P1+Shawn+T,+Mike+M,+Joseph+V,+Cody+D

1. Richard Wright

Research by Shawn Taylor Biography – Richard Wright was born on a plantation in Mississippi on September 4 1908 (Duffus). His father was a sharecropper and his mother was a schoolteacher (Duffus). His family moved a bit due to poverty (Duffus). His father left the family for another woman and that led to his mother’s new job as a cook to keep supporting the family (Duffus). Wright discovered new books while attending schools in Jackson Mississippi and Memphis Tennessee (Duffus). He became a post office clerk until the Great Depression (Duffus). He got involved with the Communist Party during this time and wrote for a few Communist papers (Duffus). He moved to New York where he eventually received a Guggenheim Fellowship, which allowed him to write his first book Native Son (Duffus). He married two white women, the first was a dancer and the next was a member of the Communist Party (Duffus). He had two daughters with the second wife, named Julia and Rachel (Duffus). In 1944 he stopped following Communism but kept his liberal ideologies (Duffus). He moved to Paris in 1946 and became friends with other writers such as Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre (Duffus). He wrote his second book The Outsiders while in Paris (Duffus). He eventually got his French citizenship (Duffus). After that he continued to travel the world (Duffus). In the last period of his life, he was diagnosed with aerobic dysentery (Duffus). He began to write again. He wrote about 4,000 English haikus and another novel, The Long Dream (Duffus). A collection of short stories was published after his death in 1960 (Duffus). He also wrote two autobiographies, Black Boy and American Hunger, the first before his death and about his youth and the other abut his experience with the Communist party, which was published after his death in 1977 (Duffus).

Duffus, Matthew. //Richard Wright//. Mississippi Writers Page, 1999. Web. 4 Jan. 2010.

2. Segregation

Researched by Shawn Taylor Definition – The separation of different racial groups in daily life, such as: eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a washroom, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home (Wikipedia). This definition means that the different groups are being held apart due to some sort of dislike for one another. The race with the most power usually has made some sort of law to dictate the other group’s behavior. This is like how the whites made the blacks use different facilities during the and before the Civil Rights Movement. This separation can lead to violence between the groups. It can also lead to power struggles or massive uprisings. This usually happens after the lower group is fed up with being the lower group. This leads to ideas of equality or even betterment.

United States. Wikipedia. //Racial Segregation//. Wikimedia. Web. 4 Jan. 2010.

3. Jim Crow Laws

Research by Shawn Taylor Jim Crow Laws were anti-black laws (Pilgrim). These laws were set in place around 1877 and continued until the mid 1960s (Pilgrim). Jim Crow laws were designed to keep black people out of the sight of the white community. These laws made it so blacks had to use different restrooms, restaurants, water fountains, and movie theaters. The Jim Crow system was rationalized by the belief that the white race was superior in all ways to the black race (Pilgrim). Jim Crow did not stop at laws. Jim Crow was also instituted in etiquette as well. Blacks were never to offer to shake hands with whites, never eat with white people, not show affection to each other, and they never had surnames such as Mr. or Mrs.

Pilgrim, David. //What was Jim Crow?// Ferris State University, 2000. Web. 8 Jan. 2009.

4. New Deal Programs that benefited whites over blacks Michael McDonough There were many programs in the New Deal that favored blacks over whites very openly. The NRA gave white people chances for jobs before black people. They also paid blacks less. The Federal Housing Authority only gave mortgages to blacks that lived in all black neighborhoods. They promoted segregation and did not hide it. The social security act excluded jobs that were well known to be filled by blacks. Mintz, S. "African Americans and the New Deal." //Digital History//. 2007. Web. 11 Jan. 2010. . 5. The Scottsboro Trials Michael McDonough The Scottsboro Trials were a series of trials in which 9 black teenagers were charged with raping 2 white teenage girls in April, 1931. The charges turned out to be completely false and based on nothing. The kids were almost lynched. The trial carried on for a long time, even though it was wrong, because of racism. "The Trials of The Scottsboro Boys." //UMKC School of Law//. Web. 11 Jan. 2010. . 6. Harlem during the Great Depression Michael McDonough The Great Depression affected Harlem worse than any other part of New York City. Black unemployment skyrocketed during this time. This was the period of time in which Harlem became wholly segregated. This all happened right after the Harlem Renaissance, so it was a complete change of mood for blacks from their previous optimism to pessimism. Greene, Larry A. "Academic Commons: Harlem in the Great Depression, 1928-1936." Web. 11 Jan. 2010. [].

7. Free Will Joseph Vanicek Definition- Free will is the power to make free choices without restrictions from external forces. Free will is a philosophical term in that it is the idea that people are able to choose a course of action from a selection of alternatives. Many Philosophers see free will as the freedom of choice, action, and will. Many different philosophers and cultures define free will differently. The common definition is the freedom humans have to make choices of their own without out external interference.

"Free Will" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web. 11 Jan. 2010.

8. Fatalism Joseph Vanicek Definition- The doctorin that everything happens for a reason and people have no control over their own destiny. Fatalism is the belief that your destiny is inevitable. Fatalism is the belief that no one has control over what happens to them and is based on fate. Events that can be predicted from knowledge of other events does not exclude fatalism, it still happens for a reason and cannot be avoided.

"Fatalism" Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 11 Jan. 2010.

9. Literary Naturalism Cody Davidson Definition: Literary naturalism was a movement in the late eighteen hundreds that tried to show how different conditions would shape character. It tried to create fictional story that would seam to emulate reality in extreme situations. Situations like racism, sex, poverty, filth, prejudice, prostitution and disease. These seamed to just blatantly describe problems in society and suffered in their time. Writers in this time period tried to show people would actually react instead of showing super natural icons and symbols. They believed that person’s social experiences shaped him and would effect how he made his latter choices. Stories written in this style also incorporated science and psychology in their works. Many writers studied people like animals for their stories.

"Naturalism In American Literature" Washington State University. Web. 11 Jan. 2010.

10. Marxism Cody Davidson The most basic form of socialism it believes that every one is entitled to what they work for but the capitalist system prevents that. Governments based on Marxism promised that everyone would be rewarded equally for advancement of society. One key belief is that the capitalist society creates alienation between societies. Another is that if all forms of classes were dissolved then there would be no contention in the world. Marxism depicts the capitalist society as the formation of nonowning workers and nonworking owners where the workers are suppressed for the benefit of the owners. Marxism is a theory seams like a good idea on paper but does not work in reality, as most society following a similar theme does not last long.

"Marxism" Encyclopedia Britannica. Web. 12 Jan. 2010.

11. Jean- Paul Sarte Cody Davidson Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was an existentialist and storywriter. His first major work was //Being And Nothingness.// Latter he wrote //Les Mains Sales// that described the problems with being a political activist and a novel writer at the same. He was a big activist of Communism. He opposed the Vietnam War and wanted to convict America for war crimes. He created a scientific defense for Marxism. After the Munich Massacre he defended the terrorist stating the very poor have no other options. He was an active communist and denied the Noble peace prize for Literature. All he wanted in life was for his work to be remembered. "Jean Paul Sarte" Stanford University. Web. 12 Jan. 2010. 