The black autobiography has played an integral role in documenting the realities of African-American life in American literature. Rising to literary prominence concurrently with the Civil Rights Movement and the emergence of leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, these publications illustrated an existence permeated by struggle and provided unprecedented representation of the black reality within popular literature. These autobiographies taken together depict a collective existence incongruent with preexisting notions of what it meant to be black in twentieth-century America. Specifically, there are fascinating connections between prominent publications based in black empowerment and an emerging jazz music genre. To examine the connections and their context, it is suitable to consider four renowned works: Manchild in the Promised Land, by Claude Brown; The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Malcolm X and Alex Haley; Notes of a Native Son, by James Baldwin; and The Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
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The son of two former sharecroppers from South Carolina, Brown quickly found himself sucked into a world of crime, violence, and truancy in the midst of the Great Migration. Following multiple stints in juvenile correctional facilities and several gunshot wounds, Brown started night classes at a Manhattan high school and began piano lessons after the popularization of jazz in Harlem. After receiving his diploma, Brown matriculated at Howard University. He later studied law at both Stanford and Rutgers University before pursuing a career as a lecturer. His autobiography, Manchild in the Promised Land, was published in 1965. He published Children of Ham in 1976, chronicling the heroin epidemic in Harlem, and he also penned several articles for national magazines. Brown passed away in
The son of two former sharecroppers from South Carolina, Brown quickly found himself sucked into a world of crime, violence, and truancy in the midst of the Great Migration. Following multiple stints in juvenile correctional facilities and several gunshot wounds, Brown started night classes at a Manhattan high school and began piano lessons after the popularization of jazz in Harlem. After receiving his diploma, Brown matriculated at Howard University. He later studied law at both Stanford and Rutgers University before pursuing a career as a lecturer. His autobiography, Manchild in the Promised Land, was published in 1965. He published Children of Ham in 1976, chronicling the heroin epidemic in Harlem, and he also penned several articles for national magazines. Brown passed away in