ABSTRACT
In most cases, where people turn in new directions, the causes are so complex, so subtle, that they are impossible to trace. History can try to overcome both kinds of separation. The fascinating progression of a past historical event can have greater effect on people than some cool, logical discourse on the dangerous possibilities of present trends - if only for one reason, because they learn the end of that story. Slavery is over, but its degradation now takes other forms, at the bottom of which is the unspoken belief that the black person is not quite a human being. The recollection of what slavery is like, what slaves are like, helps to attack that belief. There is no need to hide the data which show that some Negroes are climbing the traditional American ladder faster than before, that the ladder is more crowded than before. Thus, a history of slavery drawn from narratives of fugitive slaves is especially important.
