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Verbal·Information and Ideas·Command of Evidence
hard
In 1926, young African American writers and artists, including Wallace Thurman, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes, published the single issue of the avant-garde literary journal Fire!!. Literary historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. argues that the journal represented an intentional rebellion against the older generation of Harlem Renaissance leaders (such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Alain Locke), who advocated that Black art should primarily serve as respectable propaganda to demonstrate civic merit to white society.
Which quotation from an essay by Wallace Thurman in Fire!! would most directly illustrate the literary historian’s argument?
A
“We are interested in artistic self-expression for its own sake, utterly indifferent to whether our depictions of Black life appease the moral standards of white critics or the social respectability demanded by older Negro leaders.”
B
“The primary purpose of our quarterly is to provide a comprehensive historical record of African American achievements in poetry and painting since the late nineteenth century.”
C
“By presenting meticulously edited works of drama and verse, our publication hopes to gain widespread financial patronage from major philanthropic foundations.”
D
“Our contributors share a profound reverence for the aesthetic principles and cultural institutions established by our distinguished elders over the preceding decades.”