Anthologies of African American Writing

Witness for Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery, and Emancipation

"Witness for Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery, and Emancipation." Ed. C. Peter Ripley. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1993. xxiv+306 pp.

(Sections):
● Chronology
● Introduction

The Rise of Black Abolitionism : the colonization controversy; the growth of black abolitionism; the rise of immediatism; moral reform; prejudice; two abolitionisms.

African Americans and the Antislavery Movement : blacks as advocates; slave narratives; black women abolitionists; antislavery and the black community; problems in the movement

Black Independence : a new direction; the African American press; in the common defense; antislavery politics; black antislavery tactics; by all just and necessary means.

Black Abolitionists and the National Crisis : the slave power; the fugitive slave law; black emigration; black nationality; blacks and John Brown

Civil War : debating the war; the emancipation proclamation; blacks and Lincoln; the black military experience; the movement goes south; reconstruction.

● Glossary
● Bibliographical Essay
● Index

● "This documentary history of the African American struggle for freedom and equality collects eighty-nine documents that represent the best of the recently published five-volume Black abolitionist papers. In these texts, African Americans tell their own stories of the struggle to end slavery and claim their rights as American citizens, of the battle against colonization and the "back to Africa" movement, and of their troubled relationship with the federal government.--From publisher description" (WorldCat).

● "Encompassing a broad range of African American voices, from Frederick Douglass to anonymous fugitive slaves, this collection collects eighty-nine exceptional documents that represent the best of the five-volume Black Abolitionist Papers. In these compelling texts African Americans tell their own stories of the struggle to end slavery and claim their rights as American citizens, of the battle against colonization and the "back to Africa" movement, and of their troubled relationship with the federal government"

(Blurbs from publisher's website):
"A judicious and extremely useful selection of documents from one of the most important publishing projects of our time. At long last students in history courses throughout the country can become familiar with the crucial writings of the black abolitionists."--David Brion Davis, Yale Univeristy

"The capstone of a heroic effort to collect and publish the papers of the black men and women who organized and led the movement against slavery in the antebellum North. Witness for Freedom provides the best entry point to understand the full complexity of Afro-American life in the North and the historic meaning of the struggle of black people for universal freedom and racial equality."--Ira Berlin, University of Maryland at College Park

"For too long, black abolitionists have stood in the shadow of their white counterparts. In bringing to life these often-neglected men and women, and allowing us to read in their own words how they viewed the crusade against slavery, C. Peter Ripley has made a major contribution to our understanding of antebellum reform."--Eric Foner, Columbia University

(from publisher's website):
"A critical source for understanding how Free Negroes of the North were transformed by the battle to free their brethren in the slave states."--Washington Post Book World

"These documents well represent the resilience, progressive spirit, and hope of black men and women during the pre- and post-Civil War periods."--Journal of the Early Republic

"A fitting finale to a remarkable scholarly undertaking."--Journal of Southern History

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