Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the Racial Self - Paperbackby Henry Louis Gates (Author) For over two centuries, critics and the black community have tended to approach African American literature as simply one more front in the important war against racism, valuing slave narratives and twentieth century works alike, primarily for their political impact. In this volume, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a leading scholar in African American studies, attacks the notion of African American literature as a kind of social