African american literature

African American Literature

History and Current Trends


African American Literature
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)
autobiographer, essayist, educator

James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) poet,
essayist, editor, educator
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) poet


African American Literature
The Harlem Renaissance
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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 the aesthetic
criteria for evaluating black writing are some of
the intellectual legacies of the Harlem
Renaissance.


African American Literature
The Harlem Renaissance
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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
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Zora Neal Hurston (1891-1960)
Novelist, anthropologist, folklorist, Hurston left
New York to return to hometown in Florida in
1927. She began collecting folktales, work songs,
spirituals and sermons to document the black
experience. In 1935 she published Mules and
Men, the 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
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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, Modernism, Naturalism
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The 1940s -1960s 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
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Richard Wright (1908-1960) novelist,
autobiographer, political commentator. His

influential and critically acclaimed novel Native
Son (1940) tells the story of a black man
struggling for acceptance in Chicago. It garnered
him financial success, international fame and his
outspoken writing style influenced a generation
of black writers.


African American Literature
Realism, Modernism, Naturalism
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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, Modernism, Naturalism
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Margaret Walker (1915-1998) poet, novelist,
educator (“For My People”; Jubilee)
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917- 2000) poet, novelist,
children’s writer. Her second book of poetry,
Annie Allen won the Pulitzer Prize in 1950.
James Baldwin (1924-1987) novelist, essayist,
playwright, filmmaker, lecturer. The story of his
painful childhood is the subject of his first novel,
Go Tell It On the Mountain
Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) her awardwinning play, A Raison in the Sun is a classic of
the American theater.


African American Literature
The Black Arts Movement
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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 anchored in political
change and the concept that the artist is a part of his
or her community and their work should speak to
the needs and aspirations of that community.

African American Literature
The Black Arts Movement
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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 experience.
Sonia Sanchez (1934- ), poet, essayist, playwright and
educator, her writing reflects her personal growth to her
commitment to make a more just world
Nikki Giovanni (1943- ) poet, essayist, lecturer – this
prolific poet, sometimes referred to as the people’s poet
for her down-to-earth style has written much about
female identity and autonomy.


African American Literature
The 1970s to the Present

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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
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Toni Morrison (1931- ) editor, novelist,
academic, Morrison wrote richly woven stories
often with strong female characters. The Bluest
Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar
Baby (1981) are some of her great novels. Beloved
(1988) won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1988.
She is the first African American women to win
the Nobel Prize for Literature (
).

African American Literature
The 1970s to the Present
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Alice Walker (1944- ) novelist and poet, Walker’s
best known work, The Color Purple (1982) won the
Pulitzer Prize in 1982. It’s the story of two sisters
who through separation and trials continue to
support and strengthen each other.
Maya Angelou (1928) poet, playwright,
performer and autobiographer. I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings (1970) her serial autobiography is
in the pantheon of modern American literature.


African American Literature
The 1970s to the Present
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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 1970s to the Present
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Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995) novelist,
essayist, filmmaker, her short story collections,
Gorilla, My Love (1972) and her novel, The Salt
Eaters (1980) demonstrate her commitment to
social issues.
Ishmael Reed (1938- ) essayist, poet, novelist,
and publisher, Reed’s cultural activism has
made his published work hard to define. Mumbo
Jumbo (1972) is considered his masterpiece.