The civil rights movements during the 1950’s and 60’s created a

climate for a new appreciation toward African American struggles

through bondage and into liberation.

This created a new sweep of writers that tried to use historical roots of physical, psychological, and social

oppression that were used to compare, contrast, and often parallel the

meaning of freedom from the previous century and the current times.

Fredric Douglass and Harriet Jacobs

published popular autobiographies,

but there were authors who had never experienced the bondage of slavery who were able to capture the attention of the nation with

fictional characters and scenarios woven into the factual information

about the atrocities of slavery.

The most popular and the most fiercely debated

fictional slave narrative is Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

This heart-warming, but often graphic tale of a lovable preacher’s fight to freedom was

profoundly influenced by Stowe’s study of slavery in Kentucky as well as information Fredric

Douglass and Josiah Henson’s autobiographies as slaves.

The classic novelist Mark Twain The classic novelist Mark Twain was also successful in his was also successful in his

fictional account of a fugitive fictional account of a fugitive slave as he fought alongside a slave as he fought alongside a young, white boy to gain his young, white boy to gain his

freedom in freedom in The Adventures of The Adventures of Huckleberry FinnHuckleberry Finn. The main . The main

character is eventually able to character is eventually able to overcome the modes of thinking overcome the modes of thinking that society had encouraged and that society had encouraged and

comes to see Jim as an equal, comes to see Jim as an equal, which is the most critical point of which is the most critical point of the book during the time period. the book during the time period.

Another acclaimed author that aided the civil rights movements is Richard Wright.

He created a number of fictional works, including a melodramatic and graphic story of

racial conflicts in the south titled Uncle Tom’s

Children.

The Long Dream also brought to question a lot of the country’s racial prejudices. Wright often used more

anger than art in his writing, but his skill as a novelist left a definite and disturbing emotional impact.

Ernest J. Gaines produced another influential novel in the form of a fictional slave narrative called The Autobiography of Miss Jane

Pittman.

Similar to Mark Twain, the majority of his novels share a fictional setting of a small, southern town in Louisiana which focused on people,

traditions, and dialects of rural Southern communities. Like most of the other narrative artists, Gaines strove to convey the harsh and

bitter truths surrounding American slavery, and how the prejudices in society could not be

ignored.

The novel Jubilee, written by Margaret Walker, is considered one

of the first novels presenting the African American experience in the south from a black female point of view to nineteenth-century society.

Drawing from the information from both

folk traditions and Walker’s family history,

the story encounters the clashes between

slavery and freedom as well as the

contrast between war and peace. There

can be connections made between

Walker’s statements on Reconstruction

with the civil rights movements of the

1950’s and 60’s.

Toni Morrison won multiple awards, including the 1993 Nobel Prize laureate

for her many works of fiction he wrote to “bear witness” to the harms done by

American slavery and the possibility to heal what had been

harmed.

Her books were acclaimed to have a “universal resonance,” and a few of her works were made into films. Among her most famous works were Sula, Beloved,

Paradise, Love, and A mercy. She continues to create fictional pieces that

depict in both stark and forgiving lights the issues of American society.

Sheila Moses wrote a

fictional narrative

based on the “life and

legal precedent” of

infamous slave Dred

Scott, and his attempt

to restore justice for the

colored people of

America. She dedicates the book to Dred Scott himself, along with

his wife. She also says that she wrote the novel for the

sake of “every man, woman, and child who was born,

lived, and died as a slave, and to those who were freed

from slavery. You were not forgotten.”

Bibliography

Andrews, W. L. (2011). Slave Narrative. Encyclopedia Americana. Retrieved April 26, 2011, from Grolier Online http://ea.grolier.com/article?id=0359275-00

Ferguson, D. (2011). Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly. Encyclopedia Americana. Retrieved April 27, 2011, from Grolier Online http://ea.grolier.com/article?id=0397110-00

Covici, P., Jr. (2011). Huckleberry Finn, Adventures of. Encyclopedia Americana. Retrieved April 27, 2011, from Grolier Online http://ea.grolier.com/article?id=0208010-00

Bracy, W. (2011). Wright, Richard Nathaniel (1908 – 1960). Encyclopedia Americana. Retrieved April 27, 2011, From Grolier Online http://ea.grolier.com/profile_article?assetid=0424660-00

Morrison, Toni (1931- ). (2011). Encyclopedia Americana. Retrieved April 27, 2011, from Grolier Online http://ea.grolier.com/profile_article?assetid=277050-00

Secondary Sources

Margaret Walker, How I Wrote "Jubilee" (Chicago: Third World, 1972).