Prometheus 6   

Power. Looking at what Black people in this country have accomplished with the Word, attests to its power. Without the word, revolution is just bloody war. The victor is usually the mightiest in number and resource. However, add the word as weapon and freedom for all makes sense, contradictions stand out, greatness is revealed, rights are won, ignorance is slaughtered.
Is it any wonder enslaved Africans in America were forbidden by law to learn to read and write?
Teach an �animal� to read and write and you got David Walker (1785-1830) proclaiming in his Appeal, whites �want us for their slaves, but some of them will curse the day they ever saw us�my color will root some of them out of the very face of the earth.� Then you have Nat Turner (1800-1831) agreeing with Walker by drastic action that �every dog must have its day.�
Teach a �nigger� to read and write and you got W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) urging that the upliftment and advancement of the race is dependent upon the development and cultivation of the Black intellect�on Black empowerment, not accommodation to Whites.
Teach a �Negro� to read and write and you got Alain Locke writing about the New Negro �molding a new American attitude.�
Teach a �Colored� to read and write and you got James Baldwin proclaiming �we will burn your house down.�
Teach a �BLACK� to read and write and you got Amiri Baraka, and Sonia Sanchez and Nikki Giovanni� �niggah can you kill?�
Black literature has gone through many transitions just as the times and people change. The literature of a people reflects the psychosis of the times in which they live. Perhaps if we trace Black literature�s journey from when the first Africans were brought to this land in chains, through slavery and Reconstruction to the Harlem Renaissance, through the Realism/Naturalism era, the Black Power/Black Arts Movement, the Woman�s Movements, to the Me era of the 80�s and finally to this Hip Hop age�perhaps if we take a close look at where we have been, we will better understand where we are, and where we are going. To chart and analyze Black literature�s course in great detail is FYAH�s mission. However, to go forth with this mission we must first know the shoulders that we stand upon today. We must first understand where we were yesterday, ten years ago, thirty, fifty, four hundred�we must be able to look all the way back and understand the order.