Book contents
- A History of African American Autobiography
- A History of African American Autobiography
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- A Chronology of African American Life Writing
- Contributors
- Chapter 1 Crafting a Credible Black Self in African American Life Writing
- Part I Origins and Histories
- Chapter 2 Black Life Writing and Print Culture before 1800
- Chapter 3 Reading the Edited “I” in the Early Black Atlantic
- Chapter 4 Caste and Class in the Antebellum Slave Narrative
- Chapter 5 Nineteenth-Century Autobiographical Writings by Freeborn African Americans
- Chapter 6 African American Life Writing, 1865–1900
- Chapter 7 Black Life Writing in Print Cultures at the Turn into the Twentieth Century
- Chapter 8 New Negro Autobiographies
- Chapter 9 Transnational and Postcolonial Afro-Caribbean Life Writing
- Chapter 10 Writing Race and Remembrance in the Civil Rights Movement Years
- Chapter 11 The Biomedicalization of Black Life Narratives
- Part II Individuals and Communities
- Index
Chapter 5 - Nineteenth-Century Autobiographical Writings by Freeborn African Americans
from Part I - Origins and Histories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 September 2021
- A History of African American Autobiography
- A History of African American Autobiography
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- A Chronology of African American Life Writing
- Contributors
- Chapter 1 Crafting a Credible Black Self in African American Life Writing
- Part I Origins and Histories
- Chapter 2 Black Life Writing and Print Culture before 1800
- Chapter 3 Reading the Edited “I” in the Early Black Atlantic
- Chapter 4 Caste and Class in the Antebellum Slave Narrative
- Chapter 5 Nineteenth-Century Autobiographical Writings by Freeborn African Americans
- Chapter 6 African American Life Writing, 1865–1900
- Chapter 7 Black Life Writing in Print Cultures at the Turn into the Twentieth Century
- Chapter 8 New Negro Autobiographies
- Chapter 9 Transnational and Postcolonial Afro-Caribbean Life Writing
- Chapter 10 Writing Race and Remembrance in the Civil Rights Movement Years
- Chapter 11 The Biomedicalization of Black Life Narratives
- Part II Individuals and Communities
- Index
Summary
This chapter addresses examples of African American autobiography published before the Civil War that both called for and complicated the concept of a Black community, narratives not about the journey from slavery to freedom but about the story of a tenuous freedom and an uncertain community, a collective story under development and in need of a proper telling. Many of these autobiographies speak of platforms built, of relations established, of communities forged; others speak of the need for such platforms, the absence of immediate relations, the longing for community. What they all share, however, is the commitment to telling a different story about Black life and ambition than the one that was all but required of African Americans at the time, the story of suffering under slavery.
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- A History of African American Autobiography , pp. 69 - 84Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021