African American Culture In The 1920's

Despite this, women were able to make a huge impact on America through social reforms. Many young women went against the beliefs of their parents. Prior to the Roaring Twenties, America was in a Victorian era. Women wore dresses that were floor-length, their hair was long and premarital sex was almost non-existent. During the 1920’s however, some women became what are known as “flappers”.

Joshua Zeitz, an American author and historian writes about, the contemporary woman modernizing the new decade of the twenties. Flappers were the epitome of the twenties, the pushers against social norms, and the young rambunctious women who changed the meaning of what meant to be a woman. Zeitz includes quotes from the inventor of the flapper, F.Scott Fitzgerald “‘The flapper is growing stronger than ever; she gets wilder all the time ... She is continuously seeking for something due to increased her store of experience. She still is looking for new conventions to break -for a new thrills, for sensations to add zest to life, and she is growing more and more terrible’”, (Zeitz 7).

Agustin Banuelos Hist 313 Prof. Diana Reed December 6, 2015 Word Count: African-Americans in the South (1910’s - 1920’s) America in the 1920’s was not as friendly and diverse as it is today. Many ethnic groups were discriminated against and hated by the general populace. A group that is a great example of just how much America has changed in its short span of two-hundred-and-thirty-nine years.

African Americans were able to work for their own money now and gain confidence while living in America. They began to publish newspapers which increased the awareness of racial violence and express their freedom from restraint through art (O’Neill). This “negro fad” in the United States influenced art and drama that focused on the depiction of an African American in the 1920’s. African Americans were revolutionizing the way they were perceived in the U.S.. They gained confidence and made efforts to achieve their ultimate goal,

In the early 1900’s America as a country was going through a reconstruction as they just overcame a four year battle that split the country into free and slave states. . Race played a big factor in this reconstruction, because before the civil war wealthy whites were able to own slaves. Slaves were supposed to gain their full freedom after the civil war, but they never really gained it. Many opportunities opened for Americans, and as the country became one again.

Recognizable for looser moral behavior, the flapper wore revealing clothing desiring a body type focused on androgyny and cut her hair into a short style framing the face. Typically found in urban areas and practiced by “young, single women,” the flapper forcibly distorted the divisions “between working class and middle class femininity,” yet this was not a purposeful social cause such as what led to the passage of the 19th Amendment. Concerned mostly with individual actions and rebellions, the flapper stayed “oblivious to the problems” of the 1920 and was not a “political identity” at all but rather a youth movement that did not include or consider the feminists of the previous decade that pushed for female suffrage; in fact not equate their “femininity with gender equality” in American society. As the Great Depression hit, however, the behavior of men and women changed drastically. This economic downturn led to a return to traditional forms of femininity with the safety of marriage, and though criticized under the eyes of “revolutionaries,” remained the unshakeable basis for American society until the 1960s.

After the Civil War, African Americans were free from slavery. The Reconstruction era that followed the war helped to piece the fragmented America back together into one unified country. While this period assisted in the bonding of the North and South, the newly freed slaves did not receive enough protection or help from the government to get them on their feet after essentially starting a new life with literally nothing to their name. Due to the negligence of the U.S. government, the white supremacist south created a series of loopholes known as Jim Crow Laws that severely limited the rights that had been given to African Americans. This racial segregation and discrimination of African Americans continued for decades until they began

It was the early twentieth 100 , and the world had already changed trehands dously compared to the world of their parents and grandparents. Slavery had ended in United States more than half a century earlier. While African American English still faced tremendous economic and social obstacle in both the northern and southern DoS , there were more chance than there had been. After the Civil War (and first slightly before, especially in the Union ), Department of Education for Negroid American English -- and total darkness and white char -- had become more common . Many were not able to attend or complete schooltime time , but a substantial few were able not only to attend and complete elementary or secondary winding school, but college .

At the turn of the century, blacks have been free for some time and in order for their advancement to freedom to occur they must be able to have a say not only in politics but the economy as well. In order for blacks to succeed in the time of the early 1900's they must stay in the south in order to take control of it. Blacks have the power to control the economy in the south because they are the only ones willing to do the labor. This is why I believe the idea of blacks moving to the north is not what is best for the blacks of the 1900's. This not to say that there are several opportunities for blacks in the north but for people who have done nothing but labor, the south is all that they know.

In the 1930’s, education differed greatly from today’s education system in terms of segregated schools, the Brown v. Board of Education case, and women’s rights. Segregated schools between African Americans and whites affected the education system as a whole. In the South, African American students saw, interacted, and experienced only with African Americans. Common in the South, segregation in schools prevented Africans Americans from socializing with white children. The residential segregation,

Malcolm X, born Malcolm little became the great man he is known as today because all of odds were stacked against him. From losing his father, to growing up with both racism and the great depression at the same time and lastly going to jail. But due to these struggles he also accomplished being named the minister of 3 different mosques and was the reason Cassius Clay also known as Muhammed Ali to islam and lastly Is known as one of the most influential persons to ever live. If there was any man who demonstrated the anger, and the beliefs of African Americans in the 1960s, it was Malcolm X. The African American cultural movement of the 1920s lost its momentum in the 1930s because of worldwide economic depression.

America experienced a sudden disregard of Victorian values following World War I, causing the generation of the 1920s to dramatically contrast the previous. This severe degree of change produced three major manifestations of the contradictions in the twenties. There were massive conflicts to the Jazz Age, technological advancements, and Black Migration. The contradictions of the 1920s reflect America’s conflicted state between advancement and convention, as the cultural and technological developments of the era coincide with the inability of individuals to stray from traditional norms and racist attitudes.

Since early ages, mothers have always criticized the ways their daughters acted. In the 1920s criticisms were taken a step further by the flappers, who completely revolutionized the view on females. Flappers in the 1920s had an impact on women for the future. Who they were, what they wore, and what their morals were was how their impacts changed the future for all the females. “The term "flapper" originated in the 1920s and refers to the fashion trend for unfastened rubber galoshes that "flapped" when walking, an attribution reinforced by the image of the free-wheeling flapper in popular culture.”

The 1920s carried much change in society. Some of these changes were more rights for women, jazz music, and prohibition. The people of the 1920s were disillusioned by society lacking in idealism and vision, sense of personal alienation, and Americans were obsessed with materialism and outmoded moral values (The Roaring Twenties).Cultural changes were strongly influenced by the destruction of World War I ending 1918. America needed to recover and with it youth rebelled against the norms of the older generations.

In the 1950s there were several laws that kept African American people separated from White Americans. African Americans were not allowed to do anything with White Americans or even be close to them. The White Americans were so harsh toward them that they established laws that said that African Americans could not vote, could not enter the same building of White Americans, they was not even allowed to drink out of the same water fountain. The people of the South were very strict to their beliefs and laws and if any African American was caught breaking any of the laws they were punished and sometimes killed. Some African Americans that were not familiar with the dangers of the south were few of the unfortunate ones to lose their life.