Eng 301 - African American Literature

African American Literature

JamieLyn Thompson

ENG 301

December 14, 2015

African American Literature

African American literature always the author to express their personal experiences and views of their ethnicity to the reader. There have been many trials and tribulations of the African Americans, and each poem, and story either fiction or non-fiction is a great way to learn about them. The literature expresses different moments of African American history, hardships and horrible events. However, some African American pieces of literature the authors talked about how their life was blessed and had some caring white slaves. I will be discussing the many views within the readings of different time periods.

The three pieces of literature that give the reader a look into the hardships of slavery and discrimination of African Americans are “My White Folks Treated us Good” by Marriah Hines, “To my old Master” by Jourdan Anderson, and “If we must die” by Claude McKay.  When the author writes about their experiences, it allows the reader to see the trials and tribulations through the writer’s eyes as if they were going through it themselves. Many of these pieces were written about a time when African Americans were slaves and were discriminated because of the color of their skin.

“White Folks Treated Us Good”

The first piece of African American literature is “White Folks Treated Us Good,” by Marriah Hines, the author talks about what it was like to be a slave for the white folks. Hines expresses that her life was very good, it was so good that when the slavery ended, she stayed working with her master. This was a time when all African Americans were free, and they no longer could be owned by the white man. By Hines staying with her master it shows that though slavery was wrong, she was treated with respect, never raped or beaten as many other slaves had been. Hines expressed that her Master was a good Christian man who prayed for his slaves and had prayer meetings on every Wednesday night.

The slaves were able to go about their day without anyone watching over them, and the master would come down to the fields and smile and joke with the slaves. This white master’s religion played a large role in the way he treated his slaves and the reason the slaves felt safe there. About a year before slavery was abolished the Master became very sick, and the slaves took extra care of him, and he made it through to live a few more years. When the slaves had freedom, many remained as Hines did to stay with the good Christian Master would treat them with such respect and seen as family.

“To my old Master”

The second piece of African Literature is “To my old Master,” by Jourdan Anderson. This is a piece of literature that gives the message of how badly White Americans treated the African American people. This piece is in a form of a letter; he is responding to a letter that he had received from his old Master. As Anderson is writing this letter, he continues to bring up just how badly he was treated while he was working for that Master and declines on the Masters offer of returning to work for him. He states that he was shot twice by the Master. He explains just how well off he is working in the Nashville Hospital and how well his children are doing in school.