Introduction

As any broad survey of American literature can attest, the notion of the American dream has often meant something different to African Americans than it has to any other segment of the population. This is due to the changing status of African Americans in society and to fundamental changes in the collective viewpoint of white Americans over the past three centuries. Even in this ever-shifting human landscape, however, the core concepts of equality and identity have been enduring components of the African American view of the American dream.

Freedom

Since many of the first Americans of African descent were brought to the United States as slaves, the African American dream in its earliest form is perhaps best expressed by a single word: freedom. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789) was the first widely read autobiography written by a...