Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America. - Review - book reviews

African American Review, Winter, 1999 by Anita Patterson

Scenes of Subjection is a cogent reminder of the terror and stark limits of American emancipation that will undoubtedly inspire and guide further research in this area. But I remain unpersuaded by Hartman's suggestion that we dispense with notions of individuality, freedom, and civil rights just because the discourse of democracy has at times been put to bad use.

Harriet Jacobs's invocation of rights is part of a protest tradition that includes figures like W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King, and other leaders who were firmly convinced that African Americans needed to use the word freedom and wield the language of civil rights on their own behalf. We should always remember the extent to which the legacy of slavery and the failures of Reconstruction live on. But in doing so, we cannot forget that, without the discourse of rights, the Civil Rights Movement would never have happened.