... an innocent child possesses an innate joyfulness, as natural as instinct. Yet a mockingbird's song dies as easily as innocence. In the beginning of the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout and Jem are portrayed as innocents, uncorrupted by our world of prejudice and racism. Their world is simple, sensible, a child's world ... things were, and it wasn't challenged it until something enormously, obviously wrong occurred close to home. That occurrence was Tom Robinson's trial. The way all the black citizens were made to sit in the balcony in the summer, the hottest part of the courthouse, Je...

• Word Count: 1230
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... all of it through beautiful country, and then we reached Leukerbad in darkness. So Leukerbad, not far in terms of absolute distance, was not all that easy to get to. August 2, 2014: it was James Baldwin's birthday. Were he alive, he would be turning ninety. He is one of those people just on the cusp ... distracted at the time, went, and the village (which is also called Loèche-les-Bains) proved to be a refuge for him. His first trip was in the summer, and lasted two weeks. Then he returned, to his own surprise, for two more winters. His first novel, "Go Tell It on the Mountain," ......

• Word Count: 1342
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... was not a cohesive one, but was loosely bound together with hopes for racial assertion and self-definition. Toomer wrote most of Cane during the summer of 1921, by Christmas the first draft of all sketches including Kabnis were complete. During the early 1920's when Toomer was writing there was ... north Ralph Kabnis finds himself displaced whilst teaching in rural Georgia. Georgia forces the mixed-race Kabnis, who could be an allusion to Toomer himself, to confront the African-American past. Kabnis is separated from his hometown of Washington, in the same way he is separated from his o...

• Word Count: 3347
• Approx Pages: 13

A Raisin In The Sun By Lorraine Hansberry Summer Journal In A Raisin In The Sun the Younger family lives in Chicago on the south side in a small two bedroom apartment. Walter Lee Younger is the son of ... would effectively remove them from poverty and into upper-class wealth and society. The rest of the family doesn't agree with his ideas of buying liquor stores due to some stern Christian values instilled into them by Mama. When the family gets an insurance check for ten thousand dollars everyone in the family has their own idea about ... One of the major motifs of this play is the need for...

• Word Count: 869
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... was world brotherhood and human justice. He established the Organization of African-American Unity. He encourage African-Americans to register to vote and join organizations that made them active in their community. Media blamed him, for the burst of violence during the summer of 1964, sticking to the ideals of the old Malcolm. In a New York City speech on December 12, 1964, Malcolm made ... spoke against their activities in Vietnam and the Congo. He chided King, which made him become more radical to keep students on his side. It had always been his belief that as his father had, he too...

• Word Count: 2369
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

... teenager, Hemings performed duties for Jefferson as a servant. Jefferson served as the American minister to France in 1784. He missed his daughter, Mary and wanted her to come to Paris in the summer in 1787, Sally accompanied Mary to live in Paris for the next two years, while sally's brother served as Jefferson personal ... through songs. There wore no trains existing on the Underground Railroad, but guides were called conductors and the hiding places that they used. Runaways escaped to the North along a loosely connected series of routes that stretched through the southern state borde...

• Word Count: 3713
• Approx Pages: 15
• Grade Level: High School