Open Books Open Minds - PYM: A Novel by Mat Johnson

"Bibb's compelling autobiography describes slave folkways in detail, tells of desperate efforts to recover his wife and child, and presents a touching self-portrait of a man caught between a slave past and a free future."

William Wells Brown was a prominent abolitionist lecturer, novelist, playwright, and historian. Born into slavery in the Southern United States, Brown escaped to the North, where he worked for abolitionist causes and was a prolific writer.

"In addition to its far-reaching impact on the antislavery movement in the United States and abroad, Douglass's fugitive slave narrative won recognition for its literary excellence, which has since earned it a place among the classics of 19th century American autobiography."

Print edition: Abridged and edited by Paul Edwards, New York, Praeger [1967]
Electronic edition: The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African, by Olaudah Equiano, 2005

Rambles of a Runaway from Southern Slavery tells of an extraordinary life in and out of slavery in the United States and Canada. Born Elijah Turner in the Virginia Tidewater, circa 1810, the author eventually procured freedom papers from a man he resembled and took the man's name, Henry Goings. His life story takes us on an epic journey, traveling from his Virginia birthplace through the cotton kingdom of the Lower South, and upon his escape from slavery, through Tennessee and Kentucky, then on to the Great Lakes region of the North and to Canada. His Rambles show that slaves were found not only in fields but also on the nation's roads and rivers, perpetually in motion in massive coffles or as solitary runaways. A freedom narrative as well as a slave narrative, this compact yet detailed book illustrates many important developments in antebellum America, such as the large-scale forced migration of enslaved people from long-established slave societies in the eastern United States to new settlements on the cotton frontier, the political-economic processes that framed that migration, and the accompanying human anguish. Goings's life and reflections serve as important primary documents of African American life and of American national expansion, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. This edition features an informative and insightful introduction by Calvin Schermerhorn.

In A Muslim American Slave, scholar and translator Ala Alryyes offers both a definitive translation and an authoritative edition of this singularly important work, lending new insights into the early history of Islam in America and exploring the multiple, shifting interpretations of Ibn Said's narrative.

Narrative of the life and adventures of Henry Bibb, an American slave. -- Narrative of William Wells Brown, a fugitive slave. -- Twelve years a slave: narrative of Solomon Northup.

Told through verse, this true narrative of a slave from Africa, who was the first man to document his capture and life as an American slave, details how he worked through a lifetime of slavery to buy not only his own freedom, but also the freedom of his wife and children.

In 1872, just seven years after his emancipation, a thirty-four-year-old former slave named John Washington penned the story of his life, calling it "Memorys of the Past."

"The Civitas Anthology presents the seven classic antislavery narratives of the antebellum period in their entirety:The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave; The Confessions of Nat Turner; The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass;The Narrative of William W. Brown;The Narrative of the Life of Henry Bibb; Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; and Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl.

"Maria Stewart's Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality (1831); Jarena Lee's Life and Religious Experience (1836); The Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850); Frances E. W. Harper's "The Two Offers" (1859); Harriet E.Wilson's Our Nig (1859); Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861); and Charlotte Forten's "Life on the Sea Islands" (1864).

Memoirs of the life of Boston King, a black preacher (1798) -- "Clarinda: a pious Colored woman of South Carolina" (1875) -- "Recollections of slavery by a runaway slave" (1838) -- The experience of a slave in South Carolina, by John Andrew Jackson (1862) -- My life in the South, by Jacob Stroyer (1885) -- Life on the old plantation in ante-bellum days, or a story based on facts by the Reverend I.E. Lowery (1911) -- Before the war and after the Union: an autobiography, by Sam Aleckson (1929) -- Afterword: the slave experience in South Carolina.

Narrative of the life and adventures of Henry Bibb, an American slave. -- Narrative of William Wells Brown, a fugitive slave. -- Twelve years a slave: narrative of Solomon Northup.

What shines through each of these stories is the black woman's ability to recover in past oppression the hope for a better day.

"The ten works collected in this volume demonstrate how a diverse group of writers challenged the conscience of a nation and laid the foundations of the African American literary tradition by expressing their anger, pain, sorrow, and courage."
James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosow -- Olaudah Equiano -- Nat Turner -- Frederick Douglass -- William Wells Brown -- Henry Bibb -- Sojourner Truth -- William and Ellen Craft -- Harriet Ann Jacobs -- Jacob D. Green

Slave narratives, some of the most powerful records of our past, are extremely rare, with only fifty-five post-Civil War narratives surviving. A mere handful are first-person accounts by slaves who ran away and freed themselves. Now two newly uncovered narratives, and the biographies of the men who wrote them, join that exclusive group with the publication of A Slave No More, a major new addition to the canon of American history. Handed down through family and friends, these narratives tell gripping stories of escape: Through a combination of intelligence, daring, and sheer luck, the men reached the protection of the occupying Union troops. David W. Blight magnifies the drama and significance by prefacing the narratives with each man's life history. Using a wealth of genealogical information, Blight has reconstructed their childhoods as sons of white slaveholders, their service as cooks and camp hands during the Civil War, and their climb to black working-class stability in the north, where they reunited their families.In the stories of Turnage and Washington, we find history at its most intimate, portals that offer a rich new answer to the question of how four million people moved from slavery to freedom. In A Slave No More, the untold stories of two ordinary men take their place at the heart of the American experience.

Aaron Kuku : the life history of a former slave -- Enslavement remembered -- The life history of Aaron Kuku -- The biographies of Lydia Yawo and Yosef Famfantor : life in slavery/life after abolition -- To stay or go : exploring the decisions of the formerly enslaved -- Come over and help us! : the life journey of Lydia Yawo, a freed slave -- Yosef Famfantor -- Paul Sands's diary : living with the past/constructing the present and the future -- Open secrets and sequestered stories : a diary about family, slavery, and self in southeastern Ghana -- The diary of Paul Sands : excerpts -- A kidnapping at Atorkor : the making of a community memory -- Our citizens, our kin enslaved -- Oral traditions about individuals enslaved.