Slave Narrative Six Pack 2 presents six classics of the genre:
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William Craft and Ellen Craft.
The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois.
Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley.
The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself by Josiah Henson.
Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave by Sojourner Truth and Olive Gilbert.
William Lloyd Garrison by William Still.
THE AUTHORS
William and Ellen Craft were slaves from Macon who gained celebrity after a daring public escape in December 1848. The light-skinned Ellen Craft posed as a white woman traveling with her valet. The ruse worked and the couple were able to cross the Mason-Dixon line. After many trials and tribulations, they eventually settled outside Savannah, Georgia where they were able to purchase 1,800 acres of land.
William Edward Burghardt "W. E. B." Du Bois (pronounced doo-boyz; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author and editor.
Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (February 1818 – May 1907) was a former slave who became a successful seamstress, civil activist and author in Washington, DC. She was best known as the personal modiste and confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln, the First Lady. Keckley had moved to Washington in 1860 after buying her freedom and that of her son in St. Louis. She created an independent business in the capital based on clients who were the wives of the government elite.
Josiah Henson (June 15, 1789 – May 5, 1883) was an author, abolitionist, and minister. Born into slavery in Charles County, Maryland, he escaped to Upper Canada (now Ontario) in 1830, and founded a settlement and laborer's school for other fugitive slaves at Dawn, near Dresden in Kent County. Henson's autobiography, The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself (1849), is widely believed to have inspired the character of the fugitive slave, George Harris, in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852).
Sojourner Truth (born Isabella ("Bell") Baumfree; c. 1797 – November 26, 1883) was an African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, Ulster County, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son, in 1828 she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man.
William Still (October 7, 1821 – July 14, 1902) was an African-American abolitionist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, conductor on the Underground Railroad, writer, historian and civil rights activist.
