Blood
Violence and the bloodshed associated with it is a common occurrence in African American literature. It reflects the struggles of a people with a long history of being violently oppressed. Books like James Baldwin’s Evidence of Things Not Seen, Cleveland Sellers’ The River of No Return, and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon all explore the thread of violence that flows through African American cultural consciousness.
Family
In the novel Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, the main character Milkman’s sister Magdalena is treated very poorly by Milkman, she is made to clean up after him and he does not have many responsibilities at home. Magdalena is sick of how he treats her, their mother and their sister Corinthians are treated. Milkman peed on Magdalena as a child and ever since Magdalena has not forgiven him. She even told him that after he peed on her, she attempted to kill him several times. She is through with how he portrays himself with such high-status and she ends this conversation with saying that he has peed his last in their home.
Equality
In the poem “Sinking of the Titanic” Shine, who is a black man works down in the boiler room as the Titanic is sinking, against the captain’s order he jumps off of the ship and starts to swim to safety. As he is swimming, people who would overwise treat him poorly start to try to bribe him into help them, he does not let their pleas get to him and he ends up safe and alive in a bar while people are dying on the Titanic.
Freedom
Water is often a gateway to or symbol of freedom in African American Literature. Whether it be the golden Mississippi River in Langston Hughes’ poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” or a man named Shine swimming to his fortune away from the sinking titanic in a popular folk verse, “Sinking of the Titanic,” water has often represented freedom and the difficulty of finding it for African Americans.