Sahnan's exploration of African American literature

  A specific aspect of reconstruction that Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s poetry describes especially well is the somewhat ‘broken promise’ that reconstruction actually was. Following the Emancipation Proclamation, and various government policies that seemed they should help ensure a safer and more equitable future for African Americans in the United States, a sense of hope was renewed. This led to the Great Migration, a wave of millions of African Americans leaving their homes and everything they knew in the South, to pursue better futures in cities up North, or out West, in emerging industries, such as manufacturing. At first, this shift seemed to many like it could spark a new era of black participation within American society. The ‘broken promise’ came in the fact that despite laws having changed, much of the general population still wasn’t ready to accept a mixed society between both black and white Americans.  In Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s Poem, Goin’ Back , he tells the tale of an ...