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134-525: Other prominent writers of the 18th century that helped shape the tone and direction of African American literature were David Walker (1796–1830), an abolitionist and writer best known for his Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World ( 1829); Frederick Douglass , who was a former enslaved person who became a prominent abolitionist, orator, and writer famous for his autobiographies, including Narrative of

268-488: A cypher . Or in other words, those heathen nations of antiquity had but little more among them than the name and form of slavery; while wretchedness and endless miseries were reserved, apparently in a phial , to be poured out upon our fathers, ourselves, and our children by Christian Americans. Walker's Appeal argued that black Americans had to assume responsibility for themselves if they wanted to overcome oppression. According to historian Peter Hinks, Walker believed that

402-565: A Slave and Four Years in the White House , she lost her job and found herself reduced to doing odd jobs. Although she acknowledged the cruelties of her enslavement and her resentment towards it, Keckley chose to focus her narrative on the incidents that "moulded her character", and on how she proved herself "worth her salt". Behind the Scenes details Keckley's life in slavery, her work for Mary Todd Lincoln and her efforts to obtain her freedom. Keckley

536-555: A ban on the disembarkation of black seamen ( Negro Seamen Act ). This was because Southern governmental entities, particularly in port cities, were concerned about the arrival and dissemination of information that they wanted to keep from black people, both free and enslaved. Various Southern governmental bodies labeled the Appeal seditious and imposed harsh penalties on those who circulated it. Despite such efforts, Walker's pamphlet had circulated widely by early 1830. Having failed to contain

670-558: A better place in the North for her children to grow up. She married again, to Royal Woods, an African-American minister. They lived in Ann Arbor , Michigan , for a period and in California. Raboteau's stepfather taught the boy Latin and Greek starting at the age of five years, and helped him to focus on church and education as he grew up. Raboteau attended Catholic parochial schools. When he

804-495: A black man in the United States. This was the main source of its overwhelming power in its own time; this is the source of the great relevance and enormous impact that remain in it, deep as we are in the twentieth century. Never before or since was there a more passionate denunciation of the hypocrisy of the nation as a whole — democratic and fraternal and equalitarian and all the other words. And Walker does this not as one who hates

938-582: A book of poetry on religious, spiritual, and occasionally feminist themes with an introduction by Booker T. Washington . The Harlem Renaissance from 1920 to 1940 was a flowering of African American literature and art. Based in the African American community of Harlem in New York City , it was part of a larger flowering of social thought and culture. Numerous Black artists, musicians and others produced classic works in fields from jazz to theater. Among

1072-412: A citizen in post-Revolutionary America. African American literature has both been influenced by the great African diasporic heritage and shaped it in many countries. It has been created within the larger realm of post-colonial literature , although scholars distinguish between the two, saying that "African American literature differs from most post-colonial literature in that it is written by members of

1206-500: A clear knowledge of literary genres and biblical narratives. This contributed to advancing their message about African American women's agency and countered the dominant racist and sexist discourse of early American society. Zilpha Elaw was born in 1790 in America to free parents. She was a preacher for five years in England without the support of a denomination. She published her Memoirs of

1340-432: A copy of this Appeal and read it, or get some one to read it to them, for it is designed more particularly for them." Regarding religion, Walker excoriated the hypocrisy of "pretended preachers of the gospel of my Master, who not only held us as their natural inheritance, but treated us with as much rigor as any Infidel or Deist in the world — just as though they were intent only on taking our blood and groans to glorify

1474-496: A demure woman who had no voice in society and little knowledge of the world. Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) was a leading advocate in both the abolitionist and feminist movements in the 19th century. Born Isabella to a wealthy Dutch master in Ulster County, New York , she adopted the name Sojourner Truth after 40 years of struggle, first to attain her freedom and then to work on the mission she felt God intended for her. This new name

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1608-594: A family. Raboteau entered the Yale Graduate Program in Religious Studies, where he studied with American religious historian Sydney Ahlstrom and African-American historian John Blassingame , receiving his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1974. Raboteau's dissertation, later revised and published as the book Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South , was published just as

1742-676: A forced march overland to Montreal. Some were later ransomed and redeemed by their families or community; others were adopted by Mohawk families, and some girls joined a French religious order. The ballad was first published in 1854, with an additional couplet, in The Springfield Republican and in 1855 in Josiah Holland's History of Western Massachusetts . The poet Phillis Wheatley ( c.  1753 –1784) published her book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in 1773, three years before American independence . Wheatley

1876-450: A free person. Walker found the oppression of fellow black people unbearable. "If I remain in this bloody land," he later recalled thinking, "I will not live long... I cannot remain where I must hear slaves' chains continually and where I must encounter the insults of their hypocritical enslavers." Consequently, as a young adult, he moved to Charleston, South Carolina , a Mecca for upwardly mobile free black people. He became affiliated with

2010-407: A great deal of other abolitionist writing, much inspired by Walker, had appeared in those 18 years. It received a new life with its reprinting in 1848 by the black minister Henry Highland Garnet , who in another 17 years would be the first African American ever to address the U.S. Congress. Garnet included the first biography of David Walker, and a similarly-themed speech of his own, his 'Address to

2144-525: A man of color dies, if he owned any real estate it most generally falls into the hands of some white persons. The wife and children of the deceased may weep and lament if they please, but the estate will be kept snug enough of its white possessor. His son Edward G. Walker (also known as Edwin G. Walker) was born after Walker's death, and in 1866 would become the first black man elected to the Massachusetts State Legislature . As noted from

2278-424: A minority community who reside within a nation of vast wealth and economic power." African American oral culture is rich in poetry, including spirituals , gospel music , blues , and rap . This oral poetry also appears in the African American tradition of Christian sermons , which make use of deliberate repetition, cadence, and alliteration. African American literature—especially written poetry, but also prose—has

2412-460: A new sense of Black nationalism, so too were Black authors attempting to address these issues with their writings. One of the first writers to do so was James Baldwin , whose work addressed issues of race and sexuality . Baldwin, who is best known for his novel Go Tell It on the Mountain , wrote deeply personal stories and essays while examining what it was like to be both Black and homosexual at

2546-456: A nonfiction book, Harlem: Negro Metropolis , and a collection of short stories. In 1926, Hughes published a collection of poetry, The Weary Blues , and in 1930 a novel, Not Without Laughter . He wrote " The Negro Speaks of Rivers " as a young teen. His single, most recognized character is Jesse B. Simple, a plainspoken, pragmatic Harlemite whose comedic observations appeared in Hughes's columns for

2680-626: A number of essays published as editorials in the UNIA house organ, the Negro World newspaper. Some of his lecture material and other writings were compiled and published as nonfiction books by his second wife Amy Jacques Garvey as the Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey Or, Africa for the Africans (1924) and More Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey (1977). Paul Laurence Dunbar , who often wrote in

2814-581: A number of political posts during his life, he also wrote numerous influential articles and essays. Early African American spiritual autobiographies were published in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Authors of such narratives include James Gronniosaw , John Marrant , and George White. William L. Andrews argues that these early narratives "gave the twin themes of the Afro-American 'pregeneric myth'—knowledge and freedom—their earliest narrative form". These spiritual narratives were important predecessors of

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2948-571: A play on the Biblical injunction to "be not afraid or dismayed." As he points out, "'be not afraid or dismayed' is a direct quote from 2 Chronicles 20.15, where the Israelites are told to 'be not afraid or dismayed' because God would fight the battle for them and save them from their enemies without their having to lift a finger." In the Bible, all the Israelites are expected to do is pray, but Walker asserts that

3082-665: A preacher for the African Methodist Church. But her narratives were not endorsed by the Methodists because a woman preaching was contrary to their church doctrine. Some critics argue that Lee's contribution to African American literature lies in her disobedience to the patriarchal church system and her assertion of women's rights within the Methodist Church. Nancy Prince was born in 1799, in Newburyport, Massachusetts , and

3216-458: A professor emeritus. He then studied "the place of beauty in the history of Eastern and Western Christian Spirituality." In January 2021, Raboteau entered hospice care. He died on September 18, 2021, in Princeton, New Jersey, aged 78, due to Lewy body dementia . In the late 20th century, Raboteau converted to Eastern Orthodoxy at a time of personal crisis and divorce from his first wife. At

3350-464: A role model for all female African American writers. While Hurston and Hughes are the two most influential writers to come out of the Harlem Renaissance, a number of other writers also became well known during this period. They include Jean Toomer , author of Cane , a famous collection of stories, poems, and sketches about rural and urban Black life, and Dorothy West , whose novel The Living

3484-516: A sense of home, segregation, migration, feminism , and more. African American literature presents experience from an African American point of view. In the early Republic, African American literature represented a way for free blacks to negotiate their identity in an individualized republic. They often tried to exercise their political and social autonomy in the face of resistance from the white public. Thus, an early theme of African American literature was, like other American writings, what it meant to be

3618-744: A strong African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME Church) community of activists , members of the first black denomination in the United States. He later visited and likely lived in Philadelphia , a shipbuilding center and location of an active black community, where the AME Church was founded. Walker settled in Boston by 1825; slavery had been abolished in Massachusetts after the American Revolutionary War . He married February 23, 1826 Eliza Butler,

3752-648: A strong tradition of incorporating all of these forms of oral poetry. These characteristics do not occur in all works by African American writers. Some scholars resist using Western literary theory to analyze African American literature. As the Harvard literary scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. , said, "My desire has been to allow the black tradition to speak for itself about its nature and various functions, rather than to read it, or analyze it, in terms of literary theories borrowed whole from other traditions, appropriated from without." One trope common to African American literature

3886-538: A sympathetic white woman, to write the Narrative of Sojourner Truth . This narrative was a contribution to both the slave narrative and female spiritual narratives. After the end of slavery and the American Civil War, a number of African American authors wrote nonfiction works about the condition of African Americans in the United States. Many African American women wrote about the principles of behavior of life during

4020-477: A threat to party unity and opposed efforts to introduce slavery as an issue in national politics. Although white southerners comprised a small minority of the overall U.S. population, 11 of 15 presidents to serve prior to the Civil War came from slaveholding southern families, and none except John Adams and John Quincy Adams was elected without carrying a majority of southern electoral votes. The Appeal described

4154-410: A time when neither of these identities was accepted by American culture. In all, Baldwin wrote nearly 20 books, including such classics as Another Country and The Fire Next Time . David Walker (abolitionist) David Walker (September 28, 1796 – August 6, 1830) was an American abolitionist , writer, and anti-slavery activist. Though his father was enslaved, his mother

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4288-487: Is " signifying ". Gates claims that signifying "is a trope in which are subsumed several other rhetorical tropes, including metaphor , metonymy , synecdoche , and irony , and also hyperbole and litotes , and metalepsis ." Signifying also refers to the way in which African American "authors read and critique other African-American texts in an act of rhetorical self-definition." African American literature began with slave narratives . African American history predates

4422-497: Is Easy examined the life of an upper-class Black family. Another popular renaissance writer is Countee Cullen , who in his poems described everyday black life (such as a trip he made to Baltimore that was ruined by a racial insult). Cullen's books include the poetry collections Color (1925), Copper Sun (1927), and The Ballad of the Brown Girl (1927). Frank Marshall Davis 's poetry collections Black Man's Verse (1935) and I am

4556-635: Is a call upon their slaves to destroy them," Garrison wrote. Walker's Appeal and the slave rebellion led by Nat Turner in Virginia in 1831 struck fear into the hearts of slave owners. Though there is no evidence to suggest that the Appeal specifically informed or inspired Turner, it could have, since the two events were just a few years apart; white people were panicked about the possibility of future insurrections. Southern states passed laws restricting free black people and slaves. Many white people in Virginia and neighboring North Carolina believed that Turner

4690-484: Is great work for you to do... You have to prove to the Americans and the world that we are men , and not brutes, as we have been represented, and by millions treated. Remember, to let the aim of your labours among your brethren, and particularly the youths, be the dissemination of education and religion. In the Appeal , Walker criticized white Americans by comparing their position on slavery to other groups. Walker praised

4824-478: Is his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave , which was published in 1845. At the time some critics attacked the book, not believing that a black man could have written such an eloquent work. Despite this, the book was an immediate bestseller. Douglass later revised and expanded his autobiography, which was republished as My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). In addition to serving in

4958-411: Is quite rare; a second and then a third edition appeared in 1830. Walker's second edition, of 1830, expressed his views even more strongly than the first edition. Walker appealed to his readers to take an active role in fighting their oppression, regardless of the risk, and to press white Americans to realize that slavery was morally and religiously repugnant. The Appeal was semi-forgotten by 1848;

5092-528: The Chicago Defender and the New York Post . Simple Speaks His Mind (1950) is a collection of stories about centering on Simple published in book form. Until his death in 1967, Hughes published nine volumes of poetry, eight books of short stories, two novels and a number of plays , children's books and translations. Another notable writer of the renaissance is novelist Zora Neale Hurston , author of

5226-681: The American Civil War . The three-fifths clause of the United States Constitution counted three-fifths of the enslaved population of a state towards its representation in Congress and the electoral college ; as enslaved people could not vote, this clause amounted to additional representation for large slaveholding slaves beyond what their free populations would normally warrant. Both the Democratic and Whig parties saw abolitionism as

5360-497: The Appeal , Southern officials criticized both the pamphlet and its author. Newspapers like the Richmond Enquirer railed against what it called Walker's "monstrous slander" of the region. Outrage over the Appeal even led Georgia to announce an award of $ 10,000 to anyone who could hand over Walker alive, and $ 1,000 if dead. Walker's Appeal did not gain the favor of most abolitionists or free black people because its message

5494-727: The Nat Turner's Rebellion , which inspired them to adopt harsher laws in an attempt to subdue and control slaves and free black people. William Lloyd Garrison , one of the most influential American abolitionists, began publishing The Liberator in January 1831, not long after the Appeal was published. Garrison, who believed slaveowners would be punished by God, rejected the violence Walker advocated but recognized that slaveowners were courting disaster by refusing to free their slaves. "Every sentence that they write — every word that they speak — every resistance that they make, against foreign oppression,

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5628-585: The Pulitzer Prize ; and Beloved by Toni Morrison achieving both best-selling and award-winning status. In broad terms, African American literature can be defined as writings by people of African descent living in the United States. It is highly varied. African American literature has generally focused on the role of African Americans within the larger American society and what it means to be an American. As Princeton University professor Albert J. Raboteau has said, all African American literary study "speaks to

5762-447: The "key to the uplift of the race was a zealous commitment to the tenets of individual moral improvement: education, temperance , protestant religious practice, regular work habits, and self-regulation." "America," Walker argued, "is more our country, than it is the whites — we have enriched it with our blood and tears ." Education and religion were especially important to Walker. Black knowledge, he argued, would not only undermine

5896-612: The "poor and needy". Walker took part in civic and religious organizations in Boston. He was involved with Prince Hall Freemasonry , an organization formed in the 1780s that stood up against discriminatory treatment of black people; became a founder of the Massachusetts General Colored Association , which opposed colonization of free American Black People to Africa; and was a member of Rev. Samuel Snowden 's Methodist church. Walker also spoke publicly against slavery and racism. Thomas Dalton and Walker oversaw

6030-449: The 1820s and '30s, individuals and groups had emerged with degrees of commitment to equal rights for black men and women, but no national anti-slavery movement existed at the time Walker's Appeal was published. As historian Herbert Aptheker wrote: To be an Abolitionist was not for the faint-hearted. The slaveholders represented for the first half of the nineteenth century the most closely knit and most important single economic unit in

6164-553: The 19th century. The genre known as slave narratives in the 19th century were accounts by people who had generally escaped from slavery, about their journeys to freedom and ways they claimed their lives. The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s was a great period of flowering in literature and the arts, influenced both by writers who came North in the Great Migration and those who were immigrants from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands. African American writers have been recognized by

6298-473: The American Negro (1899), Tuskegee and Its People (1905), and My Larger Education (1911). In contrast to Du Bois, who adopted a more confrontational attitude toward ending racial strife in America, Washington believed that Blacks should first lift themselves up and prove themselves the equal of whites before asking for an end to racism. While this viewpoint was popular among some Blacks (and many whites) at

6432-481: The American Negro (1937), published by Black Cat Press , earned him critical acclaim. Author Wallace Thurman also made an impact with his novel Thinterracial heerry: A Novel of Negro Life (1929), which focused on interracial prejudice between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned African Americans. The Harlem Renaissance marked a turning point for African American literature. Prior to this time, books by African Americans were primarily read by other Black people. With

6566-498: The Americans this side of eternity. Then we will want all the learning and talents, and perhaps more, to govern ourselves." Scholars such as historian Sterling Stuckey have remarked upon the connection between Walker's Appeal and black nationalism. In his 1972 study of The Ideological Origins of Black Nationalism , Stuckey suggested that Walker's Appeal "would become an ideological foundation... for Black Nationalist theory." Though some historians have said that Stuckey overstated

6700-645: The Appeal to a black nationalism narrowly defined, but rather to a range of sentiments and concerns. Stuckey's concept of a black nationalist theory rooted in African slave folklore in America is an original and pioneering one, and his intellectual insights are valuable to a progressive rewriting of African-American history and culture. This country is as much ours as it is the whites, whether they will admit it now or not, they will see and believe it by and by. Walker distributed his pamphlet through black communication networks along

6834-580: The Atlantic coast, which included free and enslaved black civil rights activists, laborers, black church and revivalist networks, contacts with free black benevolent societies, and maroon communities. Southern officials worked to prevent the Appeal from reaching its residents. Black people in Charleston and New Orleans were arrested for distributing the pamphlet, while authorities in Savannah, Georgia , instituted

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6968-658: The British in the work, arguing that they were "the best friends the coloured people have upon earth. Though they have oppressed us a little and have colonies now in the West Indies which oppress us sorely—Yet notwithstanding they have done one hundred times more for the melioration of our condition, than all the other nations of the earth put together". In contrast, Walker denounced white Americans "with their posturing religiosity and their hollow cant of freedom" to "the lowest reaches of hypocritical infamy". Despite Walker's criticism of

7102-488: The Colored Population Generally . Later, in 1850, she published A Narrative of the Life and Travels of Mrs. Nancy Prince . These publications were both spiritual narratives and travel narratives. Similar to Jarena Lee, Prince adhered to the standards of Christian religion by framing her unique travel narrative in a Christian perspective. Yet, her narrative poses a counter narrative to the 19th century's ideal of

7236-599: The Department of Religion (1987–92) and also served as dean of the Graduate School (1992–93). During his professorship, he trained as graduate students Michael Eric Dyson , Eddie Glaude , and Judith Weisenfeld . The Christian Century called Raboteau the "godfather of Afro-religious studies". In both 2005 and 2006, Raboteau received the Princeton's MLK Day Lifetime Service Award (Journey Award) in both 2005 and 2006. Raboteau retired in 2013, but he continued to teach as

7370-403: The Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845); and Harriet Jacobs , an enslaved woman who wrote Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). Like most writers, African American writers draw on their every day lived experiences for inspiration on material to write about, therefore African American literature was dominated by autobiographical spiritual narratives throughout much of

7504-409: The Life, Religious Experience, Ministerial Travel and Labours of Mrs. Zilpha Elaw, an American Female of Colour in 1846, while still living in England. Her narrative was meant to be an account of her spiritual experience. Yet some critics argue that her work was also meant to be a literary contribution. Elaw aligns herself in a literary tradition of respectable women of her time who were trying to combat

7638-465: The Lord Jesus Christ ." It fell upon blacks, he argued, to reject the notion that the Bible sanctioned slavery and urge whites to repent before God could punish them for their wickedness. As historian Sean Wilentz has maintained, Walker, in his Appeal , "offered a version of Christianity that was purged of racist heresies, one which held that God was a God of justice to all His creatures." There

7772-501: The North as an orator for abolition and as the author of a moving slave narrative. He eventually became the most prominent African American of his time and one of the most influential lecturers and authors in American history. Born into slavery in Maryland, Douglass eventually escaped and worked for numerous abolitionist causes. He also edited a number of newspapers. Douglass's best-known work

7906-604: The North. Examples include Aunt Phillis's Cabin (1852) by Mary Henderson Eastman and The Sword and the Distaff (1853) by William Gilmore Simms . The slave narratives were integral to African American literature. Some 6,000 former slaves from North America and the Caribbean wrote accounts of their lives, with about 150 of these published as separate books or pamphlets. Slave narratives can be broadly categorized into three distinct forms: tales of religious redemption, tales to inspire

8040-491: The North. Free blacks expressed their oppression in a different narrative form. Free blacks in the North often spoke out against enslavement and racial injustices by using the spiritual narrative. The spiritual addressed many of the same themes of enslaved people narratives but has been largely ignored in current scholarly conversation. At the turn of the 20th century, non-fiction works by authors such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington debated how to confront racism in

8174-567: The Slaves of the United States of America.' which was perceived as so radical that it was rejected for publication when delivered, in 1843. The most influential white abolitionist, John Brown , played a role in getting the volume of Garnet printed. Walker challenged the racism of the early 19th century. He specifically targeted groups such as the American Colonization Society , which sought to deport all free and freed black people from

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8308-457: The United States by an African American woman was Harriet Wilson 's Our Nig (1859). It expressed the difficulties of lives of northern free Blacks. Our Nig was rediscovered and republished by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. , in the early 1980s. He labeled the work fiction and argued that it may be the first novel published by an African American. Parallels between Wilson's narrative and her life have been discovered, leading some scholars to argue that

8442-510: The United States that dark skin was a sign of inferiority and lesser humanity. He challenged critics to show him "a page of history, either sacred or profane, on which a verse can be found, which maintains that the Egyptians heaped the insupportable insult upon the children of Israel , by telling them that they were not of the human family", referring to the period when they were enslaved in Egypt. By

8576-458: The United States to a colony in Africa (this was how Liberia was established). He wrote against published assertions of black inferiority by the late President Thomas Jefferson , who died three years before Walker's pamphlet was published. As Walker explained: "I say, that unless we refute Mr. Jefferson's arguments respecting us, we will only establish them." He rejected the white assumption in

8710-522: The United States, his Appeal did not declare the nation irredeemable. He may have charged white Americans with the sin of turning "colored people of these United States" into "the most degraded, wretched, and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began,", but as historian Sean Wilentz has argued, "even in his bitterest passages Walker did not repudiate... republican principles, or his native country." Walker suggested that white Americans only needed to consider their own purported values to see

8844-477: The United States. During the Civil Rights Movement , authors such as Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about issues of racial segregation and black nationalism . Today, African American literature has become accepted as an integral part of American literature , with books such as Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley , The Color Purple (1982) by Alice Walker , which won

8978-452: The abolitionist struggle, and tales of progress. The tales written to inspire the abolitionist struggle are the most famous because they tend to have a strong autobiographical motif. Many of them are now recognized as the most literary of all 19th-century writings by African Americans, with two of the best-known being Frederick Douglass 's autobiography and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs (1861). Jacobs (1813–1897)

9112-598: The age of 19. There he published his short story " Le Mulâtre " ("The Mulatto") in 1837. It is the first known work of fiction by an African American, but as it was written in French and published in a French journal, it had apparently no influence on later American literature. Séjour never returned to African American themes in his subsequent works. Brown, on the other hand, was a prominent abolitionist , lecturer, novelist, playwright, and historian. Born into slavery in Kentucky, he

9246-633: The argument for racial equality and the active part to be taken by black people in achieving it." Literary scholar Chris Apap has echoed these sentiments. The Appeal , Apap has asserted, rejected the notion that the black community should do nothing more than pray for its liberation. Apap has drawn particular attention to a passage of the Appeal in which Walker encourages blacks to "[n]ever make an attempt to gain freedom or natural right, from under our cruel oppressors and murderers, until you see your ways clear; when that hour arrives and you move, be not afraid or dismayed." Apap has interpreted Walker's words as

9380-516: The assertion that black people were inherently inferior; it would terrify white people. "The bare name of educating the colored people," he wrote, "scares our cruel oppressors almost to death." Those who were educated, Walker argued, had a special obligation to teach their brethren, and literate black people were urged to read his pamphlet to those who could not. As he explained: "[i]t is expected that all colored men, women and children, of every nation, language and tongue under heaven, will try to procure

9514-455: The black community must "move." Apap insists that in prompting his readers to "move", Walker rejected the notion that black people in america should "sit idly by and wait for God to fight their battles — they must (and implicit in Walker's language is the assumption that they will ) take action and move to claim what is rightfully and morally theirs." [W]e colored people of these United States are

9648-622: The black studies movement was gaining steam in the 1970s. It was a time of revolutionary scholarship on American slavery: Blassingame's Slave Community (1972) and Slave Testimony (1977); Eugene Genovese 's Roll, Jordan, Roll (1974), Olli Alho's The Religion of Slaves (1976), and Lawrence Levine 's Black Culture and Black Consciousness (1977). Princeton University hired Raboteau in 1982, eventually appointing him Henry W. Putnam Professor of Religion in 1992. His research and teaching focus on American Catholic history, African-American religions, and religion and immigration issues. He chaired

9782-425: The centuries, so has the focus of African American literature. Before the American Civil War , the literature primarily consisted of memoirs by people who had escaped from enslavement—the genre of slave narratives included accounts of life in enslavement and the path of justice and redemption to freedom. There was an early distinction between the literature of freed slaves and the literature of free blacks born in

9916-503: The classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). Although Hurston wrote 14 books that ranged from anthropology to short stories to novel-length fiction, her writings fell into obscurity for decades. Her work was rediscovered in the 1970s through Alice Walker 's 1975 article " In Search of Zora Neale Hurston ", published in Ms. and later retitled "Looking for Zora". Walker found in Hurston

10050-407: The controversy over slavery led to impassioned literature on both sides of the issue, with novels such as Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe 's representing the abolitionist view of the evils of slavery. Southern white writers produced the " Anti-Tom " novels in response, purporting to truly describe life under slavery, as well as the more severe cruelties suffered by free labor in

10184-407: The country but rather as one who hates the institutions which disfigure it and make it a hissing in the world. Just five years after he arrived in Boston, Walker died in the summer of 1830. Though rumors suggested that he had been poisoned, Walker died a natural death from tuberculosis , as listed in his death record. The disease was prevalent and Walker's only daughter, Lydia Ann, had died from it

10318-657: The daughter of Jonas Butler. Her family was an established black family in Boston. Their children were Lydia Ann Walker (who died July 31, 1830, of lung fever at the age of one year and nine months in Boston), and Edward G. Walker (1831–1910). He started a used clothing store in the City Market. He next owned a clothing store on Brattle Street near the wharfs. There were three used clothing merchants, including Walker, who went to trial in 1828 for selling stolen property. The results are unknown. He aided runaway slaves and helped

10452-414: The day. Though Dunbar died young, he was a prolific poet, essayist, novelist (among them The Uncalled , 1898 and The Fanatics , 1901) and short story writer. Other African American writers also rose to prominence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among these is Charles W. Chesnutt , a well-known short story writer, novelist, and essayist. Mary Weston Fordham published Magnolia Leaves in 1897,

10586-460: The deeper meaning of the African-American presence in this nation. This presence has always been a test case of the nation's claims to freedom, democracy, equality, the inclusiveness of all." African American literature explores the issues of freedom and equality long denied to Blacks in the United States, along with further themes such as African American culture, racism, religion , enslavement,

10720-451: The economy. This migration produced a new sense of independence in the Black community and contributed to the vibrant Black urban culture seen during the Harlem Renaissance. The migration also empowered the growing Civil Rights Movement , which made a powerful impression on Black writers during the 1940s, '50s and '60s. Just as Black activists were pushing to end segregation and racism and create

10854-514: The emergence of the United States as an independent country, and African American literature has similarly deep roots. Lucy Terry is the author of the oldest known piece of African American literature, "Bars Fight". Terry wrote the ballad in 1746 after a Native American attack on Deerfield, Massachusetts . She was enslaved in Deerfield at the time of the attack, when many residents were killed and more than 100, mostly women and children, were taken on

10988-467: The error of their ways. Walker asserted that white people did not deserve adulation for their willingness to free some slaves. As historian Peter Hinks has explained, Walker argued that "[w]hites gave nothing to blacks upon manumission except the right to exercise the liberty they had immorally prevented them from so doing in the past. They were not giving blacks a gift but rather returning what they had stolen from them and God. To pay respect to whites as

11122-450: The extent to which Walker contributed to the creation of a black nation, Thabiti Asukile, in a 1999 article on "The All-Embracing Black Nationalist Theories of David Walker's Appeal", defended Stuckey's interpretation. Asukile writes: Though scholars may continue to debate this, it would seem hard to disprove that the later advocates of black nationalism in America, who advocated a separate nation-state based on geographical boundaries during

11256-574: The first newspaper owned and operated by African Americans. In September 1829, Walker published his appeal to African Americans, entitled Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Colored Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America, Written in Boston, State of Massachusetts, September 28, 1829. The first edition

11390-640: The first published Black writer in America, published his poem "An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries" as a broadside in early 1761. In 1778 he wrote an ode to Phillis Wheatley, in which he discussed their shared humanity and common bonds. In 1786, Hammon gave his " Address to the Negroes of the State of New York ". Writing at the age of 76 after a lifetime of slavery, Hammon said: "If we should ever get to Heaven, we shall find nobody to reproach us for being black, or for being slaves." He also promoted

11524-460: The first recognition of African American literature. As a result of the skepticism surrounding her work, Poems on Various Subjects was republished with "several introductory documents designed to authenticate Wheatley and her poetry and to substantiate her literary motives." Another early African American author was Jupiter Hammon (1711–1806?), a domestic slave in Queens, New York . Hammon, considered

11658-467: The first ten chapters of the narrative while studying in France, as a means of satisfying her classmates' curiosity about her father. After returning to America, she discovered that the narrative of her father's life, written by him, and published a few years before, was out of print and thus produced the rest of the chapters that constitute Biography of an American Bondman . Brown was a qualified teacher but she

11792-530: The highest awards, including the Nobel Prize given to Toni Morrison in 1993. Among the themes and issues explored in this literature are the role of African Americans within the larger American society, African American culture , racism , slavery , and social equality . African-American writing has tended to incorporate oral forms, such as spirituals , sermons , gospel music , blues , or rap . As African Americans' place in American society has changed over

11926-418: The history of African American literature as it discloses through her first hand account specific injustices that black women suffered under slavery, especially their sexual harassment and the threat or actual perpetration of rape as a tool of slavery. Harriet Beecher Stowe was asked to write a foreword for Jacob's book, but refused. Frederick Douglass ( c.  1818 –1895) first came to public attention in

12060-500: The idea of gradual emancipation as a way to end slavery. Hammon is thought to have been a slave on Long Island until his death. In the 19th century, his speech was later reprinted by several abolitionist groups. William Wells Brown (1814–1884) and Victor Séjour (1817–1874) produced the earliest works of fiction by African American writers. Séjour was born free in New Orleans (he was a free person of color ) and moved to France at

12194-540: The immoral literature of the time. Maria W. Stewart published a collection of her religious writings with an autobiographical experience attached in 1879. The publication was called Meditations from the Pen of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart . She also had two works published in 1831 and 1832 titled Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality and Meditations . Maria Stewart was known for her public speeches in which she talked about

12328-627: The leading figures of the American Revolution , including George Washington , who thanked her for a poem written in his honor. Some whites found it hard to believe that a Black woman could write such refined poetry. Wheatley had to defend herself to prove that she had written her own work, so an authenticating preface, or attestation, was provided at the beginning of her book, signed by a list of prominent white male leaders in Massachusetts, affirming her authorship. Some critics cite Wheatley's successful use of this "defensive" authentication document as

12462-553: The most degraded, wretched, and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began, and I pray God, that none like us ever may live until time shall be no more. They tell us of the Israelites in Egypt, the Helots in Sparta, and of the Roman slaves ...whose sufferings under those ancient and heathen nations, were, in comparison with ours, under this enlightened and Christian nation, no more than

12596-492: The most renowned writers of the renaissance is poet Langston Hughes , whose first work was published in The Brownies' Book in 1921. He first received attention in the 1922 publication The Book of American Negro Poetry . Edited by James Weldon Johnson , this anthology featured the work of the period's most talented poets, including Claude McKay , who also published three novels, Home to Harlem , Banjo and Banana Bottom,

12730-483: The most scholarly and well-read women of her day", but she was also known as a strong advocate against slavery and the post-Civil War repressive measures against blacks. Elizabeth Keckley (1818–1907) was a former slave who managed to establish a successful career as a dressmaker who catered to the Washington political elite after obtaining her freedom. However, soon after publishing Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years as

12864-533: The nation, their millions of bondsmen and millions of acres of land comprising an investment of billions of dollars. This economic might had its counterpart in political power, given its possessors dominance within the nation and predominance within the South. Aptheker was referring to the Slave Power thesis that argued slaveholders used their economic and political influence to control the United States government prior to

12998-401: The nineteenth and twentieth centuries, would not have been able to trace certain ideological concepts to Walker's writings. Stuckey's interpretation of the Appeal as a theoretical black nationalist document is a polemical crux for some scholars who aver that David Walker desired to live in a multicultural America. Those who share this view must consider that Stuckey does not limit his discourse on

13132-416: The numerous sources, historians consider David Walker a major abolitionist and inspirational figure in American history. Albert J. Raboteau Albert Jordy Raboteau II (September 4, 1943 – September 18, 2021) was an American scholar of African and African-American religions. Since 1982, he had been affiliated with Princeton University , where he was Henry W. Putnam Professor of Religion. Raboteau

13266-458: The period. African-American newspapers were a popular venue for essays, poetry and fiction as well as journalism, with newspaper writers like Jennie Carter (1830–1881) developing a large following. Among the most prominent of post-slavery writers is W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963), who had a doctorate in philosophy from Harvard University, and was one of the original founders of the NAACP in 1910. At

13400-500: The pernicious effects of both slavery and the subservience of and discrimination against free black Americans. Those outside of slavery were said to need special regulation "because they could not be relied on to regulate themselves and because they might overstep the boundaries society had placed around them." In his Appeal Walker implored the black community to take action against slavery and discrimination. "What gives unity to Walker's polemic ," historian Paul Goodman has argued, "is

13534-569: The precarious positions of being black and women in early America. Women claimed their authority to preach and write spiritual narratives by citing the Epistle of James , often calling themselves "doers of the word". The study of these women and their spiritual narratives are significant to the understanding of African American life in the Antebellum North because they offer both historical context and literary tropes. Women who wrote these narratives had

13668-583: The publication of John T. Hilton 's An Address, Delivered Before the African Grand Lodge of Boston, No. 459, June 24, 1828, by John T. Hilton: On the Annual Festival, of St. John the Baptist (Boston, 1828). Although they were not free from racist hostility and discrimination, black families in Boston lived in relatively benign conditions in the 1820s. The level of black competency and activism in Boston

13802-468: The publishing world. The novel has been described as a style between slave narratives and the sentimental novel. In her novel, Crafts went beyond the genre of the slave narrative. There is some evidence that she read in the library of her master and was influenced by those works: the narrative was serialized and bears resemblances to Charles Dickens ' style.– Many critics are still attempting to decode its literary significance and establish its contributions to

13936-539: The renaissance, though, African American literature—as well as black fine art and performance art—began to be absorbed into mainstream American culture. A large migration of African Americans began during World War I , hitting its high point during World War II . During this Great Migration , Black people left the racism and lack of opportunities in the American South and settled in northern cities such as Chicago , where they found work in factories and other sectors of

14070-560: The responsibility of individuals to act according to religious and political principles. At the time, some people were aghast and fearful of the reaction that the pamphlet would provoke. Southern citizens were particularly upset with Walker's viewpoints and as a result there were laws banning circulation of "seditious publications" and North Carolina's "legislature enacted the most repressive measures ever passed in North Carolina to control slaves and free blacks". His son, Edward G. Walker ,

14204-567: The role of black women and race relations. Her works were praised by Alexander Crummell and William Lloyd Garrison . Stewart's works have been argued to be a refashioning of the jeremiad tradition and focus on the specific plight of African Americans in America during the period. Jarena Lee published two religious autobiographical narratives: The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee and Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee . These two narratives were published in 1836 and 1849 respectively. Both works spoke about Lee's life as

14338-470: The rural, black dialect of the day, was the first African American poet to gain national prominence. His first book of poetry, Oak and Ivy , was published in 1893. Much of Dunbar's work, such as When Malindy Sings (1906), which includes photographs taken by the Hampton Institute Camera Club and Joggin' Erlong (1906) provide revealing glimpses into the lives of rural African Americans of

14472-407: The slave narratives which proliferated the literary scene of the 19th century. These spiritual narratives have often been left out of the study of African American literature because some scholars have deemed them historical or sociological documents, despite their importance to understanding African American literature as a whole. African American women who wrote spiritual narratives had to negotiate

14606-451: The source of freedom was thus to blaspheme God by denying that he was the source of all virtues and the only one with whom one was justified in having a relationship of obligation and debt." Walker has often been regarded as an abolitionist with Black nationalist views, in large measure because he envisioned a future for black Americans that included self-rule. As he wrote in the Appeal : "Our sufferings will come to an end, in spite of all

14740-433: The storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. Historian Herbert Aptheker has noted that Walker's Appeal is the first sustained written assault upon slavery and racism to come from

14874-402: The study of early African American literature. A genre of African American literature that developed in the middle of the 19th century is the slave narrative, accounts written by fugitive slaves about their lives in the South and, often, after escaping to freedom. They wanted to describe the cruelties of life under slavery, as well as the persistent humanity of the slaves as persons. At the time,

15008-560: The time, Washington's political views would later fall out of fashion. Frances E. W. Harper (1825–1911) wrote four novels, several volumes of poetry, and numerous stories, poems, essays and letters. Born to free parents in Baltimore, Maryland, Harper received an uncommonly thorough education at her uncle, William Watkins' school. In 1853, publication of Harper's Eliza Harris , which was one of many responses to Harriet Beecher Stowe 's Uncle Tom's Cabin , brought her national attention. Harper

15142-561: The turn of the century, Du Bois published a highly influential collection of essays entitled The Souls of Black Folk . The essays on race were groundbreaking and drew from Du Bois's personal experiences to describe how African Americans lived in rural Georgia and in the larger American society. Du Bois wrote: "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line", a statement since considered prescient. Du Bois believed that African Americans should, because of their common interests, work together to battle prejudice and inequity. He

15276-429: The week before Walker himself died. Walker was buried in a South Boston cemetery for blacks. His probable grave site remains unmarked. When Walker died, his wife was unable to keep up the annual payments to George Parkman for the purchase of their house. She subsequently lost their home, an eventuality Walker himself had, in a sense, predicted in his Appeal : But I must, really, observe that in this very city, when

15410-428: The work should be considered autobiographical. Despite these disagreements, Our Nig is a literary work which speaks to the difficult life of free blacks in the North who were indentured servants . Our Nig is a counter-narrative to the forms of the sentimental novel and mother-centered novel of the 19th century. Another recently discovered work of early African American literature is The Bondwoman's Narrative , which

15544-652: Was 11 years old he traveled with other choir boys from St. Thomas Catholic Church of Ann Arbor to sing in an international choir festival at the Vatican . Raboteau was accepted into college at the age of 16. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at Loyola University in Los Angeles, California in 1964 and a Master of Arts degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley . Around this time, Raboteau married and started

15678-510: Was a professor at Atlanta University and later at Howard University . Another prominent author of this period is Booker T. Washington (1856–1915), who in many ways represented opposite views from Du Bois. Washington was an educator and the founder of the Tuskegee Institute , a historically black college in Alabama. Among his published works are Up From Slavery (1901), The Future of

15812-533: Was also deeply committed to programs of racial improvement and protection and helped found the Home for Destitute Women and Children in Washington, D.C., as a result. In addition to this, Keckley taught at Wilberforce University in Ohio. Josephine Brown (born 1839), the youngest child of abolitionist and author William Wells Brown , wrote a biography of her father, Biography of an American Bondman, By His Daughter . Brown wrote

15946-613: Was also extremely active as an advocate against slavery. Although not a US citizen, the Jamaican Marcus Garvey (1887–1940), was a newspaper publisher, journalist, and activist for Pan Africanism who became well known in the United States. He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA). He encouraged black nationalism and for people of African ancestry to look favorably upon their ancestral homeland. He wrote

16080-475: Was also published in England, with prefaces by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry, Lord Brougham . It was the first African American fiction to portray passing , that is, a mixed-race person deciding to identify as white rather than black. It also explored northern racism, in the context of a brutally realistic race riot closely resembling the Philadelphia race riots of 1834 and 1835. The first novel published in

16214-473: Was an attorney and in 1866, was one of the first two black men elected to the Massachusetts State Legislature . Walker was born in Wilmington , North Carolina . His mother was free . His father, who had died before his birth, had been enslaved. Since American law embraced the principle of partus sequitur ventrem , literally "that which is brought forth follows the womb", Walker inherited his mother's status as

16348-502: Was based on the persistent (and later confirmed true) rumor that president Thomas Jefferson had fathered a mixed-race daughter with the enslaved woman Sally Hemings , who Jefferson owned. (In the late 20th century, DNA testing affirmed that Jefferson was the father of six children with Hemings; four survived to adulthood, and he gave all their freedom.) The novel was first published in England, where Brown lived for several years. Frank J. Webb 's 1857 novel, The Garies and Their Friends ,

16482-617: Was born a slave in Edenton, North Carolina and was the first woman to author a slave narrative in the United States. Although her narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was written under the pseudonym "Linda Brent", the autobiography can be traced through a series of letters from Jacobs to various friends and advisors, most importantly to Lydia Maria Child , the eventual editor of Incidents . The narrative details Jacobs' struggle for freedom, not only for herself, but also for her two children. Jacobs' narrative occupies an important place in

16616-457: Was born into a Catholic family in Bay St. Louis , Mississippi , three months after his father, Albert Jordy Raboteau, Sr. (1899–1943), was killed there by a white man. The killer claimed self-defense and was never prosecuted. Raboteau was named for his late father, who was of African and French Creole descent. His widowed mother moved the family from Mississippi, where she was a teacher, to find

16750-411: Was considered too radical. That said, a handful of white antislavery advocates were radicalized by the pamphlet. The Boston Evening Transcript noted in 1830 that some black people regarded the Appeal "as if it were a star in the east guiding them to freedom and emancipation." White Southerners' fears about a black-led challenge to slavery—fears the Appeal stoked—came to pass just a year later in

16884-479: Was free; therefore, he was free as well ( partus sequitur ventrem ). In 1829, while living in Boston, Massachusetts , with the assistance of the African Grand Lodge (later named Prince Hall Grand Lodge, Jurisdiction of Massachusetts), he published An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World , a call for black unity and a fight against slavery. The Appeal brought attention to the abuses and inequities of slavery and

17018-480: Was hired by the Maine Anti-Slavery Society and in the first six weeks, she managed to travel to twenty cities, giving at least thirty-one lectures. Her book Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects , a collection of poems and essays prefaced by William Lloyd Garrison , was published in 1854 and sold more than 10,000 copies within three years. Harper was often characterized as "a noble Christian woman" and "one of

17152-625: Was inspired by Walker's Appeal or other abolitionist literature. Walker influenced Frederick Douglass , Nat Turner , William Lloyd Garrison , Martin Luther King Jr. , and Malcolm X . Echoes of his Appeal can be heard, for example, in Douglass's 1852 speech, "The Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro": For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need

17286-464: Was not only the first African American to publish a book, but the first to achieve an international reputation as a writer. Born in Senegal or The Gambia , Wheatley was captured and sold into slavery at around the age of seven. Kidnapped to Massachusetts, she was purchased and owned by a Boston merchant. By the time she was 16, she had mastered her new language of English. Her poetry was praised by many of

17420-513: Was of African and Native American descent. She turned to religion at the age of 16 in an attempt to find comfort from the trials of her life. She married Nero Prince and traveled extensively in the West Indies and Russia. She became a missionary and in 1841 she tried to raise funds for missionary work in the West Indies, publishing a pamphlet entitled The West Indies: Being a Description of the Islands, Progress of Christianity, Education, and Liberty Among

17554-448: Was particularly high. As historian Peter Hinks documents: "The growth of black enclaves in various cities and towns was inseparable from the development of an educated and socially involved local black leadership." By the end of 1828, Walker had become Boston's leading spokesman against slavery. Walker served as a Boston subscription sales agent and a writer for New York City's short-lived but influential Freedom's Journal (1827–1829),

17688-649: Was to "signify the new person she had become in the spirit, a traveler dedicated to speaking the Truth as God revealed it". Truth played a significant role during the Civil War. She worked tirelessly on several civil rights fronts; she recruited black troops in Michigan, helped with relief efforts for freedmen and women escaping from the South, led a successful effort to desegregate the streetcars in Washington, D.C., and she counseled President Abraham Lincoln . Truth never learned to read or write but in 1850, she worked with Olive Gilbert,

17822-478: Was working on riverboats based in St. Louis, Missouri , when he escaped to Ohio. He began to work for abolitionist causes, making his way to Buffalo, New York , and later Boston, Massachusetts . He was a prolific writer, beginning with an account of his escape to freedom and experience under slavery. Brown wrote Clotel; or, The President's Daughter (1853), considered to be the first novel written by an African American. It

17956-405: Was written by Hannah Crafts between 1853 and 1860. Crafts was a fugitive slave from Murfreesboro, North Carolina . If her work was written in 1853, it would be the first African American novel written in the United States. The novel was published in 2002 with an introduction by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The work was never published during Crafts' lifetime. Some suggest that she did not have entry into

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