ABSTRACT

A f r i c a n Americans ' cultural heritage is both diverse and complex, drawing f rom a deep well of influences including West A f r i c a , the Car ibbean, the Amer ican South, and the urban environment. Perhaps this is why, as scholars like H e n r y Louis Gates Jr. have argued, blacks have had such a dramatic effect on the wider culture of the United States as a whole. O n the one hand separate and different, A f r i c a n Americans have repeatedly (and profoundly) used their uniqueness to speak to human conditions and emotions that are shared by everyone. A s an example, Gates cites the way the A f r i c a n A m e r i c a n author Toni M o r r i s o n (who won the N o b e l Prize for Literature in 1993) takes "the blackness of the culture for granted, as a spr ingboard" to write about the larger Amer ican and, indeed, human, experience.