African-American Writers (A To Z of African Americans)

The African-American literary tradition arose in part from a desire to challenge the assumptions of race and culture that have dominated American society from the colonial era to modern times. A principal justification for the enslavement of Africans and the perpetuation of the institution of slavery hinged on a belief in the cultural and intellectual inferiority of people of African descent that was evidenced by a lack of anything that might be construed as literature or art, at least according to Western, Eurocentric concepts. The writings of such authors as Jupiter Hammon and Phillis Wheatley soon gave the lie to such arguments and  represented acts of revolution that sparked more than two centuries of literary innovations and a growing national awareness of the contributions of black Americans to American culture and art.