Voices of Resilience: Literary Strategies and Themes in Contemporary African American Literature Addressing the Struggle for Equality

This article investigates the literary strategies employed by contemporary African American writers: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Colson Whitehead, and Angie Thomas, in articulating the struggle for equality and justice. Using a qualitative-descriptive method informed by postcolonial and critical race theory, the study analyzes Between the World and Me, The Nickel Boys, and The Hate U Give. The analysis focuses on four dimensions: narrative style and structure, symbolism and imagery, genre and form, and language and tone. The findings demonstrate that Coates utilizes an epistolary narrative to personalize systemic racism through intergenerational reflection, while Whitehead adopts a dual-timeline structure to expose the historical continuity of racial violence. Thomas employs a first-person linear narrative within young adult fiction to foreground lived experience and youth resistance. Symbolic representations, such as the Black body, reform institutions, and everyday objects, serve as powerful critiques of systemic oppression. Genre hybridity and strategic language choices further expand the social reach of these texts. This study argues that contemporary African American literature operates as both an aesthetic form and a mode of social advocacy, transforming narrative innovation into a critical intervention in global discourses on justice, race, and humanity.