Alaina B - African American Literary Timeline (1700-1900) lyrics

A majority of African American literature from 1700-1900 addresses issues of slavery and freedom, but the works of early black female writers particularly stand out for their frequent allusions to intersectionality—a term not yet invented, but very much present in their writing. Black women, especially black female slaves, faced unique hardship due to their race and gender; black female writers too faced difficulties not experienced by their male counterparts. To bring awareness to the s**ual exploitation of female slaves, for example, as Harriet Jacobs did in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, risked alienating a religious white audience. Even abolitionist movements largely narrowed their focus to black men, a bias illustrated by the pa**age of the 15th amendment, which awarded voting rights to black men only. Later, during the emerging Women's Rights movement, Sojourner Truth would rail against this gender and racial inequality in her ground-breaking speech “Ain't I a Woman?”. This timeline examines the theme of intersectionality in key early feminist writings, while also offering a look at the many difficulties experienced by African American women—free and enslaved—as well as the impressive risk-taking and social impact of African American female writers. 1662— Virginia becomes the first colony to pa** slavery laws which declare that a mother's status (free or enslaved) determines the status of her children Excerpt from Frances E.W. Harper's “The Slave Mother” (1854) He is not hers, although she bore For him a mother's pains; He is not hers, although her blood Is coursing through his veins! He is not hers, for cruel hands May rudely tear apart The only wreath of household love That binds her breaking heart. 1773— Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral is published in London Excerpt from Phillis Wheatley's “On Being Brought from Africa to America” (1773) ‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land; Taught my benighted soul to understand That there's a God, that there's a Savior too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. 1832— Maria W. Stewart begins her speaking tour at Franklin Hall in Boston with a lecture to the New England Anti-Slavery Society Excerpt from Maria W. Stewart's “Lecture Delivered at the Franklin Hall” (1832) I have heard much respecting the horrors of slavery; but may Heaven forbid that the generality of my color throughout the United States should experience any more of its horrors than to be a servant of servants, or hewers of wood and drawers of water! Tell us no more of southern slavery; for with few exceptions, although I may be very erroneous in my opinion, yet I consider our condition but little better than that. 1849— Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery, begins working with the Underground Railroad Excerpt from Frederick Dougla**' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Dougla** (1845) I have never approved of the very public manner in which some of our western friends have conducted what they call the underground railroad, but which I think, by their own declarations, has been made most emphatically the upperground railroad. I honor those good men and women for their noble daring; and applaud them for willingly subjecting themselves to bloody persecution, by openly avowing their participation in the escape of slaves. I, however, can see very little good resulting from such a course, either to themselves or the slaves escaping; while, upon the other hand, I see and feel a**ured that those open declarations are a positive evil to the slaves remaining, who are seeking to escape. They do nothing towards enlightening the slave, whilst they do much towards enlightening the master. They stimulate him to greater watchfulness, and enhance his power to capture his slave. We owe something to the slaves south of the line as well as to those north of it; and in aiding the latter on their way to freedom, we should be careful to do nothing which would be likely to hinder the former from escaping from slavery. 1851— Sojourner Truth delivers her famous speech “Ain't I a Woman?” at the Women Right's Conference in Akron, Ohio Excerpt from Sojourner Truth's The Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1878) At intermission she was busy, selling ‘The Life of Sojourner Truth,' a narrative of her own strange and adventurous life. Again and again timorous and trembling ones came to me and said with earnestness, ‘Don't let her speak, Mrs. Gage, it will ruin us. Every newspaper in the land will have our cause mixed with abolition and n******gs, and we shall be utterly denounced.' 1859— Harriet Wilson publishes Our Nig or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, in a Two-Story White House Excerpt from Harriet Wilson's Our Nig (1859) The same routine followed day after day, with slight variation; adding a little more work, and spicing the toil with “words that burn,” and frequent blows on her head. These were great annoyances to Frado, and had she known where her mother was, she would have gone at once to her. She was often greatly wearied, and silently wept over her sad fate. At first she wept aloud, which Mrs. Bellmont noticed by applying a rawhide, always at hand in the kitchen. It was a symptom of discontent and complaining which must be “nipped in the bud,” she said. Thus pa**ed a year. No intelligence of Mag. It was now certain Frado was to become permanent member of the family. Her labors were multiplied; she was quite indispensable, although but seven years old. 1861— Beginning of the Civil War; Harriet Jacobs publishes Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Excerpt from Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) I have not written my experience in order to attract attention to myself; on the contrary, it would have been more pleasant to me to have been silent about my own history. Neither do I care to excite sympathy for my own sufferings. But I do earnestly desire to arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two millions of women at the South, still in bondage, suffering what I suffered, and most of them far worse. 1870— The 15th Amendment to the US Constitution is ratified Excerpt from Sojourner Truth's The Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1878) Dat man ober dar say dat women needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted ober ditches, and to have de best place every whar. Nobody eber help me into carriages, or ober mud puddles, or gives me any best place [and raising herself to her full height and her voice to a pitch like rolling thunder, she asked], and ar'n't I a woman?