"I'm Gonna Glory in Learnin'": Academic Aspirations of African American Characters in Children's Literature

Abstract

Scholastic success and failure is a prevalent theme in African American children's literature. African American juvenile fiction is often set in schools, and characters, of both genders and of all ages, express varying views about the value of education. African American children's literature has evolved from primarily portraying integration issues to questioning the quality of education for academic achievers and gifted African American children. During the twentieth century, both African American and white authors have written about black characters and academic issues. Many early efforts by white authors, published from the 1900s through the 1950s, perpetuated distorted racist stereotypes of black students excelling in vocational not academic, roles to please white authority figures and secure their approval. Written from a white perspective, these books, sometimes intentionally, reinforced racial inequality and downplayed integration issues. However, several white authors, including Bette Greene in the 1970s and Carol Fenner in the 1990s, wrote realistic accounts of African American life and empowered their characters with intellectual ambitions. Inspired by the 1920s Harlem Renaissance and African American periodicals, especially The Brownies' Book, African American authors Jesse Jackson and Lorenz Graham penned works with strong black characters in the 1940s and 1950s. By the 1960s and 1970s, these authors, along with Mildred Taylor, Virginia Hamilton, Walter Dean Myers, and Rosa Guy, had established a foundation of African American children's literature that reflected culturally accurate concerns and experiences of black characters. In the 1990s, Eleanora E. Tate, Valerie Wilson Wesley, Jacqueline Woodson, and a new generation of African American writers expanded their predecessors' literary base, producing works representative of modern African American voices and values. These books, depicting different eras and authors' insights, provide diverse sources to analyze the academic aspirations of African American characters in children's literature. Scholars such as Janine Bempechat have emphasized that African American culture nurtures the group, not just the individual, and that the extended community - whether family, religious congregation, or friends and neighbors - celebrates "shared achievement" (2). Thus, group identification is vital to self-concept. Child advocate Marian Wright Edelman's elders encouraged her to serve her people and enrich the community, promoting the message that "doing well ... meant high academic achievement" (4). Through scholastic successes, students hope to create better lives for themselves and their families and to counter future discrimination. African American children experience events in school that are common to children of all races, but they experience other concerns and issues as well. Moreover, African American children cannot be considered a homogenous group; individuals experience and react to life uniquely, and fictional characters represent these varying experiences. "'I'm going to try to find a place where I can fit in being both black and smart,'" asserts Maizon Singh, the main character in Jacqueline Woodson's trilogy Last Summer with Maizon, Maizon at Blue Hill, and Between Madison and Palmetto. Maizon gives voice to the fears of many African American youths when she declares, "'I don't want to be a failure'" (Maizon 126-27). A gifted student, Maizon encounters conflict and isolation in choosing an educational environment. Her academic aim to earn scholarship money and secure pride for herself, family, and community creates uncomfortable school situations. Winning tuition to an exclusive boarding school, Maizon worries about fitting in, making friends, and retaining contact with her peers at home; she fears that her academic successes will result in social losses. Because intelligent African American students are often considered anomalies, in fictional depictions they are closely scrutinized as they succeed in academic challenges but struggle at coping with people. …