Black Thunder: Gabriel's Revolt: Virginia, 1800

Jacket Description/Back: Originally published in 1936, Black Thunder is the story of Gabriel, a slave who decides to avenge the murder of a fellow slave by leading the blacks of Richmond against their masters. Even as plans go awry the night of the attack, Gabriel still believes in the inevitable triumph of his struggle to lead blacks to freedom. Review Quotes: 'Gabriel Prosser's 1800 slave revolt allowed Bontemps to warn of the rebellion that would come of poverty and racial oppression. This metaphor of revolution is at the same time a highly pertinent representation of black masculinity that will reward students of gender, slavery and the sensibilities of the 1930s.' -Nell Irvin Painter Review Citations:

Booklist 02/15/1998 pg. 979 (EAN 9780807063378, Paperback)

Publishers Weekly 03/16/1992 (EAN 9780807063378, Paperback)

Contributor Bio:  Bontemps, Arna Wendell Bontemps is known as one of our major African-American poets, but he is also credited with making black folklore and literature available to the public through his anthologies and through his work as a historian, librarian, and teacher. Contributor Bio:  Rampersad, Arnold Arnold Rampersad (Ph. D. Harvard) is the Sara Hart Kimball Professor in the Humanities, Emeritus, at Stanford University. He is co-editor (with Deborah E. McDowell) of Slavery and the Literary Imagination, and editor of the definitive Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. He is the author of the two-volume biography The Life of Langston Hughes, Jackie Robinson: A Biography, and co-author (with Arthur Ashe) of Days of Grace: A Memoir. He is also editor of The Harlem Renaissance.