This chapter considers African American life writing in the United States, designed for, but also about and by, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the nineteenth century, the genre included materials intended for adult readers as well as youths: the literacy forbidden to many enslaved subjects was spread through religion and church schools, as well as with popular culture narratives like Nat Love’s “Deadwood Dick” adventures. More recently, the distinction between “child-” and “adult-” intended readerships continues to be murky with respect to graphic life narratives and autobiographical persona poetry. By exploring both widely available texts and more unconventional materials not meant for public consumption, such as the letters and diaries of adolescents, Anatol reflects on ways notions of “truth” and the “usefulness” of traditionally conceived autobiographical narratives can be challenged, perhaps to undermine the elitist and Eurocentric paradigms of earlier times.

Published monthly from January of 1920 through December of 1921 by W.E. B. Du Bois and members of The Crisis staff, The Brownies’ Book was one of the first periodicals created mainly for African American children. The serial set seven goals, two of which were to familiarize Black children with African American historical achievements and to foster pride and hope in their own capabilities. Issues of The Brownies’ Book frequently featured biographies of famous African Americans such as Benjamin Banneker, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Crispus Attucks, and Phillis Wheatley. Although The Brownies’ Book ceased publication after two years for financial reasons, McNair suggests, the goals of this magazine continue to be relevant within the context of African American children’s literature, which she defines as books intended for youth written by and about African American authors. McNair observes one could further argue that The Brownies’ Book laid the foundation for African American children’s literature in terms of its ideological underpinnings.

Reading Caribbean autobiography as a space of difference, Aljoe’s chapter aims not to emphasize rigid separation, but rather to highlight the vibrant complexity of life writing discourses throughout global African diasporas, as well as to contribute to articulations of the myriad ways in which Black lives have been represented across the globe. Aljoe elaborates on some of the ways in which Afro-Caribbean life writing can be considered a distinct tradition within a broader tradition of transatlantic African diasporic writing. Her goal is to illuminate three key issues that distinguish Afro-Caribbean life writing: the importance of attending to mediated slave narratives within larger traditions of life writing, engagements with the imbrication of notions of national and individual sovereignty, and finally, articulation of that which is grounded in the inherently Creole culture of the Caribbean.