Crossing the color line in American politics and African American literature

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2009 in the subject Didactics - English - History of Literature, Eras, University of Freiburg, language: English, abstract: My work will deal with some new and interesting subjects all united by a common thread: the color line. In the prologue I will dedicate a chapter to the importance of the Vernacular tradition, in particular the spirituals in African American history, from a linguistic point of view, then I will proceed with a historical part dedicated to a political background still to many unknown. In the first part of my work I will deal with the novel ¿The House Behind the Cedars¿ by Charles W. Chesnutt¿ within the context of a Jim Crow America. I will add a summary and a comment on the work, pointing out all those features directed to my thread ¿crossing the color line¿. Then I will follow my thread by introducing the Harlem Renaissance through two of its main founders, Alain Locke and W.E.B. Dubois. The third part will be dedicated to ¿ Invisible Man¿ by Ralph Ellison within the historical discrimination context up to the Civil Rights movement. The last part will deal with Obamäs autobiography and election, using some interviews taken from Time.com and recent issues of international magazines. I will try to prove in all parts of my work that if a crossing the color line was and still is in some periods of U.S. history more or less possible, it is still not possible to ignore all racial divisions. ¿Obamäs victory will not heal all differences, but has proved it can mobilize black and white Americans alike¿. The African Slaves who provided most of the labor that built the White House never imagined that a black man would ever own embossed stationery that reads 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Even the dreamer himself, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., would not have imagined that 40 short years after his assassination, America would be planning an Inauguration of the first man of African descent to ascend to its presidency. No minority of any ethnicity had ever looked beyond the scarce representation of a few Senators and seen anything that suggested that the doorknob of the Oval Office could be opened by anything other than the hand of a middle-aged white male¿. According to T.D. Jakes, a writer and pastor at the Potter`s House church in Texas and producer of an upcoming film Not Easily Broken ¿the current economic crisis demands that the Obama Administration move past the pettiness of race matters with the haste of a paramedic driving an ambulance.