African-Amer­i­can Cul­ture, Past and Pre­sent: Some of Maryville’s Fa­vorites

This month cel­e­brates the rich his­tory and cul­ture that African-Amer­i­cans have de­vel­oped over the years, from mu­sic to film, to lit­er­a­ture to pol­i­tics and every­thing in be­tween. 

Many fig­ures have made an im­pact on African-Amer­i­cans and there­fore, Amer­i­can-his­tory, and many con­tinue to leave their mark on the world to­day. With this in mind, see­ing who peo­ple ad­mire re­veals much about the in­di­vid­ual per­son and what they value. 

By ex­plor­ing this topic, we can get a true sense of the ways in which African-Amer­i­can fig­ures of the past or pre­sent res­onate to­day.

1. Ash­ley Stro­man, pro­gram co­or­di­na­tor, Of­fice of Di­ver­sity and In­clu­sion

Fa­vorite African-Amer­i­can cul­tural fig­ures:

Har­riet Tub­man (past)

Michelle Obama (pre­sent)

Why?

To Stro­man, they are “role mod­els” whose ex­am­ple she seeks to fol­low in her own life. Ad­di­tion­ally, they are peo­ple who “give my cul­ture hope” to keep hav­ing the char­ac­ter­is­tics they have dis­played. 

They also rep­re­sent “to keep be­ing re­silient”, as women are un­der­rep­re­sented.  Tub­man, she noted, was “a change agent”, helped start the Un­der­ground Rail­road to free slaves, “went against the norm of the slave men­tal­ity”, and was ul­ti­mately a fear­less per­son. 

Her qual­i­ties as a leader are all ones Ms. Stro­man as­pires to have. Obama, mean­while, is, to Ms. Stor­man, “poised” and pro­fes­sional when she needs to be, while also be­ing true to her­self. As she said about the for­mer First Lady, “I don’t feel like she’s a per­son who code-switches.” Obama is also a mother, African-Amer­i­can and leader, which Ms. Stro­man can re­late to and as­pire to be like. 

2. Kyle Con­ston, fresh­man

Fa­vorite African-Amer­i­can cul­tural fig­ures:

Har­riet Tub­man (past)

Barack Obama (pre­sent)

Dave Chap­pelle (pre­sent)

Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. (past)

Why?

Obama is “my hero”, said Con­ston, be­cause he broke a bar­rier re­gard­ing hav­ing an African-Amer­i­can pres­i­dent and be­ing an African-Amer­i­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date. In so do­ing, he helped oth­ers un­der­stand, said Con­stant, that “I, too, can be a part of so many great things within so­ci­ety and the world”. 

Tub­man, to him, had an “im­pact­ful” story as she led slaves from hard­ships to free­dom, earn­ing the nick­name “‘Moses’ in her time”. Con­stant noted that peo­ple he knows are fig­u­ra­tively in bondage, and so, as Tub­man did, he would like to lead them out of that state. 

Con­ston chose Chap­pelle be­cause he has been able to pro­duce hu­mor from se­ri­ous is­sues and is “a great pub­lic speaker.” King, to Con­ston, “was young, but he led a move­ment through love that would cause na­tions to un­der­stand that we, as a peo­ple, de­serve to have rights.”

For him, the suc­cess of all these in­di­vid­u­als means that “even in the face of op­pres­sion and ad­ver­sity, I still have a chance to rise up and not only be suc­cess­ful, but be im­pact­ful.” He added that while it is one thing to be in so­ci­ety and do great things, it is an­other to break bar­ri­ers and open doors oth­ers can then walk through.

3.  Kirby Cooper, ju­nior

Fa­vorite African-Amer­i­can cul­tural fig­ures:

Jackie Robin­son (past)

Barack Obama (pre­sent)

Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. (past)

Why?

Cooper, a his­tory ma­jor, said that she picked Robin­son (her “all-time fa­vorite”) be­cause of his pi­o­neer­ing ef­forts to de­seg­re­gate base­ball in spite of ridicule and set­backs, which al­lowed him to “do what he loved”. 

King, to her, “is a re­ally cool fig­ure with what he has done and the im­pact that he has con­tin­ued to have on so­ci­ety even to­day”, five decades af­ter his death. Oba­ma’s ac­com­plish­ments in of­fice, mean­while, are some­thing Cooper ad­mit­ted she ad­mires. 

For her, her fig­ures and their ac­com­plish­ments “opened doors for me that I would­n’t have been able to have” by fight­ing for their be­liefs and val­ues. She added, “With­out them, who knows where we’d be?”

There are many icons of African-Amer­i­can cul­ture, and while some are fre­quently men­tioned by many, oth­ers re­veal some­thing about the char­ac­ter of the per­son who picked them. The legacy of African-Amer­i­cans cul­tur­ally is vast and com­plex, and will hope­fully keep grow­ing so that the next gen­er­a­tion has its own mod­els to look for­ward to.

Not all African-Amer­i­can lead­ers now revered were al­ways so, as ev­i­denced by this Gallup ar­ti­cle ex­plain­ing the evo­lu­tion of pub­lic opin­ion about Mar­tin Luther King, Jr.