Author Reading: Slavery and Class in the American South

Anyone interested in American slavery, African American history and culture, and the slave narratives on which African American literature is founded will find this topic intriguing.

Andrews’s book SLAVERY AND CLASS IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH: A GENERATION OF SLAVE NARRATIVE TESTIMONY scours over 60 slave narratives, not only the famous ones but the many that are barely studied, to examine a topic seldom discussed — how social and economic distinctions developed and functioned among the enslaved of the South.

William L. Andrews is E. Maynard Adams Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author or editor of forty books, including North Carolina Slave Narratives: The Lives of Moses Roper, Lunsford Lane, Moses Grandy, and Thomas H. Jones.