To Be a Slave

In the Prologue, Lester includes a quote from an enslaved African recalling his first glimpse of white people: “I had never seen white people before and they appeared to me the ugliest creatures in the world” (10). In Chapter 4, Lester includes an extended quote from Thomas Jefferson, including Jefferson’s assertion that “the fine mixtures of red and white” in one race are “preferable to that eternal monotony […] of the other race” (57). Research racism in the beauty industry, historically and today. How have ideas of beauty around the world been influenced by Western culture? How are some people in the beauty industry dismantling these standards?

Lester writes: “One of the more constant tools that the slaves used to resist the spiritual brutality of slavery was music” (77). In what ways was music used as a tool of resistance?

Chapter 5 begins with the words, “The slave owner lived in a fear that was almost as bad as the fears held by the slaves” (82). How does this fear prove that even slave holders understood the evil of slavery? Discuss the fears of slave holders and how their fears affected their treatment of slaves.

Lester writes that the North “refused to ensure the freedom of blacks” that had been won during the Civil War (105). According to Lester, how did the North fail to do this?

Did this book change your view of slavery? Was there anything that surprised you? Give at least two examples of things you learned as you read and how they changed your understanding of history.

Research generational trauma (sometimes called transgenerational or intergenerational trauma). What is it? How is it connected to the discussion of slavery? How can generational trauma be healed?

Julius Lester was writing To Be a Slave during the civil rights era. Research the American civil rights movement and create a timeline of important events. Position the publication of To Be a Slave (1968) on your timeline.

After the initial joy of emancipation, Lester writes: “Slavery returned in almost every respect except name” (103). State the evidence in the book that supports this statement.