In the first half of the twentieth century Jazz and Blues music dominated (Black) Americans radios, homes, and served as the primary cultural expression of the time. In a 3 to 5 page paper, respond to this prompt: In Angela Davis Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday, Davis suggests that [t]he blues rose to become the most prominent secular genre in early twentieth-century black American music. As it came to displace sacred music in the everyday lives of black people, it both reflected and helped construct a new black consciousness. (5-6) Use the Davis text (only) to answer the following questions: How did the blues and jazz become the music of a critical mass of black people? How and what did Gertrude Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and then Billie Holiday contribute to the solidification of blues/jazz as a representative art form of the black experience? How did their portrayals of black womanhood/femininity/sexuality complicate perceptions of black women? DO NOT USE OUTSIDE SOURCESSTYLE GUIDELINES: The best essays state a clear thesis, are well-organized, and provide sufficient evidence to support the thesis. They are also free from grammatical errors. Students are expected to use the following guidelines to format their papers. Double-Spaced, 12-pt Times New Roman font, 1 margins, in-text citation format (Davis, 29) GILLIAM COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS STATEMENT ON ACADEMIC DISHONESTY Because ours is a community of scholars, the College of Liberal Arts regards academic dishonesty as a serious offense. Academic dishonesty (plagiarism) is an act in which a student claims the work of another (without authorization, attribution, or citation) as his/her own. This includes and is not limited to written, oral, videotape, audiotape, photograph or web site sources. It is in fact a form of stealing. A student may not use a direct quote, a paraphrase of anothers idea, or substantive ideas without providing credit for the source of information. Plagiarism even extends to submitting the same paper or portions of a paper previously written for two different assignments.
