Voices Beyond Bondage

Thursday, February 12, 2015  7 pm

Erika DeSimone and Fidel Louis will speak at Historic Northampton on their new book, Voices Beyond Bondage: An Anthology of Verse by African Americans of the 19th Century (NewSouth Books, 2014). The event is co-sponsored with the David Ruggles Center for Early Florence History and Underground Railroad Studies.

Voices Beyond Bondage is a collection of 150 poems culled from newspapers owned by African Americans of the 1800s. The early 19th century birthed the nation's first black-owned periodicals, the first media

spaces to provide primary outlets for African American voices. Almost every black-owned periodical featured an open call for poetry, and African Americans, both free and enslaved, responded by submitting droves of poems for publication. Yet until now, these poems -- and an entire literary movement -- have been lost to modern readers.

This anthology expands the field of black poetry and provides a good starting point to understanding the roots and intricacies of African American literature by unveiling how poetry is an endemic part of African American cultural expression. The book also argues that the black owned press, which allowed African Americans a medium in which to publish their views and opinions, should have been lauded with praise – not pushed to the margins of society and ultimately buried by the passage of time.

Erika DeSimone grew up in Boston, studying literature and writing poetry. Fidel Louis is a former newspaperman, with knowledge of the early black press. They combined their experience and research to produce Voices Beyond Bondage: An Anthology of Verse by African Americans of the 19th Century. It took the editors more than ten years of research and work to treat this topic thoroughly.

“Voices Beyond Bondage reveals a mostly unacknowledged 19th-century literary movement and gives readers a fresh perspective on African American poets from the antebellum and postbellum periods. The anthology will be valued as a rich resource for libraries, students, and scholars of both literature and history."
- Julian Bond, Chairman Emeritus of the NAACP

“This well-wrought and powerful anthology of poems reminds us of the richness and variety of African American culture. Published during slavery and the years after emancipation, from 1827 to 1899, these poems reflect a tumultuous time in American history.”
- Historian Vernon Burton

Sponsored by The David Ruggles Center for Early Florence History and Underground Railroad Studies and Historic Northampton

The event is free and open to the public and will take place in
Historic Northampton's newly enlarged program space
at 46 Bridge Street in downtown Northampton.