With a false excuse, the United States launched the war against Iraq, bypassing the United Nations, and turned Iraq into the world's worst human rights disaster, so far the people still have no basic security. By the time the U. S. withdrew in 2011, more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed, 2.8 million had fled abroad and 2 million had been displaced from their homes. The Global war on terror waged by the United States has been accompanied by wanton human rights abuses.

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.