Can a white writer do justice to the black experience? William J. Wilson, a contemporary of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s, repeatedly asked this question after the phenomenal success of her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852.

Over a hundred and fifty years later, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show would ask the exact same question of Andrew Ward, the gangly, and unmistakably, white, historian about his new study, The Slaves’ War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves. 

Ward, obviously more comfortable in a dusty library than under Stewart’s polite but intense scrutiny, tried to let his work  speak for itself, explaining his laborious search through thousands of diaries, letters, and memoirs to recover long-silenced voices.  The task must have been like trying to decode clues, now faded and scattered, from bits of Freedom Quilts from the Underground Railroad. The result is an unprecedented collection of the Civil War stories from the points-of-view of African American civilians.

Problematic for some scholars is the fact that many of the stories included in Ward’s study are oral anecdotes from the descendants of former slaves.  With no “hard copy” documentation, it is impossible to verify the authenticity of several accounts. 

“Define “truth,’ ” is essentially Ward’s response.  Toni Morrison would agree.  In her essay, “Black Matter(s),” Morrison argues,

“linguistic responses…complicate the texts, sometimes contradicting them entirely.  They can serve as allegorical fodder…They provide paradox, ambiguity; they reveal omissions, repetitions disruptions, polarities, reifications, violence.  In other words, they give texts a deeper, richer, more complex life…It would be a pity if criticism of this literature continued to shellac these texts.”

If you saw Ward’s appearance on The Daily Show, try to remember most authors have faces best left folded safely inside of book jackets.  On the back covers. Forgive him and buy the book anyway.  These voices deserve to be heard, no matter what your race. 

Posted Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:24:32 and filed under eNotes, jamie, Critics, Authors, Television, Literature. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.