What do the portrayals of Walter Lee and Beneatha In A Raisin in the Sun suggest about identity within the Black community during the late 1950s? How would you describe the tone of Dr. King's "A Letter from a Birmingham Jail"? Do you think his tone is effective given that he is addressing a white audience? What does Malcolm X mean when he says it is either the ballot or the bullet? Why does he think Black Nationalism is the solution to the Black community's issues? Why is poetry not a luxury for Audre Lorde? How might Black women find it a useful tool? What is the "Black Aesthetic"? In your opinion does this aesthetic empower or hinder Black writers during the Black Arts Movement? What is Alice Walker saying about Black women's creative expression? Why must we acknowledge this creative expression for what it is?

I will begin to help you answer some of these questions, and then you can finish them.
The portrayal of Walter and Beneatha in A Raisin in the Sun suggests that the children of people who had left the South during the Great Migration struggled to succeed. Some, like Beneatha, put their faith in education, Black pride, and their connection to Africa. Others, like Walter, believed that the best way forward was to achieve economic stability. During this time period, African Americans still faced racism in housing, employment, and other areas in the North.
In "Letter from A Birmingham Jail," Dr. Martin Luther King answers critics who think his actions are "unwise and untimely." His tone is reasonable; he explains the reasons why he is leading the movement and why acting now is necessary to further civil rights for African Americans.
Malcolm X, unlike Martin Luther King, was willing to endorse the use of violence if African Americans did not receive a full recognition of their rights. He saw black nationalism as a means for African Americans to promote their own power and achieve greater political rights.
Audre Lorde, an African American poet and writer, believed poetry was essential to express the desires and hopes of women, particularly African American women. She writes, "[it is] through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are, until the poem, nameless and formless—about to be birthed, but already felt." She felt this art form was necessary to express the creativity, unvoiced thoughts, and dreams of black women, who often could not express them any other way.
During the Black Arts Movement, the "Black Aesthetic" promoted separatism in the arts so that African American people could have their own space to express themselves.
I will allow you to answer this last question, which Alice Walker addressed in In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens (see the link below for more information).

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