The close reading I chose to focus on was The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual by Harold Cruse. My thesis is that education was the key to the economic advancement of African Americans, not the creative sphere that was prominent during the Harlem Renaissance. Also, this educated New Negro in one who creates for creates a system where others can follow in its footsteps or improve on the existing business. The ability of the New Negro to give back to the African Community is what makes them a New Negro. This book talks about the conflicts that African Americans had to go through in terms of central idea themes during the Harlem Renaissance. The main argument was that since blacks did not control their economic sphere in Harlem , they were not strong in terms of economic control to white counterparts. This is a great addition to my Use of Booker T. Washington because his main goal was for blacks to gain control of the production and become experts at their trade through trade schools to be useful in society. This was, however, combated by W.E.B. Du Bois in the fact that education was a way for blacks to thrive in all fields of human endeavor and not just rely on white patronage for support (40-42). With an education, Du Bois believed that one could create for themselves a foundation for which they could help other people. Cruise brings up prominent players on black businesses as well as white business to show that Harlem was not a predominantly black owned. In my essay, since I am using Chicago as the economic center of black wealth, this argument proves useful because it provides a counter argument that Chicago Harlem was more suited to be a cultural center rather than an economic center and that this cultural center is the key to uplifting the identity of African Americans in a time where they were given limited resources and denied access to certain institutions (13-16). Cruse is the segway that brings my argument together.
I agree education is the key to the economic advancement of African Americans. Dr. King once said, “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.” This statement captures the purpose and goal of education, I heard education defined as, “The largest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual. In its technical sense, education is the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another.” It is our responsibility to use the gift of education become fruitful in not only our personal lives, but to empower others to realize and materialize their talents.
ReplyDeleteI am also doing a paper that uses Chicago as the city of focus. I have been looking into newspapers and how the wide distribution at the beginning of the 20th century had an effect on literacy. I think education is so important to look at and dissect in terms of the New Negro and showing how important that was to the New Negro identity.
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