African American Literature History and Current Trends African American Literature   The first writings by blacks in America was autobiographical and became known as the Slave Narrative Three themes developed in early African American writings around the issue of slavery: accommodation, protest, and escape African American Literature   Olaudah Equiano (Gustavus Vassa) (c 1745-c 1797) Eqiano was the first black in America to write an autobiography In The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789) Equiano gives an account of his native land (he was an Ibo from Niger) and the horrors of his captivity and enslavement in the West Indies African American Literature  Jupiter Hammon (c 1720-c 1800) Poet Jupiter Hammon, a slave on Long Island, New York, is remembered for his religious poems as well as for An Address to the Negroes of the State of New York (1787), in which he advocated freeing children of slaves instead of condemning them to hereditary slavery His poem "An Evening Thought" was the first poem published by a black male in America African American Literature  Lucy Terry (1730-1821) Thought to be the author of the oldest piece of African-American literature, “Bars Fight” a poem written in 1746, about an Indian raid on settlers in Massachusetts It was not published until 1855 African American Literature  Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) Her slave narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) is the most comprehensive biography of an African American woman prior to the Civil War In it she recounts her life in slavery in the context of family relationships reshaping the slave narrative genre to include women’s experiences African American Literature  Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) The first African-American and the second woman to publish a book in the colonies, she is one of the best known early black poets; her work was praised by leaders of the American Revolution, including George Washington She is one of the first writers to use an epistolary style (in the form of letters) African American Literature  Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) Orator, journalist, abolitionist, statesman, autobiographer and author of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself (1845), the most influential African American text of his era His writing and life created a model of self-hood of such moral and political authority, he was later viewed as a cultural hero African American Literature Post-slavery Era  W.E.B DuBois (1868-1963) One of the founders of the NAACP, DuBois published the highly influential The Souls of Black Folk (1903) which created a black intellectual and artistic consciousness He was an essayist, novelist, academic and the preeminent African American scholar-intellectual of his time African American Literature Post-slavery Era    Booker T Washington (1856-1915) autobiographer, essayist, educator James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) poet, essayist, editor, educator Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) poet Slave Narrative Projects from the Library of Congress: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections /voices/ North American Slave Narratives from the Documenting the American South Project at the University of North Carolina: http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/texts.html Digital Library on American Slavery, U North Carolina at Greensboro: http://library.uncg.edu/slavery/index.aspx? s=3 Ex Slave Narratives (Library of Congress Digitizes Slave Narratives): http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awafc11/ex-slave.html Faces and Voices (Library of Congress): http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/voices/vf ssp.html Other resources from the Library of Congress: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/voices/vfsresource.html American Slave Narratives from the University of Virginia’s Crossroads Project: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/wpahome.html Slave Narratives with links to Full Text! http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/slavenarratives/Slave_ Narratives.htm The Slave Narrative Project from Washington State University: http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/slave.htm American Treasures from the Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr004.html African American Texts at University of Virginia E-Text Project: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/subjects/subjects-afam.ht ml Can also look for full text of many books through this site: http://demo.openlibrary.org More information on American Authors may be found at: http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/AmeLit.html# 1920 And, this site on American Literature: http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl413/sites.htm And, finally full text literatures collections, courtesy of the Rutgers University Libraries: http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/rr_gateway/research_guides/eng_ lit/eng_full-text_lit.shtml [...]... about female identity and autonomy African American Literature The 1970s to the Present    African American literature began to enter the mainstream of publishing and be read by black and white audiences African American literature began to be defined and analyzed Black women began to achieve success as novelists, poets, writers and artists African American Literature The 1970s to the Present... from 1992-1994 African American Literature The Contemporary Scene   African American writers have entered the mainstream of American readership and publish in many genres: romance, mystery, science fiction and literary fiction While issues of identity and race are still prominent, the range of human issues are also topics of contemporary African American literature African American Literature The... pantheon of modern American literature African American Literature The 1970s to the Present  Alex Haley (1921-1992) journalist and novelist who’s Roots (1976) about his family history traced back to West Africa became a television event in 1977 and sparked a popular interest and pride in African American history and ancestry He also co-wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X African American Literature The.. .African American Literature The Harlem Renaissance    The artistic and socio-cultural awakening of African Americans in the 1920s and 1930s It was centered around the vibrant African American community in Harlem, New York, but had far-reaching influence in art, music, literature and social thought The interplay of art and race, and... was an era of social change for African Americans Influences included the Second World War, the Second Great Migration, world-wide social movements such as communism and Marxism, and early civil rights legislation which opened up schools and jobs for many African Americans Urban realism – urban sensibility defines much of the literature of this era African American Literature Realism, Modernism, Naturalism... black writers African American Literature Realism, Modernism, Naturalism  Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) novelist, essayist, scholar, artist, Ellison’s important novel Invisible Man (1952) is the story of a nameless black man who learns to assert himself The Invisible Man is part of the cannon of 20th Century American literature, though Ellison’s only major published work African American Literature Realism,... community African American Literature The Black Arts Movement     Malcolm X (1925-1965) orator and autobiographer His Autobiography, published after his death, is a major African American literary work of the 20th Century It was co-written with author Alex Haley Amiri Baraka (1934- ) poet, playwright, activist and lecturer Baraka influenced later poets to write from the contemporary African American. .. legacies of the Harlem Renaissance African American Literature The Harlem Renaissance  Langston Hughes (1902-1967) Poet, playwright, essayist, autobiographer, and children’s book author, Hughes came to attention in 1922 in the anthology The Book of American Negro Poetry His most famous poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” was written in his teens African American Literature The Harlem Renaissance ... first volume of black American folklore Her finest novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) portrays the life and journey of a strong female character set in the rural South African American Literature The Harlem Renaissance     Alain Locke (1886-1954) essayist, editor Claude McKay (1889-1948) poet Jean Toomer (1894-1967) poet Anne Spencer (1882-1975) poet African American Literature Realism,... awardwinning play, A Raison in the Sun is a classic of the American theater African American Literature The Black Arts Movement   Social and political forces in the black community in the 1960s and 1970s sought to change the way African Americans were defined and treated The Black Arts Movement sought to change how blacks were represented and portrayed in literature and the arts The Black Arts Movement was