55 pages • 1 hour read
Julius LesterTo Be a Slave
Nonfiction | Biography | Middle Grade | Published in 1968A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
The Need to Correct Historical Misconceptions About Slavery in the United States
Throughout the book, Lester explicitly challenges historical misconceptions about slavery. From the very beginning, Lester expands most readers’ views by describing how African slaves were part of the discovery and exploration of the Americas. He begins the story of slavery in Africa, describing the impact slavery had on African societies and including firsthand accounts of enslaved people being taken from their home continent.
In describing the experience of slavery, Lester also dismantles common misconceptions. He describes the plantation that dominates popular imagination, an immaculate white mansion, then writes: “Such is the picture that is often presented of the southern plantation. It is not a true one” (38). Lester redefines the plantation by presenting facts and detailed descriptions from primary sources. When including anecdotes from former slaves, Lester also takes care to point out when an experience was typical or unusual for most enslaved people. For example, when introducing an anecdote from one former slave describing babies drowning in a trough, Lester writes: “The circumstances of the story are unusual; the moral of the story, common” (22).
When discussing the era of slavery as a whole, Lester filters some content for a younger audience—such as sexual abuse—but includes many disturbing details to paint a picture of the horrors of slavery. Lester’s frustration with the predominant view of slavery is obvious. To him, it is “remarkable that even now the two hundred years of slavery are looked upon matter-of-factly and not as a time of unrelieved horror” (48). Although he is writing for a younger audience, he still wants to accurately portray the disturbing truth of slavery.
One of the greatest historical misconceptions that Lester targets is the view that African Americans lived happily ever after post-emancipation. Lester presents his audience with fact after fact, quote after quote, to demonstrate that injustice continued in the United States long after enslaved people were supposedly freed. He is clear that their freedom remained incomplete and that the “bitter legacy” of slavery had not been relieved. To Be a Slave not only addresses historical misconceptions but, in doing so, also speaks to the reality of modern-day America.
The Humanity of Enslaved People
The title of To Be a Slave comes from the first paragraphs of the first chapter of the book. In these paragraphs, Lester describes how “to be a slave” was “to be owned by another person” and “to be considered not human, but a ‘thing’” (15). However, the depth of cruelty cannot be understood without understanding that “to be a slave was to be a human being under conditions in which that humanity was denied” (15). In these first paragraphs, Lester develops a key theme of the book.
To Be a Slave details the constant dehumanization that enslaved people endured. Names—or rather, the lack of—were one tool of dehumanization. According to one former slave, “we never heard our names scarcely at all” (16). Many enslaved people were simply given the name of a slave holder, and most did not know their age. Repeatedly in anecdotes, enslaved people are described as naked, and this nakedness is another tool of dehumanization. One former slave recalled the morning gathering of 168 enslaved people on one plantation: “There was not an entire garment among us. More than half of the gang was entirely naked” (45). The breaking up of families and punishment for showing grief were other ways enslaved people were dehumanized.
While To Be a Slave describes these dehumanizing conditions, readers are also constantly reminded of the truth Lester stated in the first chapter: “They were not slaves. They were people. Their condition was slavery” (15). Lester uses quotes from primary sources to show that enslaved people experienced abuse, pain, and loss as human beings. For example, when describing the grief of losing loved ones at the auction block, former slave Jenny Proctor explains how the slave trader would whip enslaved people for “hollering” about their loss. Proctor points out that the slave trader and his wife “sure loved their six children, though. They wouldn’t want nobody buying them” (29). To Proctor, it was obvious that enslaved people and slave traders were equally human beings. Although enslaved people were denied the right to stay with their family members, they loved them just as white people loved their own.
Lester also demonstrates that enslaved people completely understood the injustice of their situation and the economics behind the system of slavery. Out of this understanding, most enslaved people did not passively accept the condition of slavery. Lester portrays enslaved people as active agents of their own freedom; he describes their escapes, insurrections, subtle resistances, and role in the Civil War. Enslaved people were not defined by the dehumanizing conditions they endured, and history should not define them this way.
Continued Racial Injustice in the United States
Throughout To Be a Slave, Lester develops the theme that the legacy of slavery continues to impact the United States. Although it may have been more comfortable for his audience to imagine slavery as neatly separated from their reality, Lester does not entertain this notion. He forces his audience to grapple with what slavery means in their own historical context. He presents them with evidence that the fight for racial justice is an ongoing one for African Americans.
The impact of slavery on the present is evident from the very beginning of the book. Lester dedicates the book to his own ancestors who were enslaved, honoring the names of known ancestors and the ancestors “whose names are now unknown” (2). This dedication immediately sends a message: Slavery, the topic of this book, was real. It impacted generations of families, including the author’s family. The losses of slavery continue to be felt, including the loss of family history. The author himself is a descendant of enslaved people—his present-day existence and reality have been influenced by the system of slavery, and this is true for the nation as a whole.
The continuing legacy of slavery is especially developed in the final chapters and Epilogue of the book. Lester describes the joyful celebration of emancipation, but the book does not end there. The celebrations are short lived, and Lester provides evidence that enslaved people were not given what they needed for true freedom. They were kept dependent on the very economy that had enslaved them, and political power remained in the hands of former slave holders. Reviewing the economic system of “shares” that replaced slavery and the legal system of segregation, Lester asserts: “Slavery returned in almost every respect except name” (103).
Lester includes quotes from several former slaves, interviewed in the 1930s, that express deep bitterness. Just as enslaved people were aware of their oppression, African Americans continued to be aware of racial injustice. The interviews reveal an understanding of empty promises, a skepticism about white people’s motives, and a rejection of the mainstream historical narrative.
Writing in 1968, Lester’s theme that racial injustice continued beyond the era of slavery is critical for understanding the civil rights movement. To understand the need for racial justice, Lester’s American audience must first recognize racial injustice. To recognize racial injustice, Americans must listen to the voices of the oppressed.
