Why has autobiography been central to African American political speech throughout the twentieth century? Kenneth Mostern illustrates the relationship between narrative and racial categories such as colored, Negro, black or African American in the work of writers such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Malcom X, Martin Luther King, Paul Robeson, Angela Davis and bell hooks. Mostern shows how these autobiographical narratives attempt to construct...