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: 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

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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…

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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 25 April 2024.]

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