American Dream And The Civil Rights English Literature Essay

American Dream And The Civil Rights English Literature Essay As a continuation of the African-American quest for their racial pride and the creation of African-American political and cultural institutions in the United States of America, the role of dream was significant to the African-American people. It was not only a motif that was very much a part of the American phenomenon157, but was as a part of African culture as well. Dream had a reverence in the African-American community. African-Americans dealt with dreams as â€Å"part of their reality, and the course it’s related to the spiritual†.158 They believed, that was how God communicated to them. African Americans had a traditional way with dreams. Dreams were used all over Africa as part of â€Å"the healing process†, â€Å"if they [Africans] don’t dream, I [healer] cannot heal them†.159 That was from Zulu culture.160 Africans trusted dreams. They believed, in dreams their spirits came in touch with ancestors, or with the spirits of their living person s, or with higher spiritual being. Sometimes, dreams were used as a means of witchcraft, or they were sent by deceitful spirits. Other dreams might convey wisdom and interests of the departed. People, therefore, watched their dreams and talked about them, and they often took them to experts for interpretation. Traditionally, the interpreters of dreams included herbalists, sorcerers, diviners, and priests.161 Such beliefs (connecting dreams with ancestors) led Westerns to suppose mistakenly, that Africans worshiped their ancestors. However, the founder of Kwanzaa, 162 affirmed that Africans worshiped only God, the Creator, in his many manifestations. Ancestors were merely â€Å"spiritual intercessors between human[s] and the Creator†.163 These traditional dream beliefs were part of a broad enhancement of African-Americans’ identity in the United States of America. They represented the survival of African dream culture in Northern America.164 The cultural survival was mo re than just a useful concept. It was a deep article of faith for many of those whose forebears were torn from their native ground, scattered, and deliberately stripped of their cultures. In his play Going to Meet the Light, interviewee, Daniel Wideman linked between cultural survival, personal survival, and dreams. A character repeated what her grandmother taught her: She told me, the only thing that kept black folk going, through slavery and ever since, was that we got the power to remember what we never knew. That power is what kept our culture alive through the dark timesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦But, no matter how dark it gets, we still rise. We rise because, together we can always remember a story we never knew, a dream we never dreamed and we can ride that dream out and up into the light.165 In an old short story, Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) had called attention to dreams as one device by which a slave kept going. â€Å"To [a slave,] slavery was [a] deep night. What a wonder, then , that he should dream, and that through the ivory gate should come to him the forbidden vision of freedom†.166 The general point was, however, the meaning of â€Å"survival† meant â€Å"dreaming†, which was one of the sophisticated coping devices by which African-Americans had â€Å"survived so well† through slavery to the present. This was what Darry Burrow stated, â€Å"It was a way to keep going and be a normal person, despite things that are designed to make [African American] not a normal person†.167 African-Americans’ endurance and survival during slavery were recognized by dream.