The Power of the Voice In African American Literature

 Madison Siggers

12/1/25

The Power of the Voice In African American Literature

In African American Literature, the voice of African Americans was one of the most influential things of liberation and resistance. Their voices were used to acknowledge the racial oppression, especially with the use of speech and writing to point out the injustice in the world that African Americans went through.  Through the texts of Frederick Douglass“Claims of the Negro”, his autobiography “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, and Richard Wright’s “Native Son”, the work of silence versus speech and oppression versus resistance shows how their voices confront the racial system. The articles Ray Angela G. “Frederick Douglass and the Rhetoric of  Democratic Progress”, Levine Robert S. “Frederick Douglass’s Fashioning and the Rhetoric of Reversal”, Harris Trudier, “The Violence of Art in Richard Wright's Native Son”, Rowley Hazel. “Richard Wright: The Life and Times”, Smitherman Geneva. “Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America”, all helps explain how the act of speaking challenges the racial oppression in black life.  

As in African American Literature, silence versus speech was one thing that stuck out to me. In “Claims of the Negro”, Frederick Douglass insist that silence was forced upon the enslaved people. He wants African Americans to do the opposite by not being silenced and to speak up. Levine Robert S. “Frederick Douglass’s Fashioning and the Rhetoric of Reversal”, argues that Douglass’s speeches indicate how “the act of speaking becomes a political intervention” (Levine). Douglass uses his voice to speak and confront the whites to revise the minds of black people to not be ignored and to get justice. He includes the idea that their voice gives them the feeling of demanding to be recognized as citizens and human beings. It “forced the nation to confront the contradictions between its democratic ideals and its treatment of African Americans” (Ray). This shows that their voice was their power and weapon against the whites to demand action. 

Also to include, Douglass highlights oppression versus resistance. He wants protest to not be seen as harmful but an important step of progression to an equal society. Angela Ray, “Frederick Douglass and the Rhetoric of  Democratic Progress”, makes a valid point that Douglass understood that his voice was used for good in public rhetoric to “redefine African Americans as active participants in the nation's demographic project” ( Ray, Rhetoric & Public Affairs). Douglass’s truth is a form of resistance that breaks down the foundations embedded into the racial system. Douglass pushes the narrative that if it is spoken or written that it can still reclaim the narrative around the white supremacy.  In Douglass’s autobiography, he gains his sense of manhood when he physically resisted to be silent. Henry Louis Gates Jr, says that resistance, spoken or hands on, “marks the rediscovery of the self as a speaking object”(Gates 65).  To me this means whether it is verbal or physical, Douglass becomes non silent and stronger as he knows he is a man who needs to make change. 

In Richard Wright’s “Native Son”, the oppression versus resistance remain hidden as he shows how society rejects the voice of African Americans as they express their problems. The character Bigger never had the opportunity to speak because the racial system had already decided on their identity without letting them discover it on their own. Bigger is trapped in a world that watches his every move that causes him to to be scared to speak up so he was never heard. This is the opposite of Douglass because he was able to be heard and not silenced to obey the society. Hazel Rowley explains how Bigger is portrayed as “a product of the systemic silencing, shaped by social forces that deny him the power of self- articulation” (Rowley 228). I agree with this because being silenced drove Bigger to make aggressive decisions revealing the resistance.

I feel as if these three texts show me how connected they are in how invisible their lives were. Based on Douglass’s autobiography, it shows how African Americans were denied identity and the ability to be heard. He’s writing his life story to tell the world that he was a person who discovered his identity as a human being. Geneva Smitherman argues that African Americans “restore visibility by insisting on the authenticity and authority of black experience” (Smitherman 102). Douglass demanded to be seen and heard by encouraging other African Americans to do the same. In “Native Son”, Wrights shows the world how being invisible became an identity because they could not have their own identity through Bigger. Wright writes in his story on how the character Bigger was only heard after being labeled a criminal and talked about. Trudier Harris suggests that he used Bigger's final moments in the story to show that “recognition, even when tragically late, reveals the depth of humanity suppressed by systemic racism” (Harris). 

Overall, these texts together explain a deeper meaning on how African Americans used their voices to get justice and reclaim their identities because they did not want to stay silent any longer. Douglass advocates the power of liberation and public speech with protest, while Wrights shows what happens after being forced to stay silent. They both speak on how African Americans should be heard. I feel they show how the struggles of life with the racial system being unequal. Public speech, protest, and writing from Frederick Douglass and Richard Wright all confronted how their voices need to be used to demand justice. Although Wright’s story was fiction, the expression is the story telling was still seen as challenging oppression and invisibility. 

To sum up, the most powerful tool used was their voice in African American literature to discover resistance and self - identity. Both African Americans reveal how their voices pushed the issues of the racial system. It does not matter that one was fiction and the other was an autobiographical narrative, both writers used their voice to demand change in their own way, in their own stories. As shown, the voice was a strong force to break the silence and reclaim justice.

















Works Cited Page

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. The Signifying Monkey:  A theory of African American literary Criticism. Oxford UP, 1988

Harris, Trudier. “The Violence of Art in Richard Wright's Native Son.” African American Review, vol.36, no.2, 2002, pp. 305-321

Levine, Robert S. “Frederick Douglass’s Self Fashioning and the Rhetoric of Reversal.” American Literary History, vol. 4, no. 4, 1992, pp. 678-693

Ray, Angela G. “Frederick Douglass and the Rhetoric of Democratic Progress.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs, vol. 5, no. 4, 2002, pp. 587-608

Rowley, Hazel. Richard Wright: The Life and Times. University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Smitherman, Geneva. Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of the Black America. Wayne State UP, 1977.

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