Education is the Practice of Freedom essays

Education is the Practice of Freedom essays Education is the Practice of Freedom When youre fifty-eight and seeking to obtain your first Masters Degree, the reality of bell hooks statement that education is the practice of freedom is easy to embrace. While there is no true comparison between the plight of a white woman who has the responsibilities of being a single parent, and the black woman who is denied the right of passage to the halls of academia, the results are strikingly the same in that there is an innate hunger for knowledge.........a quest to realize education as the practice of freedom! To avoid minimizing the critical message regarding the African-Americans struggle for the freedom, I will explore the issues, culture and experiences, which influenced the attitudes of bell hooks. In doing so, I hope to arouse the same passion in you that I have developed while researching the Harlem Renaissance through Postmodern years; that is, a passion to give back to Black Americans their spot in the text with those who had an impact on the history of America . From the end of World War I through the middle of the 1930s Depression, the period which became know as the Harlem Renaissance, there was a tremendous body of literature produced in the form of poetry, fiction, drama, and essay. The significance of that fact is well hidden from our public school curriculum; the significance being that those magnificent contributions were made by African-Americans. Names like Claude McKay in his Spring in New Hampshire; W.E.B.Du Bois (founder of the NAACP) writes his Darkwater and The Gift of Black Folk; Jessie Fauset writes There is Confusion; Countee Cullen won the first prize in the Witter Bynner Poetry Competition; and others like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke with multiple contributions as well. In the world of stage comes Josephine Baker i...