Double-consciousness in African American Literature of American Dream

Side by side with the tradition of protest in African American literature runs the desire for the American Dream. Taking the possibility for them to pursue the American Dream as a measure against liberty and democracy in the United States, African American writers attribute white racism as the destructive force to the noble ideals embodied in the dream, and protest in the hope that the dream may come true when equal chance is guaranteed. The efforts to establish an African American culture, therefore, are to be interpreted as a desire to move from the margin of the American society to the center.