What Is African American Civil Rights Movement Literature?

We know that the civil rights movement was a time of intense change in many arenas of life. The literature of the era is so important because it helps to explain the actions and feelings of the time and connect people today with the past.

When we are studying the literature of the African-American civil rights movement, we should really put our focus on the writers of this literature. The writers are the ones who created this movement, and there are several key figures that helped to truly define the era in terms of the written word including:

• Maya Angelou
• Toni Morrison
• John Edgar Wideman
• Jamaica Kinkaid

Exploring a few of these authors will give us a wide scope of the literature of the civil rights movement.

Maya Angelou

Many people know of the the beautiful, yet heartbreaking, work of Maya Angelou entitled I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In her lines, she brings forth the pain of being entrapped and watching the world go on around you, while feeling that there is little to no hope of escape.

She wrote a number of other pieces of literature throughout her life including A Song Flung Up to Heaven and "On the Pulse of Morning." In 1981, she was given a lifetime position of Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.

Toni Morrison

Another author that most people learn about in their lives is Toni Morrison. Her first novel came out in 1970. Entitled The Bluest Eye, her story was about a black girl whose life was completely ruined and destroyed by the racism that was bred around her. She is most known for her works of fiction which also include Jazz, Tar Baby, Sula, and Love. Morrison was also extremely well known for her essays, and in 1993, she became the first African-American to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

John Edgar Wideman

John Wideman based at least some parts of his major work The Homewood Trilogy on his personal experience of growing up in a black middle class section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the second black American to win a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University. He has taught at several different universities throughout his life including Brown University and has written a number of other successful novels.

Jamaica Kinkaid

This woman was known as both a West Indian and an American writer. She came to the United States at the age of 16 years old and became a United States citizen afterwards. In 1973, she started working as a staff member of the New Yorker. She wrote most of her novels in the 1980s and onward.

You might think that she does not belong in this category since this was after the civil rights movement. However, remember that fights for civil rights are still going on today, and she is still able to present the struggles of that era. Some of her famed works include Lucy, The Autobiography of My Mother, A Small Place, and Mr. Potter.

Considerations on Civil Right Movement Literature

We have reviewed some major authors and major works of the African-American civil rights movement, but there are many other literary pieces.

When we consider literature of a certain historical period, especially when it acts as an artistic form to express the agony and eventual freedom of an age, we must remember that there are writers out there who we will never know. Every child who wrote a poem about the oppression he felt and every person who wrote a letter to her local government to express anger and pain at the injustices should be considered a great writer of the era as well.