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African American Autobiography and the Quest for Freedom Recent Titles in Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies The Problem of Embodiment in Early African American Narrative Katherine Fishburn African Horizons: The Landscapes of African Fiction Christine Loflin Religious and Political Ethics in Africa: A Moral Inquiry Harvey J. Sindima Critical Perspectives on Postcolonial African Children's and Young Adult Literature Meena Khorana, editor The Baltimore Afro-American: 1892-1950 Hayward Farrar New Trends and Developments in African Religions Peter B. Clarke, editor Black Women Writers and the American Neo-Slave Narrative: Femininity Unfettered Elizabeth Ann Beaulieu African Settings in Contemporary American Novels Dave Kuhne The Harlem Renaissance: The One and the Many Mark Helbling Willis Richardson, Forgotten Pioneer of African-American Drama Christine Rauchfuss Gray Critical Essays on Alice Walker Ikenna Dieke, editor Education and Independence: Education in South Africa, 1658-1988 Simphiwe A. Hlatshwayo African American Autobiography and the Quest for Freedom Roland L. Williams, Jr. Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies, Number 191 GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Williams, Roland Leander. African American autobiography and the quest for freedom / Roland L. Williams, Jr. p. cm.—(Contributions in Afro-American and African studies, ISSN 0069-9624 ; no. 191) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-313-30585-4 (alk. paper) 1. American prose literature—Afro-American authors—History and criticism. 2. Autobiography—Afro-American authors. 3. Afro-Americans—Education—History. I. Title. II. Series. PS366.A35W55 2000 810.9'492/000926073—dc21 99-28770 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2000 by Roland L. Williams, Jr. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-28770 ISBN: 0-313-30585-4 ISSN: 0069-9624 First published in 2000 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www. greenwood. com Printed in the United States of America & The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10 98765432 To Andrea, for her love and laughter This page intentionally left blank "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" — Emma Lazarus This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface xi Acknowledgments xv 1. Dead Reckoning 1 2. Blackwall Hitch 9 3. Crow's Nest 41 4. Jacob's Ladder 79 5. Territorial Waters 115 Postscript 141 Sources 147 Index 153 This page intentionally left blank Preface My great-grandfather was born a slave. He arrived on a farm located near Allegheny Springs, Virginia. The date was April 9, 1865. That very same day, Robert E. Lee sur­ rendered his sword to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. The ceremony concluding the Civil War meant that my ances­ tor was destined to know more than slavery. By early sum­ mer, Union troops set him legally free to pursue his own happiness. Named Charlie Williams, his father is unknown. He was raised by a devoted mother, Blanche, and a faithful stepfather, Roland, who worshiped learning and labored to see that their son attended school and acquired knowledge. Legend has it that he "thirsted for a complete education." During his youth, he studied hard. Eventually, he won entry into the Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C., and graduated from the academy with honors. In the familiar eyes of family and friends, my great-grandfather developed into a "giant." As well as marrying Mary Allen and raising twelve children with her, Charlie grew into an esteemed teacher. In a career that lasted over thirty years, he instructed a few genera­ tions of youths, looking to improve their lot. Most of the time, he worked in worn and paltry places. Still, he suf­ fered neither despair nor weariness. He just kept on striv­ ing to make things better. On one occasion, he mustered xiiPreface P the spirit to turn a shabby log cabin into a sturdy brick school. It would do much to have him recalled as "a mighty influence for good." My great-grandfather passed away in the spring of 1917. His obituary proclaimed him "a burning and shin­ ing light." He remains a hero in my family. My father told me about him when I was a boy. Before I read a number of autobiographies, I believed that Charlie stood in a league of his own. Afterward, I teamed him with men like Booker T. Washington and Benjamin Franklin. My opinion about my relative altered right after I discovered Franklin's Autobiographyphy and Washington's Up from Slavery, plus other American autobiographies. Then, I began to consider his experience rather common in that it contains the stuff of legend in the land, present in the normal American life story that I read. It hit me that a per­ sonal history recollecting a rise in society pulled off through the use of learning sanctions the social ethos in a manner that renders it epic in nature, and it has marked a line of literature in the country. My great-grandfather's story embodies an unwritten version of the typical text. It reflects an attachment to a consensus swayed by a creed that has flooded each and every quarter of the country with the impression that all "men" are born equal, for everyone is endowed with a mind, like a garden, able to yield a fruitful crop through careful tending. Once I figured it out, Charlie became just one of many champions for me. A comparative appraisal of African American life stories in writing, this study validates my understanding of my predecessor. It will challenge conventional wisdom. Since the rise of black studies programs, toward the end of the 1960s, leading critics have held black lives and letters in contradiction to the ways and writings of the main­ stream culture. They have depicted black art as a racial strength transported from Africa and used in this country as a type of social resistance. The view fosters the notion that great black lives deviate in nature from heroic "American" tales. It suggests that such a life shores up extraneous social codes. By implication, black expression comes to have the import of a foreign tongue in the land. Preface xiii The reasoning limits the scope of black books to a spot planted on a bank of the cultural mainstream. My study endorses earlier images of black people in the country, conceived by critics like Sterling Brown. It inscribes the nation as a stage where blacks perform odd roles in a drama of "pioneers," progressive types akin to the Quakers, who rival "settlers," traditionalist sorts related to the Puritans. The civic performance has pro­ moted the conception and cultivation of a convention domestically as meaningful as the Odyssey in Athens and the Aeneid d in Rome. Complicated by color prejudice, cir­ cumstances have drawn everyone in the land to the novel convention, yet blacks to a special degree, proven by my great-grandfather in his actions and other blacks in their autobiographies, first in the work of slaves like Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs and continuing on through Colin Powell's story My AAmerican Journey.ey. With their fellow Americans, blacks have shared and shaped the culture; it shows in their favorite styles as well as their statements. Essentially, African Americans have become model members of a social development devoted to the task of seeing if a society based on the belief that people are born to enjoy free and easy lives through the application of learning can long endure. The country marks a break from past social orders bound by deference to a rigid hier­ archy leaving the masses under the power of a few, lodged at the top of the social order. It has invited citizens to follow their conscience instead of custom. Accordingly, it has invoked the birth of a novel epic form. The drift of the new literary work charts the dreads and desires of human beings metaphorically drawn or driven, by an earthshak- ing movement, overboard from a watery ship, and sus­ pended in thin air, twisting in the wind, above a lifeboat and the sea, until they chance to dive into the whirl of the shifting tides and there train themselves to swim solo with freedom and facility. Put in writing, the life of Charlie Williams, my great-grandfather, would serve as a classic example of the heroic narrative. This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments Thanks to the English department at Penn. Everyone in the graduate program contributed to this project, especially Robert Regan, Peter Conn, and Gregg Camfield. Thanks to Murray Beja. He gave me a start at the Ohio State Uni­ versity. Thanks to Temple University in general and the English department in particular. They picked me up when I was down. Thanks to my fellow Penn pal David Bradley. He cinched the deal. Thanks to Carolyn Karcher, Miles Orvell, and Phil Yannella. They rolled out the wel­ come wagon. Thanks to Walter Lomax. He opened his wallet. Thanks to my parents, Florence and Roland. They taught me to love learning. Thanks to my aunt Sis. She never let me go hungry. Thanks to George Butler, Deborah Whitford, and their crew at Greenwood Press. They went the distance with me.

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