post4

My reaction to the Read-a-Thon was a pleasant surprise. Before I arrived my assumption was that the mandatory classroom attendance for this event meant it would be painful to sit through. So painful, that I would come 3 minutes late and leave exactly 57 minutes later. Luckily that was not the case. It was a beautiful day where beautiful words were read. In fact, I might even say the Read-a-Thon was moving. The poems, excerpts, and stories that were told impressed me. My most favorite works were the originals; the girl's chapter from the novel she was working on was amazing and the performance poem a boy recited from memory was so energetic, it was great. I ended up staying for nearly 2 hours and left mostly because the tan I was getting from that sunny day was soon turning into a burn. Had that ben different I would have stuck around until all the readers had finished.
The Read-a-Thon made me think more seriously about my own creative writing. Since then i've stopped neglecting it. I also now have an interest in attending a creative writing club meeting.
I think the Read-a-Thon was a nice addition to the class schedule and I would like to have more activities like that one!

post3

Larry Neal's maifesto, "The Black Arts Movement" is an attempt to link black artworks to the social and political movements going on in the late 1960's. Neal calls for writings that inspire the community and their efforts with an emphasis on a positive interaction between aesthetics and ethics. He sees art in politics as well as political art, he doesn't want them to be separated, but rather intertwined among each other.
This manifesto was published in the summer of 1968, which was a tumultuous time in American history. 1968 was the climax of America's civil rights movement. Lyndon Baines Johnson is the president of the United States of America, but primaries and conventions are ongoing because it is an election year. 549,500 American soldiers are stationed in Vietnam at war. April 1968 civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated. Riots break out all over the country. Robert Kennedy was murdered in June. All of these monumental events probably influenced Larry Neal's manifesto. He call to unite the community through arts and hopefully political interest, is sort of a way to heal the black community of the wounds they suffered that summer.

post2

After listening to 'Strange Fruit' by Billie Holiday, I was surprised by the honest lyrics that don't try to skirt around the lynching issue whatsoever. The song and Holiday's tone evoked an instant reality to the issue and I felt horrified from the subject after the first time listening to it. The strength in this song and Holiday's conviction while she sings is why I choose to work with this song.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett's "The Case Stated" is also centered on the issue of lynching which shed's more light on 'Strange Fruit'. Holiday's haunting voice and Wells-Barnett's haunting historical evidence compliment each other. "The Case Stated" gives evidence and the excuses that there have been in regards to any and all lynching or unlawful executions. I see 'Strange Fruit' as the communities reaction and outrage to such offenses. Each work has an obvious goal to bring lynching to the main stream, as an act that the public is aware of, to hopefully stop its progress.