Black Empowerment By Maya Angelou And Claude Mckay

Empowerment is the act of giving power or authority to; to enable or permit (â€Å"The Definition† 1). Black empowerment in my opinion is the uplifting of African Americans to achieve a greater purpose in life, while enhancing the black community as a whole. Black empowerment can be achieved in many ways, such as influences from musical artists as well as popular actors and actresses. They become major influences based on their celebrity status. Numerous people in our society disregard the influence that literature impacts our culture, especially in earlier time periods. A reason for this is possibly because of the emphasis on education during that time because African Americans wanted to overcome the stereotypes of not being as educated as whites. Another reason literature was an influence on the culture of the black society is that at the time there was no social media. The lack of social media results in people trying to send a message in a different way, such as poetry. Ma ya Angelou and Claude McKay are perfect examples of black empowerment through literature in the area of poetry. They were both voices of power for blacks and were faces well known in the black community for their activist roles. In McKay’s time, which was early 1900s, there were many violent riots as well as blacks being killed ruthlessly from whites who showed no remorse nor faced any punishment. Specifically, the 1919 Race Riots also known as the â€Å"Red Summer† which was the inspiration to McKay’s poem â€Å"If