


But most of the extant material is one step removed, mediated by interviewers - including the Works Progress Administration, with over 2,300 entries housed in the Library of Congress, many of them available online. Levine, "a mélange of accuracy and fantasy, of sensitivity and stereotype, of empathy and racism."įirst-hand accounts such as those by Frederick Douglass, Olaudah Equiano, or Solomon Northup come to us from rare enslaved individuals who were taught to write. They can represent history, red in tooth and claw, or, in the words of noted multiculturalist Lawrence W. Slave narratives tend equally to fascinate and appall. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Barracoon Subtitle The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" Author Zora Neale Hurston and Deborah G.
