Bøger i The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers serien

These narratives by four famous black woman preachers and evangelists, published between 1835 and 1907, all share a theme that continues to dominate Afro-American literature even today: the power of Christianity to give strength and comfort in the struggle for liberation from caste and gender restrictions.

Born into an affluent and politically active black family, Grimke (1837-1914) was a scholar, reformer, teacher, and writer. Her keen observation makes her journals an important insight into the Civil War and Reconstruction eras.

Of many slave narratives published before the Civil War, this is one of the few to be written by a woman, thus offering a unique perspective on the plight of the black woman as slave and as writer.

Amanda Berry Smith was a trail-blazing black woman evangelist of the nineteenth century. She became a member of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal congregation in Philadelphia in 1865, a time when women were denied positions of authority in the denomination. By the time of her death in 1915 the church had conceded to women the positions of congregational stewardess, conference evangelist, and denominational deaconess. Her autobiography, first published in 1893, notonly captures the spirit of the woman who became a celebrity of Christian evangelism around the world; it also tells us much about black women's historical struggle to be accepted into the ministry and polity of denominations.

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

"Ann Plato was the first black to publish a collection of essays, in 1841."--Newsweek

Mrs Seacole, a free-born Jamaican daughter of a Scottish army officer and a free black woman, recounts her childhood, her years as a storekeeper in a Central American frontier town, and her role as a battlefield 'doctress' to British troops in the Crimea.

A fiery speaker, Sojourner Truth was among the foremost American women evangelists. This reprint of her original 1878 publication sheds light into the life of an ex-slave and ardent abolitionist.

This fascinating autobiography describes one woman's life as a slave and subsequently her four years as seamstress in Lincoln's White House during the Civil War, offering a unique view of historical figures and events.

Teacher and social activist Octavia Albert added her own incisive commentary to the personal narratives of former slaves, and called for every Christian's personal acceptance of responsibility for slavery's legacies and lessons.

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784), the first black American to publish a book, was internationally famous during her short life. This edition, with an essay by the editor, restores her to her proper place in America's literary heritage.

In an extended interview in 1883 Silvia Dubois, then nearly 100 years old, told her life story to Dr. Larison. This edition preserves Larison's idiosyncratic phonetic spelling, with annotations.

Originally written in 1859, this is the autobiography of an American black woman who expresses her indignation, abolitionist sentiments, fiery temper and joy of life as she reveals the private lives of the white women for whom she worked.

These works are as multi-faceted as their writer, who was a teacher, editor, public speaker, and campaign manager of mixed white, black, and Indian descent, born in New Orleans in 1875.