Black Autobiographies:- Frederick Douglass,Booker.T.Washington ,Richard Wright and Martin Luther King Jr.

By Dr. Nandkumar Suresh Shinde

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass- Frederick Douglass is the milestone autobiography of world literature. Frederick Douglass who lived as a slave and later on served honourably as the United State Marshall in the Columbia District put his memories in the third autobiography published in 1881. He could give details about his life as a slave and escape from slavery in the third volume of his autobiography which he could not do in first two volumes under the fear to his life from his masters. The autobiography is a vivid picture of a horrible account of slavery and its dark history during the time of slavery. The autobiography is filled with unbelievable and tragically intensified experiences of Douglass as a slave. Booker.T.Washington portrays his life story in the form of autobiography and gives a detailed description about his life as a slave and how he turned a free man in his autobiography Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (1900) Washington's autobiography gives us a clear picture about the brutal system of slavery and also his own emancipation from a slave to common dignified social member of American society. Slaves were not considered to have any intelligence and they themselves couldn't imagine to dare speak about getting any form of education. The work and hard labour were the only priorities of the slaves. This supremacy of White man remained intact for a long time and the Blacks who did not become so called civilized in the norm of White men, they were not considered as human being at all. The segregation of the Blacks was such that they were not allowed to bury their dead in the graveyard which was set for the Whites. Booker.T.Washington emerged as a great national leader who fought against the Whites for the betterment of African-Americans. His autobiography displays his growth from the position of a slave child to the status of a public speaker and a Civil rights activist. In other words Washington rose to the position of a prominent orator and educator and thereby believed in education as a key to gain equality and identity in racial society. He has the credit of being the first free Black man to receive an honorary degree from Harvard University and also received an honorary Doctorate from Darmouth College. It is a victory of a black slave who overcome all the brutalities imposed upon him by the system. It is a story of winner and inspirational to all those who are fighting against injustice and improving the conditions of self or representing a community. Black Boy (1943) is counted today as a master piece written by Richard Wright. The autobiography written as a slave narrative and made a mark as milestone in the literary discourse of USA. The full title is Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth and it is based upon Wrights' experience growing up in the South, the symbolic place of racism and segregation; it is an illustration of coming of an age memoir. It covers the span from his childhood to youth, his physical and mental growing up in a society where the basic right of humanity were denied. On the backdrop the Jim Crow Laws, the turbulent time of history when Black Americans were the victims of colour segregation and fierce racism. The autobiography was the protest against the severe laws and the auto biographer tried to endorse the suffering soul of black society. It attracted the attention of world humanist to look at the sufferings of black community by whites. Wright's Black Boy addressed the sensitive issues of about racism and the hardships the innocent children's generation passed through. His autobiography is an eternal struggle of good against evil. Martin Luther King Jr's autobiography is a distinct type of autobiography which is published posthumously. It is an instance of collected and edited documentation which has become so vivid and original.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1796486604
• ISBN13: 9781796486605
• Release Date: February 2019
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.4" x 5.0"