Autobiography and Black Identity Politics

Why has autobiography been central to African American political speech throughout the twentieth century? Kenneth Mostern illustrates the relationship between narrative and racial categories such as colored Negro black or African American in the work of writers such as W. E. B. Du Bois Zora Neale Hurston Malcom X Martin Luther King Paul Robeson Angela Davis and bell hooks. Mostern shows how these autobiographical narratives attempt to construct and transform the political meanings of blackness. This wide-ranging study will interest all those working in African American Studies cultural studies and literary theory.