Douglass's devotion to abolitionism led him to confer with Abraham Lincoln during the civil war and after the war he fought for the rights of women and African-Americans alike. ... In fact, there were other slave narratives in his time, some told by former slaves to white writers, and Douglass wanted to distinguish his work from other such narratives. ... This motif inevitably takes us back to his statement of authorship i.e.: The phrase "Written by Himself" which persuasively made the entire text seems more authentic. ... By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their a...

• Word Count: 2277
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Family relationships would allow slaves to develop a unique sense of self and would encourage alliances among slaves, a serious threat to the slave owner's hold on power. It was illegal to educate slaves. ... Sophia Auld had never owned a slave and was as yet unpracticed in treating slaves cruelly. ... He employs classic American literary motifs to tell his story. ... His experience is also relevant to that of all Africans in America at that time. ...

• Word Count: 1047
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Thaddeus Stevens, for example, a key member among radical Republicans in congress during the Civil War and Reconstruction, proposed a much more severe Reconstruction plan which called to balance the wealth between former slaves and former plantation owners in the South. ... In the center of his cartoon, Nast drew a Shakespearean motif to cast Johnson as the evil Iago plotting against a black wounded Union veteran who is denied with his promised and justified place in American political life. Around the central characters are cruel drawing scenes implying the violent acts against African Amer...

• Word Count: 1062
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate