Early African-American Classics (Bantam Classics)
An essential collection of some of the most influential and  significant writings by African-American writers of the nineteenth and  twentieth centuries, this volume includes Frederick Douglass'sNarrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave(1845)  and excerpts from W.E.B. Du Bois'sThe Souls Of Black  Folk(1903), Harriet A. Jacobs'sIncidents In The Life Of A  Slave Girl:  Written By Herself(1861),  Booker T. Washington'sUp From Slavery(1901),  and James Weldon Johnston'sThe  Autobiography Of An Ex-Colored Man(1912).  In his provocative  introductory essay, Anthony Appiah explores the roots of  African-American literature.  He points out that writing itself was an  act of rebellion for a population that assumed to be illiterate, and  explains the distinctive American literary and cultural context of the  time, without which these works cannot be fully understood.