Voices Beyond Bondage: An Anthology of Verse by African Americans of the 19th Century [Hardcover]

Erika DeSimone (Editor)
ERIKA DESIMONE earned her undergraduate degree from Westfield State University (Massachusetts), where she engaged with poetry and other creative writing projects. She later earned a Certificate of Editorial Study from New York University’s School of Professional Studies. She is currently an editorial assistant at the Modern Language Association, where she has worked for more than a decade.

Fidel Louis (Editor)
FIDEL LOUIS earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from New York University. While in graduate school, he began writing and editing articles for Haiti Observateur and The Alliance. He later was a contributing writer to the New York Amsterdam News and managing editor of the Caribbean News Network. He is fluent in five languages and is a certified New York State Court interpreter. He is currently a business consultant for both private-sector and government projects.

Slaves in chains, toiling on master’s plantation. Beatings, bloodied whips. This is what many of us envision when we think of 19th century African Americans; source materials penned by those who suffered in bondage validate this picture. Yet slavery was not the only identity of 19th century African Americans. Whether they were freeborn, self-liberated, or born in the years after the Emancipation, African Americans had a rich cultural heritage all their own, a heritage largely subsumed in popular history and collective memory by the atrocity of slavery.

The early 19th century birthed the nation’s first black-owned periodicals, the first media spaces to provide primary outlets for the empowerment of African American voices. For many, poetry became this empowerment. Almost every black-owned periodical featured an open call for poetry, and African Ameri