Self-Emancipation and Slavery: An Examination of the African American’s Quest for Literacy and Freedom

The courageous effort of enslaved Africans to acquire English literacy is an often-ignored story that deserves frequent telling. It is also a political saga that recounts White America’s legalization of the enslavement, dehumanization, and cultural domination of African Americans. In the southern United States, repressive laws sought to control every aspect of the relationship between Europeans and Africans. Despite these legal sanctions, Africans devised creative methods to learn to read and write as an essential first step toward freedom. The Federal Writers' Project undertaken from1936-1938 contains over 2,000 first-person narratives of the last stage of antebellum slavery. These accounts reveal African ingenuity and heroism in the face of their subjugation; they also disclose the devastating psychological and sociological affects of slavery on the African American’s self-identity and cultural orientation. This paper traces the historical origins of American slavery, particularly in the southern United States. Ultimately, it examines the African American’s epic quest for freedom in a nation constructed on White supremacy racism. Finally, it closes with a brief analysis of 20th century developments in the Black American liberation struggle