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African American Literature in the Antebellum Era

"African American literature in the antebellum era encompasses a wide variety of genres and authors. The literature includes poetry, novels, manifestos, slave narratives, and essays. Many of the best-known Black writers of the period, such as Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, and William Wells Brown, were born in southern states and had been enslaved, but a number of other writers, including Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, James McCune Smith, and James Whitfield, were born in the North..." – By Benjamin Fagan
Featured
The Early Black Atlantic Conversion Narrative

"Prior to the last decade of the 20th century, literary critics generally, like Thomas Jefferson before them, dismissed the role religion played in the writings by and about the first generation of English-speaking authors of African descent..." – By Vincent Carretta
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