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.
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.
[17] 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.
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 the North.
[36] 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.
[37] 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.
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.
Harper was often characterized as "a noble Christian woman" and "one of 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.
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.
[citation needed] Paul Laurence Dunbar, who often wrote in the rural, black dialect of the day, was the first African American poet to gain national prominence.
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 the day.
Mary Weston Fordham published Magnolia Leaves in 1897, a book of poetry on religious, spiritual, and occasionally feminist themes with an introduction by Booker T.
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).
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 the economy.
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 a time when neither of these identities was accepted by American culture.
[citation needed] The Civil Rights time period also saw the rise of female Black poets, most notably Gwendolyn Brooks, who became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize when it was awarded for her 1949 book of poetry, Annie Allen.
[citation needed] During this time, a number of playwrights also came to national attention, notably Lorraine Hansberry, whose play A Raisin in the Sun focuses on a poor Black family living in Chicago.
[citation needed] Beginning in the 1970s, African American literature reached the mainstream as books by Black writers continually achieved best-selling and award-winning status.
[59] This anthology, and Emanuel's work as an educator at the City College of New York (where he is credited with introducing the study of African-American poetry), heavily influenced the birth of the genre.
In the 1970s, novelist and poet Alice Walker wrote a famous essay that brought Zora Neale Hurston and her classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God back to the attention of the literary world.
A fictionalized account of Haley's family history—beginning with the kidnapping of his ancestor Kunta Kinte in Gambia through his life as a slave in the United States—Roots won the Pulitzer Prize and became a popular television miniseries.
Notable black playwrights include Ntozake Shange, who wrote For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf (1976), Ed Bullins, Suzan-Lori Parks, and the prolific August Wilson, who won two Pulitzer Prizes for his plays.
Younger African American novelists include David Anthony Durham, Karen E. Quinones Miller, Tayari Jones, Kalisha Buckhanon, Mat Johnson, ZZ Packer and Colson Whitehead, to name a few.
[60] Incorporating these themes with characteristics of the Gothic, science fiction, and dystopian genres, stories like Octavia E. Butler's have begun to gain literary honor and critique.
Du Bois thought the novel's frank depictions of sexuality and the nightlife in Harlem appealed only to the "prurient demand[s]" of white readers and publishers looking for portrayals of Black "licentiousness".
[74] In an alternative reading, Karla F. C. Holloway's Legal Fictions: Constituting Race, Composing Literature (Duke University Press, 2014) suggests a different composition for the tradition and argues its contemporary vitality.
"[78] She believes providing students with content that portrays authentic and genuine reflections of multi-cultural experiences, allows for better engagement and connection in the classroom for those who resonate with these cultures.
[80] This is to counter the overly aggressive and male-dominated academic writings in higher education and balance them with more female voices, hence Cooper is widely recognized as the "mother of Black feminism".
[83] In the article "Mechanisms of Disease: African-American Women Writers, Social Pathologies, and the Limits of Medicine" (1994), Ann Folwell Stanford argues that novels by African American women writers Toni Cade Bambara, Paule Marshall, and Gloria Naylor offer a feminist critique of the biomedical model of health that reveals the important role of the social (racist, classist, sexist) contexts in which bodies function.
[85] Frances Ellen Watkins Harper wrote many poems throughout her career including, Forest Leaves (1845), Sketches of Southern Life (1891), and Lola Leroy or Shadows Uplifted (1892).
