APEngLangper711-12

This lesson brings up an interesting point. While Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. seemingly were polar opposites, they also shared common goals. Malcolm also became less violently opposed to whites after his trip to Mecca, more in line with MLK's views

"He accomplishes this by always remaining a man who. He refuses to be put into attributive categories, but subordinates the attributes to himself. He does not say, "I am a Negro, a writer, an American." He says, "I am a man who is a Negro, a writer, an American."

This source provides details on Ralph Ellison's background, and how he uses the writing style of making traits secondary instead of claiming them, which enhances his writing and makes it less self centered.

"A person of considerable affectation, he can manage even in striped trousers and a swallow-tail coat topped by an ascot tie to make himself look humble"

This entry is in Novels for Students, and provides details like themes and character development. This gives the reader another look at Bledsoe.

This graduate school thesis illustrates the racial tensions present in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s. The NAACP was just rising to prominence, and many white people considered the black people in Harlem to be "uppity" and presumptuous because the whites considered the blacks to be unable to produce anything of value to society, yet the Harlem Renaissance produced music, literature, and other works of art in spite of such preconceived notions.

· 2,100 entries from 1493 to the present. · Speeches, essays, biographies, landmark court decisions, editorials, and more that bring history to life. · Noted contributors that include Madeleine Albright, Henry Ford, John Hancock, Malcolm X, and Edgar Allan Poe. · Photos and multimedia that engage students.

William Harper wrote this passage about the morality of slavery in the 1930s. 70 years after the abolishment of slavery and in the period where IM starts college, the were still radicals who believed that African Americans were so inferioir that they deserved to be enslaved. In his article, Harper brings up the point that it is a part of human nature for the superior to conquer the inferior.

I live like a man who's already dead," Malcolm X said last Thursday in a two-hour interview in the Harlem office of his Organization for Afro-American Unity. "I'm a marked man," he said slowly as he fingered the horn-rimmed glasses he wore and leaned forward to give emphasis to his words.

This is a picture and a copy of the text of the article written in the New York Times about Malcolm X's assassination. It contains interesting quotes in which Malcolm knows he will soon be killed.

In this interview, Malcolm X essentially renounces the absolute separatism he used to subscribe to when he announces that people both white and black are equal as and can cooperate as human beings.

Naivety is a lifelong struggle. Like IM, trust in the logical, loyal solution in accordance with the system is a major mistake that costs him much of his pride, integrity and identity. Despite the countless number of clues that hint people of their naivety and unwillingness to embrace more radical views, they refuse to see, and eventually learn their lesson, the hard way. This, too, is the struggle with the current system society dwells in. 

"In 2000, in the Middle Atlantic and East North Central regions, black families' median income was especially low relative to that of whites." In IM, a running truth that kept IM going was that "white men only allowed black people to go as far as the whites wish it to be." In this 2000 statistic, we can see that this is still happening, that even though there is parity between whites and blacks in terms of graduation rates, the median incomes, the lifestyles of millions of blacks living in the North East Central region of the country were significantly less than of their white counterparts. We were also introduced to the whole concept that racism seemed to be a distant issue when IM finds his way up north, but instead, he eventually realizes that the north was waging a secret racism war on itself, where the racism was in truth, more intense than it was in the more modest, and "well-mannered' south.

The invisible man was important to the time period because Ellison challenged the way that African AMericans were typically characterized. When Ellison wrote Invisible Man, ther were few other novels that proposed the idea the black people were suffering from their lack of civil rights. He was ahead of his time.

· 2,100 entries from 1493 to the present. · Speeches, essays, biographies, landmark court decisions, editorials, and more that bring history to life. · Noted contributors that include Madeleine Albright, Henry Ford, John Hancock, Malcolm X, and Edgar Allan Poe. · Photos and multimedia that engage students.

President Truman's speech is actually in favor of eliminating discrimination in the 1960s. It shows that there are positive efforts from the white man's perspective. IM is sometimes too cynical with his outlook of Caucasions.

"He is aided by a surprisingly good library in jail, of which Malcolm X takes full advantage. As well, he takes correspondence courses in a variety of subjects-even Latin"

This site provides detailed descriptions of characters and themes from Malcolm X. This is from the self discovery through education theme.

This article provides a comparison of Malcolm X to other civil rights orators like Dr. King. Malcolm is relatively unique in the sense that he promotes violence for the use of the African American cause. He justifies violence as self-defense.

"Ultimately, the lack of civil disobedience in Invisible Man follows the lack of recognition and the legal invisibility of African Americans in the United States of the 1930's"

This source criticizes IM for his lack of action. It claims that his lack of disobedience and blindness to his situation ultimately parallels that of many African Americans in the early 1900's, explaining why their oppression was allowed to go on.

Talks about t he major morals and ideas that Malcolm preached and what his organization stood for, including economic self-sufficiency and racial pride, giving the reader a gooid idea of where Malcolm stood on these ideas.

Gives a brief history of Malcolms life and his journey to becoming one of tbhe leading black speakers of his generation. Though what seperates this from other articles is that it talks alot about other important black leaders opinions on him.

"Distraught when a personal rift between him and Elijah Muhammad-over Muhammad's alleged extramarital affairs, as well as their growing political differences-led to his ouster and silencing"

This provides a detailed overview of the novel, focusing in this section on his falling out with Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm is devastated by this new knowledge and it shows an accurate depiction of how he changed his life when he traveled to Mecca.

"Ellison's evolving political views had a deep impact on his continual re-envisioning of that novel's structure and content."

This article is a biography on Ralph Ellison which explains the time from his birth to his death. The article provides additional insight into Ellison's life and his early life ambitions. This article expresses how the events of Ellison's life and political views provide insight to the authorial purpose of the novel which is to bring the reader to the realization of their own oppressive behavior and hopefully change.