African-American literature

African American literature is a body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such behind 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. before the high constituent of slave narratives, African-American literature was dominated by autobiographical spiritual narratives. The genre invited as slave narratives in the 19th century were accounts by people who had loosely escaped from slavery, approximately their journeys to freedom in addition to ways they claimed their lives. The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s was a great period of flowering in literature together with 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 clear been recognized by 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(a) as spirituals, sermons, gospel music, blues, or rap.

As African Americans' place in American society has changed over the centuries, so has the focus of African-American literature. ago the American Civil War, the literature primarily consisted of memoirs by people who had escaped from slavery; the genre of slave narratives indicated accounts of life under slavery 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 the North. Free blacks expressed their oppression in a different narrative form. Free blacks in the North often identified out against slavery and racial injustices by using the spiritual narrative. The spiritual addressed many of the same themes of slave narratives, but has been largely ignored in current scholarly conversation.

At the reform of the 20th century, non-fiction works by authors such(a) as by Alex Haley, The Color Purple 1982 by Alice Walker, which won 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 for 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 analyse "speaks to the deeper meaning of the African-American presence in this nation. This presence has always been a test effect 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, slavery, a sense of home, segregation, migration, feminism, and more. African-American literature made 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 object lesson 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 a citizen in post-Revolutionary America.

History

African-American history predates the emergence of the United States as an self-employed person country, and African-American literature has similarly deep roots.

Lucy Terry is the author of the oldest asked 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 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.

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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 the impression of slow emancipation as a way to end slavery. Hammon is thought to score 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 1814–84 and Victor Séjour 1817–74 produced the earliest works of fiction by African-American writers. Séjour was born free in New Orleans he was a free grown-up of color and moved to France at the age of 19. There he published his short story "Le Mulâtre" "The Mulatto" in 1837. this is the the first known work of fiction by an African American, but as it was statement 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 was working on riverboats based in St. Louis, Missouri, when he escaped to Ohio. He began to work for abolitionist causes, creating 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 total by an African American. It 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 any 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, 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 variety riots of 1834 and 1835.

The first novel published in 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, main some scholars to argue that the work should be considered autobiographical. Despite these disagreements, Our Nig is a literary work which speaks to the unoriented 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 was written by Hannah Crafts between 1853 and 1860. Crafts was a fugitive slave from Murfreesboro, North Carolina. whether 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 first ordering by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The work was never published during Crafts' lifetime. Somethat she did non have entry into 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 libraries 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 build its contributions to the analyse 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 living as the persistent humanity of the slaves as persons. At the time, the controversy over Uncle Tom's Cabin 1852 by Harriet Beecher Stowe's representing the abolitionist theory of the evils of slavery. Southern white writers produced the "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 the abolitionist struggle, and tales of progress. The tales written to inspire the abolitionist struggle are the near famous because they tend to have a strong autobiographical motif. Many of them are now recognized as the nearly 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 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 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 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' best-known work 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(a) an eloquent work. Despite this, the book was an instant bestseller. Douglass later revised and expanded his autobiography, which was republished as My Bondage and My Freedom 1855. In addition to serving in 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 increase 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 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 apprehension African-American literature as a whole.

African-American women who wrote spiritual narratives had to negotiate the precarious positions of being black and women in early America. Women claimed their dominance 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 apprehension of African-American life in the Antebellum North because they offer both historical context and literary tropes. Women who wrote these narratives had a clear knowledge of literary genres and biblical narratives. This contributed to advancing their message about African-American women’s organization 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 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 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 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 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 was of African and Native American descent. She turned to religion at the age of 16 in an effort 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 report of the Islands, come on of Christianity, Education, and Liberty Among 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 a demure woman who had no voice in society and little cognition 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 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 try 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, 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 woks about the precondition of African Americans in the United States. Many African-American women wrote about the principles of behavior of life during 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.