African Americans During The Civil War - 1155 Words

African Americans were kept out of the loop of American society. The constant struggles for whatever advantages they could gain. African Americans were the main source of labor; back then black children are forced to work rather than go to school and be educated reading was even forbidden. African Americans have for the most part lost whatever Socially, politically, economically situation they had as a result of Reconstruction very brutally and systematically. African Americans did not attempt to assert themselves in any way, whether it was voting, whether it was trying to buy land, the white South resorted to terrorism. And that terrorism which was a legacy that never stopped from the time of the Civil War all the way up through this†¦show more content†¦(Conroy, Mary James, Claude McKay) His human pity was the foundation that made all this possible McKay also wrote on a variety of subjects, from his Jamaican homeland to romantic love, with a use of passionate language. If we must die-let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, while round us bark the mad hungry dogs (MacKay) 1-2 who wants to die losing a battle with no pride most of all without dignity but if we must go we may as well go down fighting and be honored with dignity afterwards instead of losing everything and be forgotten without a purpose give them something to talk about remember us by. They must die. No choice about it; no question about it The attackers harass in a humiliating way, almost celebrating their dominance over their victims. The poem uses quatrains iambic pentameter in majority of the poem. It seems to be conditional to begin each sentence in the octave There is an extended simile where African Americans are being compared to hogs He calls on them to fight back even though they have no chance of winning. The attackers harass in a humiliating way, almost celebrating their dominance over their victims. Mocking is making fun of someone, except there is no fun in mocking (MacKay) 4 The poem uses this simile to show how the brutality and un-human nature of the attacks on African Americans were. McKay shows how he doesn t want to end up beaten and battered like a wild animal no one