Voice vs. Silence: The opposition of a means of elevation for Black Americans- Essay

 Zahara Lewis  

Professor Harris

English 2016- 45498

1 December 2025

      Voice vs. Silence: The opposition of a means of elevation for Black Americans.

     Throughout the years of African American History there has always been tension between voice and silence that has shaped the survival skills of the cultural identity of black communities. Being silent was not always imposed on the social system but it was transformed into an invention that developed coded speeches to be able to survive. However during this time the Black voices also emerged as they wrote pieces of literature asserting humanity to suppress the things that were going down during this time. During this essay I will be using some sources we talked about in class to demonstrate the binary opposition of voice vs. silence. The sources will be “ The Underground Railroad Digital Archive, The writings of W.E.B Dubois and Zora Neale Hurston’s novel" Their Eyes Were Watching God” . Their work together will explain how Black Americans converted their silence into a tool for elevation and to gain liberation  throughout the years. 

        While living the African American experience myself I have also experienced the voice vs silence dynamic. Which I know isn't a very simple thing to go through. You can either choose to use your voice for something or remain silent but then you end up with a result you don't like ,so it's always a win, lose situation. Silence can be a survival mechanism for protecting your identity or just to avoid conflict. While voice on the other hand,  you could see it as a way of gaining your power when speaking the truth of what's happening to you. With this being said during the slavery times many African Americans were denied their full capability to express their literacy so they used what they had to express themselves. Like through songs, stories and spirituals. While doing this silence became an incredible strategy for them rather than a limitation. So African Americans writers started to publish their experiences into expressions to shape literature. This didn’t just reshape literature but made the society grow as a whole, so they were able to understand each other. 

 

      The Underground Railroad digital Archive is a prime example of how Africans Americans found other ways to experience themselves. The archive has many letters and personal documents that reveal how African Americans used their coded communication and silence as survival skills to connect. Even though it was restricted most of the time, enslaved people still found ways to write to their loved ones. One example that really caught my attention was when the recently escaped slaves would write to their enslaved family members  “ Are you well” or “ write back if you can” to me I think this signaled coded “are you safe” and “will you be able to send something back”? Basically saying proceed with caution or don't get yourself in trouble trying to reach out but please do so. They kept the conversations very vague. I feel this reflects back on one of the articles that I read where the writer called it “ semiotics of survival” ( Yannielli)  where the enslaved people kept it short but yet it was packed with much more emotion. However this was not the only way they kept in contact African Americans also used coded knocks, songs and quilts. This shows that the silence was being acted upon but not absent. 

During the early twentieth century W.E.B Du Bois was one of the spokesmen for the African Americans after and during the Reconstruction Era. He believed that African Americans should change the way that they express themselves in their writings. He wanted them to appear more intelligent to fight back with racism. Basically teaching the society that you are much more than what people that don't know you, see you as. In The Souls of black Folk he introduced the “ double consciousness” also known as the veil. He uses this to describe how black people must see themselves through racism while also claiming the identity with their culture. This shows how he influenced them to use silence and fully conduct self control by not reacting to racism.  However, in the scholarly source that I read it argues that “ Du Bois saw the voice in the form of education, literacy, activism, and public discourse as the method through which Black Americans would challenge silence and reclaim identity" ( Joseph) . Yet,  Du Bois viewed voice as a strategy. He created the “ Talented Ten” , a group of black leaders to uplift the Black Community. He opened institutions, schools, newspapers etc to spread the voices of the African Americans. Du Bois showed that there were many ways to speak while being silent, in which we still use some ways that he constructed today. 

While Du Bois focused mainly on the Black community as a whole, Zura Hurston brought the attention to Black Women alive in her writing “ Their Eyes Were Watching God” . The main point is about her trying to find her voice within a society that keeps trying to silence her.  “ The Cognitive Construction of the Self in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God” says that Janie represents “gendered silencing” that constructs the breaking through of one's mind ( Bernard). This shows how being silenced within your own community can shape your psychological experiences and drive you mad. However Janie overcame her situation by getting a divorce and moving away to start her own life. 

Together these three sources showed how the voice of Black Americans grew out of struggle and the means of adapting to their environment in whatever state that they were in. Showing the silence holds a deeper meaning than we believe it to hold. It allowed them to protect their escape plans while being enslaved and guarded Black Americans feeling when treated wrongly. The silence was a symbol that represented resilience and trauma that was being overcome throughout the years. 

The binary oppositions of voice and silence demonstrated a lens for understanding the creativity of the evolution of the Black Americans Communication. From forming coded letters and messages in hair to, Du Bois leadership of encouraging more Black Americans to care more about intelligence , to Zora Hurston writing through a lens of a Black Woman to express Black Women's voices. So this shows how African Americans didn’t just break through the silence that was demanded for them but they reshaped it to become something beautiful. The journey from silence to voice has not only been a story of oppression for African Americans but a story that symbolizes elevation, power, and identity. 

                                     

   Works  Cited 

Bernard, Paul S. “The Cognitive Construction of the Self in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, vol. 9, no. 2, 2007.

Gara, Larry. “William Still and the Underground Railroad.” Pennsylvania History, vol. 28, no. 3, 1961, pp. 241–259.

Joseph, Tia. “Double Consciousness in the 21st Century: Du Boisian Perspectives on Racialized Legal Status and Identity.” Social Sciences, vol. 10, no. 3, 2021.

Meer, Nida. “W. E. B. Du Bois, Double Consciousness and the ‘Spirit’ of the Social.” Sociology, vol. 53, no. 1, 2019, pp. 3–19.

Yannielli, John. “The Runaway Class: An Experiment in Digital History.” Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation, vol. 2, no. 1, 2023.