Highlights
- Realism: A faithful reproduction of reality
- Naturalism: A harsher treatment of that reality
- Modernism: A strong and intentional break with tradition
- Richard Wright (1908 - 1960) Ralph Ellison (1914 - 1994) James Baldwin (1924 - 1987) Gwendolyn Brooks (1917 - 2000) Lorraine Hansberry (1930 - 1965) Important Writers
- Richard Wright~American novelist, born in Roxie Miss. in 1908 Suffered from difficult home life, with breakup of parents and illness of mother Moved to Chicago in 1927 and worked in menial jobs Joined Communist party in 1932 Became a member of Federal Writers' Project from 1935 -1937
- 1945 wrote Black Boy- a harrowing autobiography of growing up in the South Richard Wright and Urban Realism
- Invisible Man Ralph Waldo Ellison achieved international fame with Invisible Man, written in 1952. According to its publisher.
- Richard Wright's Native Son novel set the tone for Urban Realism in the 1940's
- It was also the first novel that was critically-acclaimed and commercialized by an African-American.
- Ralph Ellison also did not appreciate being placed in the same category with Wright as a "protest writer".
- The Communist Party influenced a large number of African-American writers and the themes were shown in their literature.
- Most northern writers were inspired by events that damaged African-American people in the Jim Crow South.
- As America progressed, many White youth were inspired and supported the African-American Naturalism, Realism, and Modernism Movement.
- Initially in Ellison's career, he agreed with Native Son and supported it's meaning.
- Later in his career he looked down upon Wright's Native Son novel; he felt it didn't portray the black man accurately.
- Loraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” took the title of longest run drama on Broadway written by an African American from Langston Hughes’s play “Mulatto.” This play was also a milestone in the advancement of African American theater.
- WWII allowed African Americans in all parts of the county to make more money by taking advantage of all the war job opportunities.
- The decision to desegregate schools was also made by the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling of 1954.
- Social as well as political changes were being made among the African American community.
- All of the literature from this period allowed blacks and whites to see into each others lives, which played a role in the SLOW advancement of social acceptance in our country.