, “Exit”. Modern American Poetry. 13 Apr. 2007.
<http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dove/onlinepoems.htm>
 Rita Dove, “Wiring home”. Modern American Poetry. 13 Apr. 2007.
<http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dove/onlinepoems.htm>

I selected three poems by Rita Dove. The first one, “Demeter’s Prayer to Hades”
refers to Greek Mythology. Students may not guess that the author is an African
American and can be surprised. The link to Greek Creation Myths should also refresh
students’ knowledge from Czech lessons where Greek myths are usually discussed
during the first year of secondary school. However, students may also need some
information about the writer’s private life to decode the message. Dove has a daughter
and by the time Dove was writing Mother Love, her daughter left home and stayed on her
own will abroad in uncomfortable conditions; Dove expresses feeling of losing her
daughter in most of the poems in Mother Love. The second and the third poem, “Exit”
and “Wiring home” are, I believe, not difficult to understand and appealing to students;
they refer to feelings adolescents could have experienced, leaving and coming home after
a longer period of time. The poems succeed in natural order, one has to leave sadly to
come back happy and satisfied.
 69

Demeter’s Prayer to Hades

This alone is what I wish for you:

knowledge.
To understand each desire has an edge,
to know we are responsible for the lives
we change. No faith comes without cost,
no one believes without dying.
Now for the first time
I see clearly the trail you planted,
what ground opened to waste,
though you dreamed a wealth
of flowers.

There are no curses-only mirrors

held up to the souls of gods and mortals.
And so I give up this fate, too.
Believe in yourself,
go ahead-see where it gets you.
 70

Exit
Just when hope withers, the visa is granted.
The door opens to a street like in the movies,
clean of people, of cats; except it is your street
you are leaving. A visa has been granted,
"provisionally"-a fretful word.
The windows you have closed behind
you are turning pink, doing what they do
every dawn. Here it's gray. The door
to the taxicab waits. This suitcase,
the saddest object in the world.
Well, the world's open. And now through
the windshield the sky begins to blush
as you did when your mother told you
what it took to be a woman in this life.

Wiring Home
Lest the wolves loose their whistles
and shopkeepers inquire,
keep moving, though your knees flush
red as two chapped apples,
keep moving, head up,
past the beggar's cold cup,
past the kiosk's
trumpet tales of
odyssey and heartbreak-
until, turning a corner, you stand,
staring: ambushed
by a window of canaries
bright as a thousand
golden narcissi.
 71

4.9.4 Suggestions
Prereading “Demeter’s Prayer to Hades”
Students are told a week before reading this poem, to look in their old copybooks or
brows <www.pantheon.org> to remember Greek Creation Myths. As there is a large
number of Greek Gods, teacher may suggest focusing on Demeter and her daughter.
Then, one lesson before starting poems by Rita Dove, students share what they found
out. I recommend a chain story to narrate Demeter’s and Persephone’s lives; first student
says one sentence and the second says also one sentence which must fit as continuing of
the first one, etc., till the whole story is told. After this lesson, a copy of the poem is
handed to each student so that they can find words they do not know.

Follow up “Demeter’s Prayer to Hades”

What are your reactions to the poem?
Who is the speaker?
Who does he or she address?
What feelings/emotions can you see in the poem? Where?

Warm up “Exit” and “Wiring home”

The selected Dove’s poems deal with home and parental love. I suggest playing a calm
song about home, or plain comfortable music. Students are kindly told to think about
their home, parents, and brothers or sisters. After listening, students can discuss a few
questions to get prepared for this topics. Students work in small groups of 2-3. The last
task is to write a short poem on the topic; students reinvest the previous discussion.
Volunteers are encouraged to read their poem aloud to class.

Possible questions:
a. What did you think about during the listening to the song? Was it a
pleasant thought?
b. There are always some squablles (light disputes) in a family. Besides
these moments, what relationship do you have with your parents?
c. How would your parents react, if you, for example, left home?
d. Do you imagine leaving your home for a longer period of time?
(summer holiday, two months or more)
 72

e. How do you think you will handle it, will you feel homesick?
f. If you have already had such an experience, how was it?
g. Write a short poem about leaving and/or coming home. Your
answers to previous questions can inspire you.

Follow up “Exit” and “Wiring home”

a. Did the poems touch you? What feeling did they reveal in you?
b. Who is the speaker? What does he or she do?
c. How does he or she feel?
d. How are the poems similar and in what do they differ?
e. Focus on the play of colours, what role does it have in the poems?
f. Do you know the speaker’s colour of skin? Where is it in the text?
g. Would the poem differ if it was written in Australia, for example?
h. How do you know that is was not written in Australia?
i. Is the meaning of home and parental love similar in all cultures?
Give examples.

Note
The theme of home and parental love is sensitive for a student who has lost one or
both of his or her parents or who was raised in children’s home. Teacher must be aware
of this situation and consider fixing questions or take thought whether to bring the
present topic to the class at all.

3. 10 Introduction to poetry

The overwhelming majority of students usually dislike poems. In spite of that, or

because of that I chose to include four poets in the present work. However, a special
activity may be useful for a good start.
The activity can start by conversation based on question ‘What is poetry?’ and on
task to invent the definition. While students work, teacher may hand out three different
examples of poems to deepen student’s thoughts. Examples should be of a great variety;
a prose poem, a sonnet, lyrics to a song, an example of a free verse, and a traditional
 73

narrative poem so that students could discuss their similarities and differences. Students
then formulate their definition which can be put down on a blackboard together with
definition of poets themselves. Class may then vote for the best definition.
 74

5 QUESTIONNAIRE

The questionnaire was distributed in a secondary school outside Brno to students in

third and fourth year.1 The data from the questionnaire serve as supportive and not base
information for further shaping of the present work.
The questionnaire was made up in reason to confirm or disprove my presumption of
students’ will to work with literature written in English during their English language
lessons; students’ awareness of events in history of the United States; and students’
attitude towards reading as such.
For reasons of avoiding student’s misunderstanding and usually shy expression in
English, I choosed to distribute the questionnaire in students’ mother tongue – Czech.
Instructions were clearly given at the beginning. Students had enough time to think over
and answer the questions. It took them about fifteen minutes in average to answer the
questionnaire.

5.1 Questionnaire for the 3rd and 4th grade of grammar school
students

Dotazník: Afroamerická kultura a literatura

1) Čteš rád/a?
a. Ano… čemu dáváš přednost: komiksy, časopisy, romány, denní tisk, jiné
(co)?
b. Ne…proč? (nemáš čas, chuť, bolí tě oči…)
2) Když už něco přečteš, zamyslíš se nad tím rád/a?
3) Kdyby sis měl/a vybrat z těchto knih, se kterým z nich bys rád pracoval/a ve
škole (v hodinách angličtiny)?
sbírka básní, historický román, pohádky, sci-fi, detektivky, povídky, jiné (co)
4) Může kniha ovlivnit Tvůj názor? Jak?
5) Kdo je Tvůj oblíbený autor?

1
Gymnázium Tišnov, Na Hrádku 20, Tišnov. 16 Mar. 2007.
 75

6) Dokážeš jmenovat nějakého amerického spisovatele/spisovatelku? (Vzpomeň si

i na látku z hodin češtiny nebo angličtiny.)
7) Znáš nějaké Afroamerické (černé) spisovatele/ky, umělce, intelektuály nebo
známé osobnosti (herce, zpěváky,…)? Napiš jejich jména a pokud možno upřesni
profesi, eventuelně století.
8) Které země se účastnili války ve Vietnamu a kdy se vietnamská válka odehrála?
9) Cítíš nějaký rozdíl mezi pojmy black, Negro a African American? Pokud ano,
zkus krátce vysvětlit, jak jim rozumíš.
10) Najdeme rozdíl mezi společenskou pozicí černochů v Americe 17.-18.století a
dnes? Jestli myslíš, že ano, napiš v čem.
11) Chtěl/a by ses dozvědět víc o událostech a skutečnostech zmíněných v otázkách
7-10? Proč/proč ne?
12) Chtěl/a bys část hodin angličtiny věnovat práci s literaturou, která se těchto bodů
(7-10) dotýká? Proč/proč ne?
13) Jestli se už teď chceš na něco zeptat nebo něco poznamenat…jen do toho ☺ Ale
prosím jen písemně.
Děkuji za spolupráci a pravdivé vyplnění dotazníku.

5.2 Commentary
Re 1-3
First three questions were for warming up. It is possible to say (ith one or two
exceptions from the total number) that students like reading, however, they tend to read
only daily press or magazines. Many students complained of the lack of time for reading
a book. It was interesting to note that the lack of time bothers more third year students
than those at the fourth year heading to their school leaving examination. In the third
question answers varied, nevertheless detective stories, short stories, and science fiction
prevailed; a book of poetry was mentioned altogether once.
Re 4 & 5
The fourth question implied consciousness of the formative effect of literature.
Answers varied on the whole scale. Four students answered that a book could never
change their mind. One third of the students was assured about the power of the book, the
 76

other third thought that book could change their mind, under the condition that it is a
special/professional book; the rest suggested “maybe”. The answers in the fifth question
varied. One fifth of students, approximetely, had no favourite writer, the others named at
least one. The diversity of writer’s names and nationalities was great.
Re 6
Both the third and fourth year students coped well with the sixth question. Names
probably reflected authors mentioned in lesson, as Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway,
and Mark Twain figured on almost every sheet of paper. A few students named also Walt
Whitman, and Stephen King. Mostly fourth year students were also able to name some
others – authors like Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Saroyan, and Tenessee Williams
were mentioned, too.
Re 7
The seventh question drew mainly to the present knowledge of famous people from
media. However, all students listed Martin Luther King and nearly all at first place; Louis
Armstrong was also mentioned frequently, as well as Whitney Houston and Will Smith.
Other names like Jay-Z, Eddie Murphy, James Brown, or Michael Jackson appeared too.
Re 8
There was a big difference in the answers to the eight question. While the third year
students mostly wrote in appologetic tone “to jsme ještě nebrali”, most of the fourth year
students was able to indicate approximate years or decade and knew that the U. S. A.
were involved. A few students answered in detail, probably because of their own interest
in military history.
Re 9
Answering the nineth question, the overwhelming majority identified “Negro” as a
pejorative and insulting term. Some students then argued that African American is a
black man born or just living in America. Three students rightly identified black as
neutral term, three others considered it pejorative. Two students assumed the difference
in terms is hidden in the shade of the black skin not specifying it further. Two students
did not see any difference between the terms at all.
Re 10
Students managed to point at basic facts in history – slavery, oppression,
discrimination. They also seem to be aware of present situation: all of them wrote that
things had changed; that there was no slavery in today’s America, but on the other hand,
 77

racism and discrimination were still likely to be present in the contemporary American
society. One student compared the position of black people in the United States to the
position of Roma people in Czech Republic, stating that the equality of races is
proclaimed only officially. One student believed there was no great difference in the
position of black people in 17th and 18th centrury and today, one student did not respond
at all. The most striking were answers of two students from the fourth year who
presumed there was no difference in the position of blacks at all.
Re 11 & 12
Results from the eleventh and the twelfth points were proportionally same in both
of the groups (3rd and 4th year students). In general, a half of the students would
appreciate learning more about mentioned items, as well as using literature as a means.
One quarter of students would like to learn more on the subjects but they would not
involve literature in the process. Their main argument was that the literature taught in
lessons of Czech covers these topics sufficiently. The rest of the students, 25%
approximately was not interested in the proposed topics or literature at all.
Re 13
I decided to include one open point to let students express their curiosity by asking
questions or making remarks. Nevertheless, this possibility was exploited by five
students only. The reason for the low reponse could have been in the written form of
questionnaire; students could assume there would not be any time left to their questions
so they did not write anything.
 78

6 CONCLUSION

The present work pursued contemporary African American literature and dealt with
its use in secondary school English teaching. I selected the following writers of the
second half of the 20the century: Martin Luther King, Jr., Amiri Baraka, June Jordan,
Toni Morrison, Yusef Komunyakaa, Walter Mosley, Gloria Naylor, Rita Dove, and
Langston Hughes who is the only exception that does not precisely fit the time limit.
Hughes was the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance movement in the 1920s.The aim of the
present work was to present selected texts by African Americans of the second half of the
20th century together with suggestions how to use them in English lessons of third or
fourth years at Czech grammar schools. The emphasis was put on education towards
tolerance and multiculturalism. As the work itself and the following conclusion point out,
the assigned aims were succesfully achieved.

The first task before starting writing was to choose writers. I worked with The
Norton Anthology of African American Literature that gave me general and historical
overview, as well as detailed information on writers. There was about twenty authors in
the first choice, whose life and work I studied in detail. It was not possible to include all
of them so the number was cut to seven but then rose to the final nine.In the meantime, I
browsed and studied secondary literature which helped me later to go into the depth of
the texts.
The next difficult task was the selection of texts from the wide range of African
American fiction. A certain compromise had to be achieved in the contents, form,
language and topic of the selected text with regard to secondary school audience. Some
texts that I decided to include in the present work were printed in the anthologies and
therefore not hard to find. Nevertheless, the majority of the texts caused more troubles. I
will comment on a few of the ‘problematic’ texts further.
Amiri Baraka’s anthologized works were predominantly poems from his rebel
years of the 1960s, the period that their author considers closed and finished. I found a
poem written in September 2001 which would be interesting and more recent, but I
considered it too long for it had seven pages. Finally, I got myself inspired by a web page
that suggested a few activities on three of Baraka’s poems. A different problem occured
with June Jordan’s works. Her anthologized poems were exactly the text I desired to
 79

work with – fierce, self-confident and persuasive poems on current problems – question
of human rights of people in Guatemala, Palestine, etc. Yet, their values were the reasons
why they had to be finally left out. I do not assume that teenagers are aware of political
issues in the Central America or in the Middle East and the preparation of the topic
would be therefore very demanding, complicated and probably out of student’s interest.
However, I did not wish to abandon Jordan’s work at all. The result was chosing an
anthologized essay “A New Politics of Sexuality” with the title presumably appealing to
teenager students; the text is again difficult, but a special plan on the essay has been
designed to facilitate it. The last commentary is dedicated to Yusef Komunyakaa’s
poems. I chose three poems from Očarování, a book of Komunyakaa’s selected poems
translated by Prof. Jařab. Two of the three chosen poems were easy to find in English on
the internet, but not the third one I wanted to include, “Hanka z Hanoje”/“Hanoi
Hannah”. Dr. Pribylova was so kind to contact Prof. Jařab who replied readily by sending
a copy of “Hanoi Hannah” by mail. I would like hereby to thank Prof. Jarab for his help.
Unfortunately, the poem is finally not included in the present work; “Hanoi Hannah” is
attached in the Appendix.
The next task, to design the use of the texts in a class, was shaping along with the
process of the selection of texts. In spite of the fact that teaching literature is not the aim
of the English teacher’s study, it may be useful to know how to work with literary texts.
Although there are various books on teaching literature in the library of Faculty of
Education, I did not find suitable any of them for the purpose of the present work. The
book that did inspire a part of my ideas was Richard W. Beach and James D. Marshall’s
Teaching Literature in the Secondary School, that was aimed for American students.The
book was clearly organized in chapters dealing with different literary forms and
suggested approaches to them. In addition, special chapters on authors of different ethnic
groups or on selecting texts were included, too.
In consequence to the lack of specific didactic materials on African American
literature, I had to create them on my own. The purpose of the present work was to teach
thinking, tolerance and empathy by the means of African American literature. The
majority of the exercises is therefore based on the open-ended questions that should
excite students’ thinking. The following discussion then leads to the development of
communicative competence, for students are asked to explain themselves, weigh
arguments and listen to the ideas of other classmates. Besides, the discussion should lead
 80

to student’s self confidence to express and stand for their opinions. On the other hand,
this way of teaching is very demanding for teachers. They have to be well prepared and
able to feel the point where discussion loses its purpose and turns to mess. Teachers’ aid
can be Penny Ur’s book, Discussions that work : task-centred fluency practice. Teachers
may also wish to use some additional activities to support tolerance and respect for the
ideas of other people, which is highly desirable.
The present work is flexible and does not offer concrete lesson plans. However,
most of the topics should be discussed in one or more units of 90 minutes, yet the final
time management and the final choice of texts is on the teacher.

The questionnaire I distributed to the students of third and fourth years affirmed my
assumptions. A similar questionnaire could be handed out to students at the beginning of
each school year and the answers would serve as a feedback. The teacher would be able
to compare easily whether the number of readers increased or lowered, whether more
students are willing to work with poetry, whether the topics and the language level of
texts had been selected appropriately.

Here is the final summary of discussed writers, topics and relevant literary forms.

Writer Topic Form

Langston Hughes dreams, cultural predetermination poem, essay
Martin Luther King dreams, civil rights, segregation speech
Amiri Baraka sounds, musicality poems
June Jordan tolerance, sexuality, freedom essay
Toni Morrison diversity within a community novel
Yusef Komunyakaa segregation, Vietnam War poems
Walter Mosley black man’s life in the 1960s detective story
Gloria Naylor power of relationships, tolerance novel
Rita Dove home, parental love poems
 81

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