African American Identity
Let's take a glimpse of what it means to have an "American Voice" as an African American. It's important to understand how African Americans have defined themselves based on the comparative experiences they have had with other Americans. Being separated from Africa and becoming a slave meant there was no important person to which he/she could turn except the slave-master. Under the American form of slavery the family did not function according to traditional modes. The biological father was denied his position as head of the family. The only provider for the slave was the master, the master being the source of all opportunity and consequence. From birth the slave was in a dependent relationship and faced grave consequences if ever he attempted to alter his situation. Therefore the slave had to accept his status as subservient. Protest under slavery was also less possible because the slave had no institutional foundation on which to build. Blacks were voiceless under the institution of slavery. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in 1865; the 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, affirmed black citizenship under the constitution and in 1870, the 15th Amendment guaranteed blacks the right to vote.
In this poem Langston Hughes speaks of this voiceless people in this distant unresponsive, subdued land called America. The voices of power sing at a snail's pace; progress for African Americans is at a stalemate. Students can relate to the voices of Langston Hughes as he exclaims, "Afro American Fragments": "So long, so far away is Africa's Dark Face." I do not understand this song of atavistic land."4
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