Download or read book A History of African American Autobiography written by Joycelyn Moody and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-22 with total page 724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This History explores innovations in African American autobiography since its inception, examining the literary and cultural history of Black self-representation amid life writing studies. By analyzing the different forms of autobiography, including pictorial and personal essays, editorials, oral histories, testimonials, diaries, personal and open letters, and even poetry performance media of autobiographies, this book extends the definition of African American autobiography, revealing how people of African descent have created and defined the Black self in diverse print cultures and literary genres since their arrival in the Americas. It illustrates ways African Americans use life writing and autobiography to address personal and collective Black experiences of identity, family, memory, fulfillment, racism and white supremacy. Individual chapters examine scrapbooks as a source of self-documentation, African American autobiography for children, readings of African American persona poems, mixed-race life writing after the Civil Rights Movement, and autobiographies by African American LGBTQ writers.

Download or read book A History of African American Autobiography written by Joycelyn Moody and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-31 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This History explores innovations in African American autobiography since its inception, examining the literary and cultural history of Black self-representation amid life writing studies. By analyzing the different forms of autobiography, including pictorial and personal essays, editorials, oral histories, testimonials, diaries, personal and open letters, and even poetry performance media of autobiographies, this book extends the definition of African American autobiography, revealing how people of African descent have created and defined the Black self in diverse print cultures and literary genres since their arrival in the Americas. It illustrates ways African Americans use life writing and autobiography to address personal and collective Black experiences of identity, family, memory, fulfillment, racism and white supremacy. Individual chapters examine scrapbooks as a source of self-documentation, African American autobiography for children, readings of African American persona poems, mixed-race life writing after the Civil Rights Movement, and autobiographies by African American LGBTQ writers.

Download or read book Act Like You Know written by Crispin Sartwell and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998-07-20 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Black autobiographical discourses, from the earliest slave narratives to the most contemporary urban raps, have each in their own way gauged and confronted the character of white society." Sartwell analyses these African American writings and gains a unique perspective on and picture of white identity.--Back cover.

Download or read book One Life written by Ellen Holly and published by Kodansha. This book was released on 1998-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1968, as Carla on "One Life to Live", Ellen Holly exploded onto the soap opera scene, playing a mysterious black woman who had tried to pass for white. Now, in a memoir as frank and honest as it is romantic and glittering, the acclaimed actress recounts her star-crossed life and paints an affecting portrait of a talented, ambitious woman who struggled with being black--and sometimes, not being black enough. of photos.

Download or read book Autobiography and Black Identity Politics written by Kenneth Mostern and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-06-13 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of autobiography in twentieth-century African American culture.

Download or read book African American Lives written by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-04-29 with total page 1055 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African American Lives offers up-to-date, authoritative biographies of some 600 noteworthy African Americans. These 1,000-3,000 word biographies, selected from over five thousand entries in the forthcoming eight-volume African American National Biography, illuminate African-American history through the immediacy of individual experience. From Esteban, the earliest known African to set foot in North America in 1528, right up to the continuing careers of Venus and Serena Williams, these stories of the renowned and the near forgotten give us a new view of American history. Our past is revealed from personal perspectives that in turn inspire, move, entertain, and even infuriate the reader. Subjects include slaves and abolitionists, writers, politicians, and business people, musicians and dancers, artists and athletes, victims of injustice and the lawyers, journalists, and civil rights leaders who gave them a voice. Their experiences and accomplishments combine to expose the complexity of race as an overriding issue in America's past and present. African American Lives features frequent cross-references among related entries, over 300 illustrations, and a general index, supplemented by indexes organized by chronology, occupation or area of renown, and winners of particular honors such as the Spingarn Medal, Nobel Prize, and Pulitzer Prize.

Download or read book African American Journalists written by Calvin L. Hall and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last decade of the 20th century, during a time when African Americans were starting to take inventory of the gains of the civil rights movement and its effects on the lives of black professionals in the public sphere, the memoirs of several journalists were published, a number of which became national bestsellers. African American Journalists examines select autobiographies written by African American journalists in order to explore the relationship between race, class, gender, and journalism practice. At the heart of this study is the contention that contemporary memoirs written by African American journalists are quasi-political documents_manifestos written in reaction to and against the forces of institutionalized racism in the newsroom. The memoirs featured in this study include Jill Nelson's Volunteer Slavery: My Authentic Negro Experience, Nathan McCall's Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America, Jake Lamar's Bourgeois Blues: An American Memoir, and Patricia Raybon's My First White Friend: Confessions on Race, Love, and Forgiveness. The exploration of these works increases our understanding of the problems that members of other underrepresented groups may face in the workplace.

Download or read book African American Autobiography and the Quest for Freedom written by Roland L. Williams Jr. and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2000-01-30 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Slave narratives were one of the earliest forms of African American writing. These works, autobiographical in nature, later fostered other pieces of African American autobiography. Since the rise of Black Studies in the late 1960s, leading critics have constructed black lives and letters as antitheses of the ways and writings of mainstream American culture. According to such thinking, black writing stems from a set of experiences very different from the world of whites, and black autobiography must therefore differ radically from heroic white American tales. But in pointing to differences between black and white autobiographical works, these critics have overlooked the similarities. This volume argues that the African American autobiography is a continuation of the epic tradition, much as the prose narratives of voyage by white Americans in the nineteenth century likewise represent the evolution of the epic genre. The book makes clear that the writers of black autobiography have shared and shaped American culture, and that their works are very much a part of American literature. An introductory essay provides a theoretical framework for the chapters that follow. It discusses the origins of African American autobiography and the larger themes of the epic tradition that are common to the works of both black and white authors. The book then pairs representative African American autobiographies with similar works by white writers. Thus the volume matches Olaudah Equiano's slave narrative with The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave with Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast, and Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl with Fanny Fern's Ruth Hall. The study indicates that these various works all recognize the importance of learning as a means for attaining freedom. The final chapter provides a broad survey of the African American autobiography.

Download or read book Still Running written by Nathaniel Northington and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2013 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seven days after Nate Northington was born, in October 1947, the NAACP made an appeal to the world on racism before the United Nations. As Nate grew up within an ever-changing and often volatile world plagued by bigotry and hatred, even he could not have predicted what would happen twenty years later. Destined to play football from an early age, Nate matured into a talented player whose good grades and competitive spirit quickly caught the eye of college recruiters. As he chronicles his journey from high school to his experience as the first black to sign an athletic scholarship at the University of Kentucky, Nate shares a glimpse into how he and other African American football players fought on the gridiron throughout the civil rights movement to achieve success both on and off the field. Every moment would lead up to the crucial period in American sports history when, after the sudden death of Greg Page—Nate’s close friend and teammate—he would break through the barriers of racism and become the first black to play football in the SEC. Still Running is a story not only about the game of football and integration but also about one man who was inspired to keep running, find grace through God’s love, and ultimately become a sports pioneer.

Download or read book Sisters of the Spirit written by William L. Andrews and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1986-07-22 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Sisters of the Spirit . . . should interest a wider audience. . . . These fascinating accounts can stand on their own. . . . Mr. Andrews has made them even more accessible by providing a comprehensive introduction and helpful footnotes . . . but he does not intrude on the text itself." —New York Times Book Review " . . . informative and inspiring reading." —The Journal of American History Jarena Lee, Zilpha Elaw, and Julia Foote underwent a revolution in their own sense of self that helped to launch a feminist revolution in American religious life and in American society as a whole.

Download or read book African Rhythms written by Randy Weston and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-05 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African Rhythms is the autobiography of the important jazz pianist, composer and band leader Randy Weston. He tells of his childhood in Brooklyn, his six decades long musical career, his time living in Morocco, and his lifelong quest to learn about the musical and cultural traditions of Africa.

Download or read book The Autobiography of W E B DuBois written by W. E. B. Du Bois and published by Diasporic Africa Press. This book was released on 2013-09-01 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present volume is quite different from the other two autobiographies by Du Bois not only because of its additional two-decade span, and the significantly altered outlook of its author, but also because in it—unlike the others—he seeks, as he writes, "to review my life as frankly and fully as I can." Of course, with the directness and honesty which so decisively characterized him, he reminds the reader of this book of the intense subjectivity that inevitably permeates autobiography; hence, he writes, he offers this account of his life as he understood it and as he—would like others to believe—it to have been. Certainly, while Dr. Du Bois was deep in his ninth decade when he died, longevity was the least remarkable feature of his life. As editor, author, lecturer, scholar, organizer, inspirer, and fighter, he was among the most consequential figures of the twentieth century. Necessarily, therefore, the full and final accounting of that life and his times becomes an indispensable volume.

Download or read book Reading African American Autobiography written by Eric D. Lamore and published by University of Wisconsin Pres. This book was released on 2017-01-10 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the 1760s to Barack Obama, this collection offers fresh looks at classic African American life narratives; highlights neglected African American lives, texts, and genres; and discusses the diverse outpouring of twenty-first-century memoirs.

Download or read book A Fatherless Child written by Tara T. Green and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2014-02-28 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The impact of absent fathers on sons in the black community has been a subject for cultural critics and sociologists who often deal in anonymous data. Yet many of those sons have themselves addressed the issue in autobiographical works that form the core of African American literature. A Fatherless Child examines the impact of fatherlessness on racial and gender identity formation as seen in black men’s autobiographies and in other constructions of black fatherhood in fiction. Through these works, Tara T. Green investigates what comes of abandonment by a father and loss of a role model by probing a son’s understanding of his father’s struggles to define himself and the role of community in forming the son’s quest for self-definition in his father’s absence. Closely examining four works—Langston Hughes’s The Big Sea, Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Malcolm X’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father—Green portrays the intersecting experiences of generations of black men during the twentieth century both before and after the Civil Rights movement. These four men recall feeling the pressure and responsibility of caring for their mothers, resisting public displays of care, and desiring a loving, noncontentious relationship with their fathers. Feeling vulnerable to forces they may have identified as detrimental to their status as black men, they use autobiography as a tool for healing, a way to confront that vulnerability and to claim a lost power associated with their lost fathers. Through her analysis, Green emphasizes the role of community as a father-substitute in producing successful black men, the impact of fatherlessness on self-perceptions and relationships with women, and black men’s engagement with healing the pain of abandonment. She also looks at why these four men visited Africa to reclaim a cultural history and identity, showing how each developed a clearer understanding of himself as an American man of African descent. A Fatherless Child conveys important lessons relevant to current debates regarding the status of African American families in the twenty-first century. By showing us four black men of different eras, Green asks readers to consider how much any child can heal from fatherlessness to construct a positive self-image—and shows that, contrary to popular perceptions, fatherlessness need not lead to certain failure.

Download or read book Radical Spiritual Motherhood written by Rosetta R. Haynes and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this cutting-edge work, Rosetta R. Haynes explores the spiritual autobiographies of five nineteenth-century female African American itinerant preachers to discover the ways in which they drew upon religion and the material conditions of their lives to fashion powerful personas that enabled them to pursue their missions as divinely appointed religious leaders. Haynes examines the lives and narratives of Jarena Lee (1783--?), Zilpha Elaw (c. 1790--?), Julia Foote (1823--1900), Amanda Berry Smith (1837--1915), and Rebecca Cox Jackson (1795--1871) through an innovative conceptual framework Haynes terms "radical spiritual motherhood" -- an empowering identity deriving from the experience of "sanctification," a kind of spiritual perfection following conversion. Drawing upon conventional nineteenth-century standards for motherhood, radical spiritual motherhood also challenges traditional standards: These were women whose religious missions authorized them to preach in public, to assume an activist role, and to declare sexual autonomy through celibacy. They redefined their relationships to the powers that be by becoming instruments of God in a kind of protofeminist gesture. Haynes uses historical methods, feminist literary theory, and liberation theology to investigate the ways these women, as reflected especially in their autobiographies, employed the idea of motherhood to fashion strong, authentic identities as women called to preach the gospel. Though radical spiritual motherhood is an identity specifically adopted by free black women, the lives and texts of these itinerant preachers retain close ties to those of enslaved black women through the negative cultural stereotypes assigned to both groups. To illustrate this connection, Haynes analyzes the writings of the preachers within the context of the narratives of former slaves Harriet Jacobs, Mary Prince, and Sojourner Truth. Haynes also links the lineage of radical spiritual motherhood to a modern woman by considering Pauli Murray (1910--1985), the first African American woman (and the second African American) to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. By looking at Murray's intellectual and spiritual development, especially her feminist ideologies, social activism, and espousal of liberation theology, Haynes shows that Murray was in fact a modern-day radical spiritual mother. Pioneering and accessible, Radical Spiritual Motherhood marks a turning point in the study of both African American literature and women's studies.

Download or read book Autobiography of a People written by Herb Boyd and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2000-12-26 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains primary source material.

Download or read book To Tell a Free Story written by William L. Andrews and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2022-10-17 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To Tell A Free Story traces in unprecedented detail the history of Black autobiography from the colonial era through Emancipation. Beginning with the 1760 narrative by Briton Hammond, William L. Andrews explores first-person public writings by Black Americans. Andrews includes but also goes beyond slave narratives to analyze spiritual biographies, criminal confessions, captivity stories, travel accounts, interviews, and memoirs. As he shows, Black writers continuously faced the fact that northern whites often refused to accept their stories and memories as sincere, and especially distrusted portraits of southern whites as inhuman. Black writers had to silence parts of their stories or rely on subversive methods to make facts tellable while contending with the sensibilities of the white editors, publishers, and readers they relied upon and hoped to reach.