Paths to Freedom: Literacy and Folk Traditions in Recent Narratives about Slavery and Emancipation

Abstract

In talking with a friend about my research on children's fiction about slavery, she asked, Is literacy the superhero of the books? In other words, is literacy the principal means by which enslaved characters emerge from bondage? My answer is a measured yes. Many of the historical narratives designed for children do feature literacy as a superhero and are thus aligned with nineteenth-century slave narratives that conjoin literacy and freedom. Yet literacy is not the sole superhero in recent literary and film texts. Many present literacy in league with another means to reach freedom—black rural folk culture, specifically songs, tales, and character types, like the trickster, that long circulated as means of communication, education, and entertainment within black communities. In these works literacy and aspects of oral culture come together to empower the enslaved or newly freed black child. With the help of print and oral traditions, she can rise above her dire condition and begin to fashion a rich and possibly free life for herself: she can speak and act for herself in the black community and beyond; she can manipulate words to secure social advantages for herself and others; and she can help to shape and preserve a body of black communal knowledge. This plot is central to the historical narratives I will discuss here, includ- ing Gary Paulsen's Nightjohn, Charles Burnett's film adaptation, also titled Nightjohn, and two novels in the Dear America series: Patricia McKissack's A Picture of Freedom: The Diary of Clotee, a Slave Girl and Joyce Hansen's I Thought My Soul Would Rise and Fly: The Diary of Patsy, a Freed Girl. 1 The overplot serves to emphasize for today's young readers that many African Americans' spirits were not completely suppressed and conquered by slavery and by the injustices that continued after emancipation. The plot also serves to underscore the importance of folkways and literacy in the struggle to avoid complete subjection. In addition to these history lessons, the plot takes aim at many African American children's purported bias against literacy and formal education in