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[6715] Romare Bearden, The Return of Ulysses (1976), courtesy of the Romare Bearden Foundation / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Marshall graduated from Brooklyn College in 1953 and worked for a popular African American magazine, Our World. Her first novel, Brown Girl, Brownstones, was published in 1959. Praisesong for the Widow (1983) established her as a major writer and won her the Columbus Foundation American Book Award. Other works include Soul Clap Hands and Sing (1961), Reena and Other Short Stories (1983), Daughters (1991), and The Fisher King (2000).
While Marshall claims that she is indebted to the “literary giants,” both black and white, she notes that “they were preceded in my life by another set of giants . . . the group of women around the table long ago-this is why the best of my work must be attributed to them; it stands as testimony to the rich language and culture they so freely passed on to me in the wordshop of the kitchen.” Indeed, her early novels focus on the power of the oral tradition and the idea of women as oral translators of their culture who are able to define themselves and their world based on their ability to articulate their feelings. In Marshall’s works, conversation becomes a means of empowerment, and addressing the spiritual over the material offers important affirmation. Marshall’s focus on the Afro-diasporic culture as well as black women protagonists as voices of the immigrant community has opened new avenues of discussion and expanded the concept of what it means to be American.
[4327] Anonymous, Slave Quarters on St. Georges Island, Florida (n.d.),
courtesy of the collection of The New-York Historical Society.
Slaves photographed in front of cabins near the Gulf of Mexico. Slave quarters throughout the South were similar in size and shape, but these cabins were built of “tabby,” an aggregate of shells, lime, and sand more common to the Caribbean region. Contemporary writer Paule Marshall’s work explores connections between her West Indian heritage and her Brooklyn upbringing.
[6715] Romare Bearden, The Return of Ulysses (1976),
courtesy of the Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Romare Bearden’s paintings and collages distinguish him as one of the great artists in the twentieth-century African American aesthetic tradition. Derek Walcott’s long poem Omeros is a Caribbean retelling of the Odysseus (Ulysses) myth, and Caribbean American author Paule Marshall’s writing emphasizes the need for black Americans to reclaim their African heritage.
[7194] Samuel H. Gottscho, New York City Views. Financial District, Framed by Brooklyn Bridge (n.d.),
courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-G612-T01-21249].
River and New York City skyline. Hart Crane used the figure of the Brooklyn Bridge to represent modernization’s unifying potential; some authors saw technology and urbanization as fragmenting.
[7641] Anonymous, NAACP Members Picketing Outside the Republic Theatre, New York City, to Protest the Screening of the Movie Birth of a Nation (1947),
courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-USZ62-84505].
Despite the protests of civil rights groups, D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation achieved massive popularity and was even shown in Calvin Coolidge’s White House. The NAACP also mobilized against the film