User:Rayrayyall/sandbox

Mine Eyes Have Seen is a play by Alice Dunbar Nelson the wife of America's first nationally recognized poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. It was published in April 1918 edition of the monthly news magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) entitled The Crisis. Nelson examined the idea that the black man's service to his country and his race required his life as a response to the Selective Service Act of 1917.

Plot summary
Chris has been drafted

Lucy and Dan’s dependence on Chris

Father murdered by whites in south so they fled to north

Dan crippled in factory and Mother dies

neighbors offer advice on drafting

Lucy does as well in favor of him going

Chris decides to become a soldier and Battle of the Hymn of the Republic plays

Written for a white audience
transferring personal experiences to white protagonists

Individual vs group identities
unifying individual identities

destroying the idea of maintaining categories that separate individual from group along racial lines

Patriotism
African American Masculinity During WWI

military service used to refute racial disparities in the US

Selective Service Act

patriotism enabling justification of 14th amendment rights for black males

Anti-Lynching
establishes similarities between military service and lynching

black male body and use in war, adding value

The Battle Hymn of the Republic
"”abolitionist marching song references African American participation in previous wars, as it was originally used to recruit black soldiers in the Civil War” (1)"affirmation of american christian doctrine

Character
"'Though mostly poor, the characters are decent, respectable, and above-all well-spoken'"elimination of African American dialect

The Crisis
exemplified patriotism towards WWI and the African American males place in it

Called the nation out in its racist home front

introducing cultural importance of black people through higher arts over minstrel shows