Arna Bontemps, Black Thunder

Jill LeRoy-Frazier (East Tennessee State University)

Ed. by Patrick Chura, University of Akron
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.5: African American Writing and Culture of the United States.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Philathia Bolton (University of Akron), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), A Yemisi Jimoh (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1936

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Published in 1936 following author Arna Bontemps’s exploration of postbellum slave narratives (now available digitally in the Library of Congress collection

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938

Black Thunder: Gabriel’s Revolt, 1800

fictionalizes a Black uprising that was actually attempted in antebellum Richmond, Virginia. While, historically speaking, the thwarted rebellion failed at its objective of liberating its leader Gabriel Prosser and his compatriots from their oppressors – as well as all enslaved peoples in the American South – Bontemps nevertheless found reason to revisit the event. Rather than perceiving it as a story of abject failure, the author chose to illuminate in his recounting of it what Hazel Carby calls “a black…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

3941 words

Citation: LeRoy-Frazier, Jill. "Black Thunder". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 March 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6285, accessed 21 November 2024.]

Arna Bontemps, Black Thunder

Dates

Places

Genres and Modes

Resources

Save this article

Leave Feedback