Becoming African Americans, 1919-1939
By: Clare Corbould.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 278
ISBN-13: 9780674032620
Subjects: African Americans -- History -- 1877-1964; African Americans -- Race identity; African Americans -- Social conditions -- 20th century; African diaspora
Description: "In 2000, the United States census allowed respondents for the first time to tick a box marked "African American" in the race category. The new option marked official recognition of a term that had been gaining currency for some decades. Africa has always played a role in black identity, but it was in the tumultuous period between the two world wars that black Americans first began to embrace a modern African American identity." "Following the great migration of black southerners to northern cities after World War I, the search for roots and for meaningful affiliations became subjects of debate and display in a growing black public sphere. Throwing off the legacy of slavery and segregation, black intellectuals, activists, and organizations sought a prouder past in ancient Egypt and forged links to contemporary Africa. In plays, pageants, dance, music, film, literature, and the visual arts, they aimed to give stature and solidity to the American black community through a new awareness of the African past and the international black world. Their consciousness of a dual identity anticipated the hyphenated identities of new immigrants in the years after World War II, and an emerging sense of what it means to be a modern American."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Africa the motherland; title: Discovering a usable African past; title: Institutionalizing Africa, past and present; title: The artistic capital of Africa; title: "That land of freedom" : Haiti, primitivism, and Black American identity; title: Ethiopia ahoy!; title: Conclusion : what's in a name?.