FREE ESSAY ON AFRICAN AMERICANS UNNOTICED

AFRICAN AMERICANS UNNOTICED

For too many years, African Americans have lived without knowing the people who have
influenced their way of life. We walk around without taking the time to appreciate the
people that have allowed us to go to these black colleges and universities, or the
African Americans that have dedicated life their to make life better for all mankind as
well as blacks.
Women as well men have gone out of their way to make life better for their future. We
know that women have influenced life from the beginning of time whether the role of the
women is a mother, wife, doctor, or educator. But women have not always been able to
advance in society, as men have been able to. As a black women I am proud to hear of
women such as Lucy Laney, who she dedicated her life to get funding for black Georgia
schools. She believed that women are better teachers than men and that an educated Negro
woman is what is needed to teach students of all ages. Annie Julia Cooper was an active
participant in the women's organizations in the 1980s. She believed that higher education
of the black woman was too rare and did what she could so that young women like me can
attend college. Fannie Barrier Williams realized that racism was a major problem, but
also realized that sexism was an even greater problem in equality. For, as she said, to
be a colored woman is to be discredited, mistrusted and often meanly hated. Through times
of strife and stress she worked, sometimes successfully, to eliminate discrimination
against black women.
Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr.,
and Stokely Carmicheal; these names when said are ones to which black people respond to,
because all of these men improved social conditions for African Americans. All were part
of large organized mass movement in black history. Each on of these men played a
different part in influencing black America. Washington was skilled at politics. He was
powerful and influential in both the black and white communities, Washington was a
confidential advisor to presidents. DuBois was a public speaker who noted how America
tactically sidestepped the issues of color, and how his approach of educate and agitate
appeared to fall on deaf ears. Marcus Garvey drawing on a gift for oratory, he created
Garveyism eventually evolved into a religion of success, inspiring millions of black
people worldwide who sought relief from racism and colonialism. Malcolm X and Martin
LUTHER King Jr. spoke for equal rights. With Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have A Dream
speech, which inspired people all over the nation, and Malcolm X's autobigraphy The
Autobiography of Malcolm X, people lives were changed significantly. Which in turn has
affected my life. And Stokey Carmicheal who was one of the most charismatic figures of
the Black Movement who populated the term Black Power.