The Significance of African American Lit. in the 21st century

It is my perfect hope, that African American literature will continue to have an impact on the masses in the 21st century. But, unfortunately, it is my experience (in the 20th century) that African American literature is not experienced enough by people to have a mass impact on the population.

Especially (although this is changing) when schools are still teaching the “classics”, most people do not have an opportunity to learn about African American literature. At least in my experience, most teachers donate a week or so to literature from different cultures. Or they donate one week fully (usually in February) to studying African American literature. It is in this week that I was briefly exposed to Hughes and Frederic Douglas. But that is the extent of my exposure to African American literature. After all, my teachers had to donate the chunk of their time to great novels such as The Scarlet Letter, in order to fully educate us (that is sarcasm).

Basically, it is my hope that African American literature has an even greater impact on the masses in the 21st century than it did on the 20th century. Anyone who reads African American literature is impacted by it. They are impacted by the honesty, the words, and the reality behind the story, regardless of whether it is fact or fiction… it all stems from truth. Thus, I believe that African American literature may have a huge impact on the 21st century, if it is taught in schools. And not just taught in a week, but is taught the same way any other classic would be taught. Students need to understand how our past as a slave nation, still greatly affects us today. And I believe the best way of teaching students about the impact of slavery is through literature. Thus, this type of lesson can don’t be accomplished through Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but can be done by studying the African American Classics.