The following essay on integrating African American literature into the English curriculum begins with an introductory paragraph that demonstrates what occurs to the African American individual who is robbed of access when it comes to his or her own culture, heritage, and identity formation. The next paragraph discusses that one of the biggest obstacles to integrating African American literature into the English curriculum is changing the mindset of conventional educators who fail to see the enormous benefits of doing so not only just for blacks but for whites as well. The following paragraph argues that another major obstacle in getting African American literature into the curriculum is demonstrating to conventional educators that the values promoted and shared in African American literature may have been engendered in blacks through a different kind of social experience, but they are core values quite similar to white cultural values—honesty, perseverance, hard work, etc. The concluding paragraph argues that a further obstacle to the ready acceptance of African American literature into the curriculum is the fact that too many educators do not see how the lessons it teaches are quite useful in opening dialogues between black and whites and among blacks and whites themselves, dialogues which can be quite helpful in ameliorating some of our more pressing modern social ills.
The inclusion of African Literature into the community college English curriculum should not have to be justified, but, because of modern curriculum systems and educational leaders who do not understand its value it presents many challenges. If we hope to integrate society fully, we must understand the significance of having diversity in the curriculum. Without a curriculum that offers access to a diverse range of cultures in literature, we are robbing non-dominant cultures of their identity development. As James Baldwin expresses in his autobiographical...