How does angelou portray the hardships and challenges of the lives of the people in stamps? a. she describes how they boast about how much work they can do in a day. b. she recalls the sounds of their "empty cotton sacks dragging over the floor." c. she mentions that many of them owe money to the store. d. she describes how they "fold down, dirt-disappointed" at the end of the work day.

The harlem renaissance dawned in an era of pervasive racism and segregation. although legally "free," many african americans were still bound by ideas that had their roots in the slavery of earlier centuries. identity and freedom are important ideas presented in many of the poems from the harlem renaissance. furthermore, the values of identity and freedom are not unique to particular times and places. as hughes expresses in "dream variations," all humans want to be able to develop their identities in freedom. what role does freedom play in the poems you read in this unit? what is required of a society to enable each individual to be true to his or her identity and be free to live by that identity? write about at least three of the poems, describing how the poet uses imagery to depict freedom and identity, the lack of it, or the desire for it.