Ethnic Minority

The Importance of African American Culture in Literature

We researched the road and its role in past and current African American culture through literature and actual events. In history, African Americans have experienced migration during slavery, the civil rights movement, the Great Migration to the North, and the Harlem Renaissance. Several writers have documented this ethnic group’s struggles and movement throughout history. The African Americans represent a multi-faceted group with a long history and many different viewpoints and sources explaining personal stories and events.

Jack Kerouac touches briefly upon African American culture in his novel On the Road. We were intrigued by this aspect of the book and we wanted to further investigate the group’s role in literature, specifically in narratives about road travel. We also found it interesting that in Hunter S. Thompson’s book Hell’s Angels there was a limited discussion about African Americans involved in motorcycle culture. Through our research and observation, we will show how the African American group has been represented throughout history through literature.

A Common Theme

As a group studying various time periods in African American history we thought it might be difficult to find commonalities in how the road was represented. However, we were proven wrong. Although the details of what the road represents for each different time period are rarely connected, there is one common theme: the road always has two sides to it. Whenever it promises something positive there is always a negative side to it as well. This is stressed throughout everyone's individual research.