Throughout history, humanity has had several prominent figures that have shaped culture and opinion. The essay will specifically focus on the role played by female African American authors. Particularly attention will be on Harriet Jacobs and Alice Walker, her contemporary counterpart. Harriet Jacobs was an African American woman that lived in the 19 th century when slavery was a practice in the United States. Jacobs' writing career was influential in the latter stages of the century before she finally died in 1897. Alice Walker, on her part, began her writing career in the 20 th century and has continued to write to date. Throughout her works, Walker has focused on issues affecting the black people and the institutional racism in America. Alice Walker drew immense inspiration and influence from Harriet Jacobs that led her to write on issues regarding the plight of the African American people.
Most of the works by Harriet Jacobs are biographical and capture the life she passed through as a child. Her famous work, "Life of a Slave Girl," illuminates the experiences of a young female slave. Jacobs's context is that of slavery in the US (Sommers, 2015). She depicts a time when African Americans did not have a status. She highlights the harassment and brutality that slaves faced by their masters. On the other hand, Alice Walker is an award-winning author of African American descent. Her work, "The Color Purple," focuses on the experiences of an American woman living in the Southern United States. Both women writers illuminate the experiences of fellow black women during different eras. Jacobs focuses on the era of slavery, while Walker illuminates the post-Jim Crow period (Mindi, 2015). Despite the different eras presented, both Jacobs and Walker highlight the inequalities that African American people have experienced in the country due to racism.
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Harriet Jacobs left behind a legacy that can never be replicated. She broke several barriers, such as writing a time when African Americans did not have a voice in the US. Jacobs was among the first writers that sought to explain the extraordinary cruelty faced by black slaves. Besides being a writer, she was also a reformer and an abolitionist (Sommers, 2015). Through her works, she wanted to say a better America where the dignity of life was a fundamental consideration. Alice Walker's legacy revolves around her role as a cultural icon. Through her novels and short stories, Walker wanted to emphasize the importance of black women in American society. Her exemplary work saw her become the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction (Mindi, 2015). She also took part in the civil rights movement that quested for an equal society. The slavery era and the civil rights movement have one thing in common. Both sought to redefine the position of the African American people in American society.
The case of Harriet Jacobs and Alice Walker illustrates the breakthroughs that African American women have had in art and literature. Jacobs was a pioneer and a trailblazer whose influence inspired writers like Alice Walker (Harris, 2016). Walker's work has followed a similar path to Jacobs due to her choice to focus on the plight of the black people. More importantly, Jacobs influenced Walker to pay significant attention to the welfare of women. Although the two are not feminists per se, they chose to pay more attention to the issues that affected women in their contemporary societies. Since the two were women, it was easy to provide issues from the perspective of women. It should also be known that women have always held inherent vulnerabilities that have worked against them throughout history.
References
Harris, T. (2016). Saints, sinners, saviors: Strong black women in African American literature. Springer.
Mindi, T. (2015). Black feminism in the select works of Alice Walker. Sai Om Journal of Arts & Education, 2(1).
Sommers, S. M. (2015). Harriet Jacobs and the recirculation of print culture. MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, 40(3), 134-149.
