Becoming Lunsford Lane: The Lives of an American Aeneas
Craig Thompson Friend
University of North Carolina Press
By challenging the rules of enslavement and, later, pushing the boundaries of free citizenship in North Carolina, Lunsford Lane (1803–79) became a folk hero to many enslaved Southerners, as well as a generation of abolitionists. Author of a unique “slave narrative” and a speaking partner with some of the era’s greatest orators, Lane became a celebrity who watched as the persona he created gradually faltered and failed him and his family. Yet even as his influence waned, it was still powerful enough to cause many to remake his image for their own purposes: as a fugitive from slavery, an entrepreneur, a Christian minister, and even an abolitionist (an identity he rejected).
Lane also made many enemies who tried to silence him—a white mob determined to tar and feather him, reformers who saw his contributions to abolition as a threat to their causes, and a neighbor who attempted to set fire to the Lane home while Lunsford and his family slept inside.
In the first biography of Lunsford Lane based on original and extensive research, Craig Thompson Friend portrays a man who dreamed beyond his enslavement, delivered himself and his family from bondage, and spun a story of his life that brought him lasting freedom and fleeting fame.