Despite the promises of Reconstruction, the optimism of the new century, and the integrated efforts of WWI soldiers, black folk of the early twentieth century were confronted with widespread segregationist policies, riots, and lynchings. How have black artists used literature to protest these contradictions? Identify a text in which an artist takes up these contradictions within their work. How does your chosen text/author use language, imagery, genre etc. to critique racial violence and/or discrimination?

Black artists used literature to provide a more accurate social analysis of the slavery era, as well as confronting prejudices. It has to be remembered that after the Reconstructon era the American public was slowly abandoning any concern upon the racial injustices in the South, which were often idealized by white supremacists. This made black authors to use their work to project them to audiences, and confront the contradictions that would eventually spark in the 1950's and 1960's the Civil Rights Movement.

Explanation:

A quote from page 25 of The Marrow of Tradition, by Charles Chestnutt has a protagonist justifying

“You are mistaken, sir, in imagining me hostile to the negro...On the contrary, I am friendly to his best interests. I give him employment; I pay taxes for schools to educate him, and for court-houses and jails to keep him in order. I merely object to being governed by an inferior and servile race.”