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[Cowboy13012]

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African American Experience
Harlem Renaissance Text Paper
April 2, 2006
Individuality within a race: can it exist and survive?

Black people during the time of the Harlem Renaissance, stood together to fight for civil rights. The Harlem Renaissance is a time where Black people started to come out with books, musical albums, etc. Black people gained respectability during this time because of their works. Two books of the many books that came out of the Harlem Renaissance were The Autobiography Of An Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson and There Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. These two books are example of people being Individuals. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary states that an individual is “a single human being as contrasted with a social group or institution” (http://www.m-w.com/). Some people believe that they are individuals. Some of those people have their own way of seeing that they are an individual. The Ex-Colored Man, in the book The Autobiography Of An Ex-Colored Man, and Janie Mae Crawford, in the book There Eyes Were Watching, shows that they are individuals from people in general and people within their own race.

The Ex-Colored Man is a mixed race man. He is black and white. He is around both races of people in his lifetime. The man shows that he is a individual in many ways. He shows this with his learning, the people he become friends with, and the ability to be in touch with his black side or white side at anytime he pleases. Janie Mae Crawford is a mixed race women. She is also black and white. She is around both races of people in her lifetime. When she is older, she is mostly around black people. She considers herself different from the other black females she encounters. She shows that she is an individual by dressing the way she pleases, choosing the men she wants to be with, and not doing what a massive amount of people do in the places he live in.

The Ex-Colored Man shows that he is an individual by the way he learns. He says that “at a very young age I began to thump on the piano alone, and it was not long before I was able to play out a few tunes. When I was seven years old I could play by ear all of the hymns and songs that my mother knew” (Johnson 4). Here he shows that he learned the piano alone and he learn hymns and songs by hearing them. Most people learn how to read notes to play hymns and songs. I learn this in my music class. He talks about when he had his first music teacher: “If she played my lesson over for me I invariably attempted to reproduce the required sounds without the slightest recourse to the written characters” (Johnson 4). In this quote, he shows that he is going to playing the written characters his own way, which is remembering the sounds of the notes instead of reading the notes. He also talks about his other teacher that helped with his reading:

She found that, in reading, whenever I came to words that were different or unfamiliar I was prone to bring my imagination to the rescue and read from the picture. She has laughingly told me, since then, that I would sometimes substitute whole sentences and even paragraphs from what meaning I thought the illustrations conveyed (Johnson 4).
This quote shows that when he has to learn how to read, he learned it in his own way by using pictures to represent the meaning of the words. This helped him remember and understand the meanings of a text. Other people just try to understand the text and/or seek help from others. He says that “I made rapid process in both my music and my books” (Johnson 4) though his own way of learning. His own way of learning does show that he is an individual when it comes people in general and how they learn.

The Ex-Colored Man shows that he is an individual by the people he became friends with. He became friends with people that completely different from others. When he was nine years old, he entered public school. Here he met a kid he called “Red Head”:

This friend I bound to me with hooks of steel in a very simple way. He was a big awkward boy with a face full of freckles and a head full of very older than any other boy in the class. This seniority was due to the fact that he had spent twice the required amount of time in several of the preceding classes (Johnson 5).
He became friends with “Red Head” because he was different from others. The other students did not want to be friends with “Red Head” because he was older and stupid. The Ex-Colored Man mainly wanted “Red Head” to be his friend for his best interest:

I do not doubt that this feeling was strengthened by the fact that I has been quick enough to see that a big, strong boy was friend to be desired at a public school; and, perhaps, in spite of his dullness, “Red Head” had been able to discern that I could be of service to him (Johnson 5).

The Ex-Colored Man wanted to be protected from other students that might harm him. Public school is known to be a place where some students would pick on others. The Ex-Colored Man was looking out for himself. Most people become friends with people to bond. He then became friends with the only black kid in the class, “Shiny.” “Shiny” was often picked on because he was black. Some of the kids repeated to him “Nigger, nigger, never die, Black face and shiny eye” (Johnson 6). When The Ex-Colored Man found out that he is also black, the kids picked on him. “Shiny” stood up for him when he said “come along, don’t tease him” (Johnson 6). After that, The Ex-Colored Man states that “[‘Shiny’] there by won my undying gratitude” (Johnson 6). No one wanted to be friend with “Shiny” but The Ex-Colored Man did. The people he became friends makes him an individual, when it comes to people in general.

The Ex-Colored Man shows that he is an individual by having the ability to be in touch with his black side or white side at anytime he pleases. When he was young, he was in touch with his white side until he was nine. When he was nine, his teacher in his class said “I wish all of the white scholars to stand for a moment” (Johnson 7). The Ex-Colored Man recalls the moment after: “I rose with the others. The teacher looked at me, and calling my name said, ‘You sit down for the present, and rise with the others’” (Johnson 7). The Ex-Colored Man was being told for the first time that he is black. In reaction to what he heard, he says “I sat down dazed. I saw and heard nothing” (Johnson 7). He was stunned. He could not believe he was black also. As he got older, he started to be in touch with his black side. He moved to New York when the factory he worked in as a Cigar maker in Jacksonville shut down. One night, he went out with his fellow workers, who were black, from the factory he used to work in. They went into a place where billiard tables were. At this place, he learned how to play craps in addition to winning at the game (Johnson 43-44). Craps, during that time, was a big betting game for blacks. He describes his feelings about playing the game: “I could feel that I had gained attention and respect of everybody in the room, every eye was fixed on me, and the widespread question, ‘Who is he?’ went around” (Johnson 44). He felt accepted. He went to plays craps a lot with the people that made him feel accepted. In the end of the book, he had seen a black man get hanged. He had seen the burn corpse. This led him to say:

I finally made up my mind that I would neither disclaim the black race nor claim the white race; but that I would change my name, raise a mustache, and let the world take me for what it would. All the while, I understood that it was not discouragement, or fear, or search for a larger field of action and opportunity, that was driving me out of the Negro race, I knew that it was a shame, unbearable shame (Johnson 90).
He did not want to be in touch with his black side anymore. He feels in his mind that he is neither black nor white but yet the world will see him as white. At this moment, he might not say that he was in touch with his white side but from his choice of words, you can see that he is getting in touch with his white side. His ability to be in touch with his black side or white side at anytime he pleases makes him an individual from people within both of his own races.

Janie Mae Crawford shows that she is an individual by dressing the way she pleases. She comes back to her hometown, Eastonville, after enduring a lot of events. She arrived in overalls. The women in front of a house were:

[Cowboy13012]

Seeing [Janie] as she was made them remember the envy they had stored up from other times. So they chewed up the back parts of their minds and swallowed with relish. They made burning statements with questions, and killing tools out of laughs. It was mass cruelty. A mood come alive (Hurston 2).

The site of Janie started to make the women jealous. The women started to talk: “What she doin coming back here in dem overalls? Can’t she find no dress to put on?” (Hurston 2). The women hated the way he was dressed. They also hated that “the men noticed her firm buttocks” (Hurston 2). Janie says to her friend Pheoby when Pheoby comes over to her house, “You must think Ah brought yuh somethin’. When ah ain’t brought home a thing but mahself” (Hurston 4). In response to Janie, Phoby says, “Dat’s a gracious plenty. Yo’ friends wouldn’t want nothin better” (Hurston 4). After that, Janie says “Ah takes dat flattery offa you, Pheoby, ‘cause Ah know it’s from da heart” (Hurston 4). Janie shows here that she knows that Pheoby is her only friend. Janie does not care what the other women have to say about her. She did not care what she was wearing going back to her hometown, where she was know as Mrs. Mayor Starks. Janie wanting to dress anyway she pleases makes her an individual from the other black women that talk about her and her clothing.

Janie Mae Crawford shows that she is an individual by choosing the men she wants to be with. Janie chooses to be with different men for many reasons. A man named Joey Starks wowed Janie. She had a husband in the town in which she was born. Then one day, Joey Starks stopped by the town. He saw Janie. He told her about “when he would be a big ruler of things with her reaping the benefits. He spoke for change and chance.” (Hurston 29). She was not given in to him. He then said to her, “Janie, if you think Ah aims to tole you off and make a dog outa you, youse wrong. Ah wants to make a wife outa you” (Hurston 29). She believed that he could do that. Her husband at the time “made a dog out of her.” She wanted not be treated like a dog. So she ran away from her husband and to be with Joey Starks. After that, Joey and Janie got married. Joey became mayor of a small black town. Joey died and this allowed Janie to find someone she really loved. One day while she was alone in the store that Joey had owned, a man named Tea Cake came in. They started talking and he then asked her “how about playin’ you some checkers? You looks hard to beat” (Hurston 95). She told him that she did not know how to play. He then taught her how to play. She grew strong feelings from him. She really felt equal and care about with Tea Cake. They then ran away together to be with each other. Janie shows that when she picks a man she marries, she does not stay with them because she did not feel strongly about them. She does not want to feel like she is blinded to one man against her own free will. She gets to together with man to benefit herself. With Joey, she wanted all of the fame and barely does anything. With Tea Cake, she felt love for real for the first time. Janie choosing the man she wants to be with shows that she is an individual from the other black women that would stay with there man and do whatever the man said to do.

Janie is individual because a not doing what a massive amount of people do in the places he lives in. She refuses to do what everyone does. One example of this would be when she was alone in the store. Everyone in the town went to the ball game even her follow worker. She did not want to go. She says to Tea Cake when he asks why she is not at the game, everyone is there: “Well, Ah see somebody else besides me ain’t there” (Hurston 95). She was glad that she did not go or else she would have never met Tea Cake. She stays where she is because she does not want to miss anything that might happen. Another example would be during the hurricane. Janie was with Tea Cake in another town. A hurricane was coming, so everyone in the town was leaving. A Bahaman boy named Lias called out to Tea Cake and said “you and Janie wanta go? Ah wouldn’t give nobody else uh chawnce at uh seat till Ah found out if you all had anyway tuh go” (Hurston 155). Tea Cake told him “Thank yuh ever so much, Lias. But we ‘bout decided tuh stay” (Hurston 156). Janie decided to stay and wait the hurricane out. This ended up in a bad way with her love, Tea Cake, being hurt by a dog. Janie not doing what other people in her town did made her an individual from other people in general.

The Ex-Colored Man and Janie are individuals. The Ex-Colored Man is an individual because of the way learned things, the people he become friends with, and the ability to be in touch with his black side or white side at anytime he pleases Janie is an individual because of dressing the way she pleases, choosing the men she wants to be with, and not doing what a massive amount of people do in the places he live in. The Ex-Colored Man and Janie are the type of people who wants to do the opposite of what people do. They are individuals from people in general and people within their own race. And that is the key of people being individuals.

Works Cited Page
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: First Perennial Classics, 1998.
“Individual.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online. 2 April 2006. <http://www.m-w.com/>.
Johnson, James Weldon. The Autobiography Of An Ex-Colored Man. Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc., 1995.

THE GRADE ON THIS PAPER WAS A “B”.

[Cowboy13012]

What you guys think???

[Cowboy13012]

Do you guys think this paper is good??

What grade would you give it, and what are the good and bad points.

[Imani T. Misfit]

I gets an A in my book. Very good read, it gave a good look into the mind of an individual.... I consider myself to be one also, so I could relate myself to both people... especially about the piano thing, i also taught myself to play... but these people were Misfits for sure....

[Brando]

Your subject matter when comparing the two individuals was excellent. However, I think that it would be imperative to use transitional sentences when moving from one paragraph to another. It makes the content more fluent when a person is reading it. Overall, the paper was good but transitional sentences would make it even better.