In the eyes of many white Americans, North and South, the Negro did not have a culture until the Emancipation Proclamation. With few exceptions, serious collect

Winner • NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Fiction) Winner • Anne Izard Storytellers’ Choice Award Holiday Gift Guide Selection • Indiewi

Includes material on interpretation methods and presentation of research.

Sundquist presents a major reevaluation of the formative years of American literature, 1830-1930, that shows how white and black literature constitute a single