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Article: "I will gladly share with them my richer heritage": schoolteachers in Frances E. W. Harper's Iola Leroy and Charles Chesnutt's Mandy Oxendine.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- African American Review
- Article date:
- December 22, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 African American Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Through the figure of the black schoolteacher, Frances E. W. Harper's Iola Leroy, published in 1892, and Charles Chesnutt's novel Mandy Oxendine, unpublished during his life-time but believed to have been written between 1893 and 1896, (1) both reflect on the roles of black leaders in the age of self-uplift. What makes these texts' portrayal of teachers significant is that they reveal part of a conversation about the historical role of black teachers as agents of the self-uplift movement and about the direction of African American communities. The two books diverge in their views of the potential roles for black teachers. Harper's text promotes education as a means of ...