-Ask about which website 1st citation on??
The Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, is a novel about a young black male searching for an identity in the mid-part of the 20th century. After trials and tribulations to find a place in society, he decides to live invisibly in a basement in Harlem. One of the more rich and alluring scenes of the novel takes place early on at a Southern Bar called the Golden Day. This would be the equivalent of a juke joint. In the novel, this juke joint offers the marginalized African Americans a place where they are empowered and treated equally, even inside of a racist South.
Juke joints were very popular in the southeast when Jim Crow Laws were in full effect and after the emancipation (“Sweet Georgias Juke Joint”). Many African Americans workers would go to juke joints to escape the inevitable reality, since blacks were banned from white establishments, even after the Civil War, Reconstruction and World War I. It was a place where they would go drink, eat, listen to music, and gamble with many other African Americans dealing with the same cruel injustice. It was one of the only spaces where they felt liberated and free. And although juke joints were a space where they could be themselves, it was looked down upon by many people.
The word “juke” is a Gullah word that means rowdy or disorderly, which is how they were looked at by outsiders. The Gullah are a distinctive southern group of Black Americans that had their own native language (“The Gullah: Rice, Slavery, and the Sierra Leone-American Connection”). Many people believed this was retained even despite slavery. But, even though people critiqued, many blacks felt juke joints were the only way to voice their opinons, just like the Gullah. In other words, juke joints were a place of uniting under a common ground. Juke joints where also what first started revolutions because African Americans felt it was the only way to accommodate the liberty they longed for.
In the novel, Golden Day was a place where marginalized figures in the South, like vets, could go to convene and unite. This juke joint was off campus and was a place where people went to go hear music and drink. It was always filled with vets, from World War I, lawyers, doctors, civil workers, etc. These conditionally marginalized African Americans would go to Golden Day in hopes of forgetting the never-ending problems of the South. At Golden Day, the narrator noticed there was a juke box in there, which is a coin-operated music machine that never failed to be present at juke joints (“From Jook Joints To Strikes- How Jukeboxes Became Our Favorite Past Time”). These juke boxes and juke joints were very empowering to African Americans because they felt they had a voice and could escape reality.
At this point in time, many blacks, especially vets, were confused once the Civil war ended. Slaves gained their freedom but they were not sure what to do or where to go. Many slaves stayed on the plantation and did sharecropping, which is no better than slavery (“Sharecropping”).The South was completely devastated during this time of reconstruction. Black vets were present in World War I, but they weren’t allowed to serve with the army. This was a distinguished position for many black vets. Once they returned from war with hopes of a change, Jim Crow laws began with the idea of ‘seperate but equal’. Blacks were banned from white establishments, which is when juke joints began to become very popular.
At Golden Day, everyone was treated equally, no matter their superiority.-Supercargo, no hierarchy
Vets at juke joints. https://historicvictorygrill.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/inside-vgpng.png
Narrator connection- doesnt know where he belongs in juke joints
Conclusion
Work Cited
http://www.sweetgeorgiasjukejoint.com/history.html
https://rockandrolljunkie.com/2015/06/20/feature-history-of-the-juke-joint/
The Gullah: Rice, Slavery, and the Sierra Leone-American Connection
Introduction Mrs. Queen Ellis of Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina making a Gullah basket (1976). The Gullah are a…glc.yale.edu
From Jook Joints to Strikes- How Jukeboxes Became Our Favorite Past Time
We have many fond memories of listening to a favorite song on the jukebox with friends. They're getting harder to find…dustyoldthing.com
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/sharecropping