In her slim, well-crafted monograph, Erica L. Ball uses print culture of the antebellum northern free African American middle class, especially their sermons, ex-slave narratives, advice literature, newspapers, and the like for an intense investigation. The main focus of her contribution is to see the ways in which middle-class African Americans strove to embody the principles of an antislavery life. The central focus of Ball’s To Live an Antislavery Life, is to demonstrate how the free black middle class embraced notions of propriety, virtue, and freedom are central to the broader freedom struggle and created a deeply personal political culture aimed at refuting the forces of proslavery advocates.
At the heart of Erica Ball’s work is an important
At the heart of Erica Ball’s work is an important