The poem, A Creation Myth For African American Literature was written in
order to inspire a new train of thought in the minds of American citizens regarding the
origin of African American literature. This poem would probably be read in a setting like
a community center, a church, or some type of organized function that is outside of
school. I enjoy my use of oral tradition to denote the origin of the genre my was research was about. In my paper, I think I could have explained the symbolism I used in my poem.

Nia Griffin

Dr. Laura Buchholz

ENGL 327W

7 December 2018

ReMix Assignment

During this assignment, I will be targeting individuals outside of the world of academia. The poem, A Creation Myth For African American Literature was written in order to inspire a new train of thought in the minds of American citizens regarding the origin of African American literature. This poem would probably be read in a setting like a community center, a church, or some type of organized function that is outside of school.  During my research, I discovered the most American citizen have not true concept of African American literature or African American history. Even though the month of February is dedicated to Black history, the information is now being lost in commercialism. Black history easily gets overlooked because most people feel “forced” to learn about another culture instead of obtaining the research for themselves. Knowledge is a power used to enlighten and to empower an individual. Education has shown us time and time again that it can succeed in breaking old cycles of poverty, chains of discrimination, and limited opportunities for some of society’s most maligned and marginalized groups. But as exciting as this belief in education as a great equalizer is, it’s very often fleeting, just like magic. However, knowledge can also be mention of containment, only allowing limited access into a world that is far broader than what is displayed. In the American school system, students are hardly learning facts about African American history as well as African American literature. Instead of AAH and AAL being apart of the main curriculum, it is a small bullet point in a larger cannon. This is an injustice due to the fact that African Americans are the backbone of this nation. African slaves built this nation, along with other minority groups, and still all the achievements of the African Americans are still under appreciate and easily overlooked.

African American literature has been a legitimate part of the literary canon since 1970s. It is an expression of human experience within the larger American society through a ‘Black’ lens. The literature was born almost prematurely, gaining growth and then enduring stagnancy through the 1700s to the late 1960s. The genre itself existed born Africans were slaves. Africans had their own oral traditions, practices, and customs that they utilized for different aspects of life. Africans would also incorporate drum and dance to their story telling to add other elements to the stories. This would allow the listeners/watchers to understand the moral that was being taught and the history of who was sharing it. After the Mid-Atlantic slave trade, everything culturally shifted for Africans. Africans from different regions were forced to come together. Many of the slaves did not speak the same language, and therefore their stories had already begun to be lost in transition. Along with that, the colonizers did not allow slaves to speak their own languages or practice their traditions without serious consequences. Depending on which slave port or area in Americans they were brought to, some slaves were enduring harsher treatment than others. Colonizers on the southern East coast were primarily Protestant English settlers whose Christian principles were confiding and condemning. In the Deep South and the Caribbean, the regional lands were more condensed and packed with slaves. The Spanish, French, and Portuguese were Catholic so the slaves were able to hide their indigenous Gods within the saints, and were encouraged to do so by the colonizers themselves.

Slaves continued to assimilate into American society as best they could. Stripped of their oral tradition, Slaves learned how to read and write through various means giving way to authors like Phyllis Wheatley and Fredrick Douglas. After the abolishment of slavery, more writers began to emerge in the 1900s-1920s and the created a new spark of culture within the American society. There was a halt of achievement for the genre during World War II. Then during the 1950s through the late 1960s, there was uproar of protest and pro-Black literature that began to reemerge in America’s mainstream. As the 1970s progressed, African American literature was legitimized. It was recognized as an official aspect of America’s literary canon. From this point, African American literature was simply placed within the educational structure as means for it slowly blend and disappear.

In the 2010s that we are currently living in, it seems that African Americans have lost sight of their own culture. We seem to have less value in ourselves as a people, which then led to being respected less in the academic arena. Most Americans today feel like they have a basis concept of African American history and simply do not. Therefore, there is no way they could possess true concept of African American literature.