Why are speeches a part of the African American literary tradition

Quite simply, the fact that slavery made it illegal (and
severely punishable) for slaves to learn to read and write meant that oral tradition as
a literary device was automatically integrated into their heritage. The only way to
preserve and share knowledge was orally (with few exceptions such as Harriet Jacobs who
wrote of her true life as a slave in Incidents in the Life of a Slave
Girl but who published under the white pen name Linda Brent and was not given
authorial credit under her own name until 1986!). This led to a tradition of very
powerful Black speakers, such as Sojourner Truth, a former slave whose public speeches
given on subjects ranging from abolition to women's rights appealed to both Black and
White audiences.I have included a link to Alice Walker reading her most famous speech to
give you an idea of why she was so popular!

The slave
narratives, oral accounts passed down often from generation to generation, have given us
the most accurate account of the Black condition during slavery. I have included a link
to the WPA project that has preserved these narratives so that you can see just how
compelling they are!

Additionally, the slaves used spoken
word as a form of communication. Slave songs were often crafted to sound like "negro
spirituals" when, in fact, they contained coded transmissions about escape
possibilities.

This tradition stayed largely intact until
the Harlen Renaissance brought about the first real emergence of a solid group of strong
African-American writers. The depression stalled that movement, but it the momentum was
picked up again in the 1960's during the Black Arts movement. While the written word
became a part of the African-American literary canon, the spoken word still maintained
power as is evidenced by the powerful speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr during the
civil rights movement and the power of spoken word poetry of Amiri Baraka and Ntozake
Shange today.