Themes of Education Migration and the Next Generation in the African American Communities of Youngblood The Street and The Piano Lesson essays

Themes of Education Migration and the Next Generation in the African American Communities of Youngblood The Street and The Piano Lesson essays Education of the next generation forms a core, central theme in many of the greatest works of literature, particularly those of the African- American tradition where the next generation holds such promise for those oppressed by the historical weight of the present. However, in the narrative framework of the novels Youngblood by John Oliver Killens Ann Petry's The Street, as well the play "The Piano Lesson," it is not only the youth of tomorrow whom receives an education from their wiser elders. Although the older individuals in the play educate the younger members of the family, ultimately the education in all fictional contexts is holistic, rather than an unbalanced relationship of old teaching morality to young. In all of the family structures presented, the protagonists are children, more or less, if not in years, than in certain dearly held but false assumptions they have about life and their place in history. The role of education in the African-American experience is particularly critical to all of the protagonists, as all members of the family must receive an education about their role in a society that has marginalized them and continues to marginalize them because of their race, as well as their role in the African-American community of America. One of the most profound teaching tools, the earliest of the novels suggests, comes through is the medium of migration. In John Oliver Killen's novel, entitled, Youngblood, the titular family's history is chronicled over nearly a half century. The novel begins in the Deep South. However, one of the most potent figures in the novel is that of Richard Myles, a New York teacher. The idea that education and the North are conjoined strikes a strong chord in the minds of many of the younger members of the next generations of Youngbloods. The younger Youngbloods, although the respect the family patriarch, believe tha...