"Visions Again Came To Me of My African Ancestors Bound and Dragged onto Slave Ships": From Political Autobiography to Burton's Post-Black Power Neo-Abolitionist Memoir

Abstract:

This article builds upon African American literary theorist Margo Perkins's conception of political autobiography from her award-winning book Autobiography as Activism: Three Black Women of the Sixties, and the work of critical prison studies scholars Angela Y. Davis and Dylan Rodríguez. It reads Susan Burton's 2017 narrative, Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women, as reflecting an untheorized subgenre of African American confinement literature: the post-Black Power neo-abolitionist memoir. In the memoir, Burton alludes to slavery and anti-slavery activism to contextualize historically the post-Black Power-era prison-industrial complex and galvanize opposition to it.