Changes Brewing For African American History - 1708 Words

Changes Brewing for African Americans in 1950s Determined to write a play about African American experience in the United States for every decade during the 20th century, Wilson has written many plays representing each of these decades. Fences is one of such plays about African American in the 1950 s. It began in 1957 and ended in 1965; however, the 1950s marks the time period when the struggle against segregation and racial discrimination became strong in the mainstream of American life, showing that the wind of change was blowing. Bringing to consciousness events taking place prior to civil right movement in fences, Wilson s characters attest to the fact that the United States†¦show more content†¦This setting is noteworthy because of the industrial importance of the north to African Americans in the decades preceding civil war. According to Richard, Troy Maxson’s father – a sharecropper – â€Å"was frustrated by the fact that every crop took him further into depth† (1018). Richard means tha t economical state of the south was not favorable for sharecroppers and mostly backs. During that period, poverty, racial discrimination and savage conditions in the south caused many blacks including Troy and other men to migrate to the industrial north in search of a means of livelihood, but these men were met with utter disappointment. With no infrastructure or resources to live on, men like Troy and Bono resorted to living in shacks, committing crimes and ending up in jail. Wilson clearly shows a relationship between the freeing of the slaves and disproportionate number of African American men in jail as well as in low income occupations by contending that the majority of unequipped, resource-less and homeless group released into a competitive and financed society will find it difficult surviving lawfully in such a society. Wilson s characters attest to the fact that the United States failed African American after Abraham Lincoln ended slavery and that the United Statesâ€℠¢ failure, legalized through Jim Crow laws and other measures taken lawfully to ensure inequality, continues to affect many black lives. Wilson depicts the 1950s as a time period when new doors of