Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days

Description

A document of extraordinary resistance. This is a short and simple, yet poignant autobiography of Annie Burton, who recounts her early childhood as a slave on a southern plantation while the Civil War raged around her, and after the Emancipation Proclamation, how her life changed as she struggled to maintain herself and family, manage her finances, and develop as a free person of color. In it Burton offers extraordinary resistance to the emerging racial caste system of Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction America. While her text begins with reminiscences about her childhood in chattel bondage, at the heart of her work is the power struggle between black women domestic workers and their white female employers. The last half of the narrative relies heavily upon speeches, poems, and hymns written by others that stirred Annie's religious passions and increased her pride in her heritage, including a very powerful speech by Dr. P. Thomas Stanford. Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days is not only one woman's quest from slavery to physical freedom but also her journey from a proscribed role to the creation of own free identity. CONTENTS RECOLLECTIONS OF A HAPPY LIFE REMINISCENCES A VISION ABRAHAM LINCOLN THE RACE QUESTION IN AMERICA HISTORICAL COMPOSITION MY FAVORITE POEMS MY FAVORITE HYMNS