Publisher’s Website<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cBiography of lief [sic<\/em>] of H. H. Holloway.\u201d\u00a0 So opens in deceptively simple fashion the captivating autobiography of onetime slave Houston Hartsfield Holloway, originally completed in 1913 but never published until now.\u00a0 Stretching across slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the era of the New South, Holloway\u2019s autobiography offers a rare glimpse on a world being violently remade from the perspective of a black American.\u00a0 Set in rural West Georgia, Holloway traces the arc of his thrilling life:\u00a0 his experiences being sold three times, relationships with his masters and extended family, survival during the Civil War, emancipation by Union troops in 1865, position as an exhorter with the Methodist Episcopal Church South and later as a preacher with the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and occupations as a blacksmith, husband, and father.<\/p>\nThe history of the manuscript itself is almost as gripping as the tales it tells.\u00a0 A self-taught reader and writer, Holloway first put pen to paper in 1904 and finished his story about nine years later.\u00a0 At completion, it was a small and tidy package: 182 unbound pages, each measuring six inches wide by nine inches high.\u00a0 It was far from a polished product, though.\u00a0 Holloway numbered his pages inconsistently; he apparently lost several pages over the years and tried to rewrite a few of them from memory; he ended the entire work rather unexpectedly, trailing off with a single sentence declaring that 1910 had been a good year for black farmers. Significantly, the incompleteness of his writing likely reflected his intention never to show it to the public, but only to his children. Fortunately they and their families took good care of the manuscript, eventually lodging it in the Library of Congress in 1978. There it lay for 29 years, the object of occasional scholarly curiosity, but no sustained analysis until it grabbed the attention of David Paterson.\u00a0 For eight years beginning in 2007, Paterson patiently edited the manuscript.\u00a0 It was no easy task.\u00a0 He scoured census and probate records, church minutes and conference proceedings, newspapers, city directories, and obituaries to paint a picture of forgotten small towns and black men and women who left few historical footprints.<\/p>\n
In His Own Words<\/em> is remarkable for several reasons.\u00a0 First, it is a rare example of an autobiography by a former slave who lacked any desire to publish it nor ever submitted it to an amanuensis.\u00a0 As such, it captures the pitch and roll of Holloway\u2019s regional dialect.\u00a0 Writing the way he spoke, Holloway effectively recorded the distinctiveness of his tongue and the lilt of his voice. \u00a0As a convert to the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1867, Holloway also provides a close-up view of independent black denominations’ slow spread across the postbellum South.\u00a0 As a cleric, he details the stress of winning converts, collecting Dollar Money, selling subscriptions to the Christian Recorder<\/em>, and receiving a new missionary circuit assignment every year or two.\u00a0 He catalogues factions within the Georgia Conference, rivalries with fellow preachers, and crackling tensions with bishops over salaries and his unwillingness to accept missionary placements too far from home.\u00a0 In comparison to other published accounts by church leaders who lived or worked extensively in the South, Holloway spends more time exploring the institution of slavery and the religious world of black agricultural workers.\u00a0 Especially notable is his sensitive attention to the role of magic and the supernatural in everyday life.\u00a0 Before seeking the hand of his future wife when he was a slave, for example, Holloway paid a local conjurer to ensure that his master would bless the union (115-116).\u00a0 Later, he yielded to the promptings of an unnamed \u201cSpirit\u201d who told him to throw away his clerical collar and move to Turin, Georgia (163-167).\u00a0 Finally, Holloway also eschews any triumphalist narrative in which he conquers all personal challenges by dint of hard work, self-discipline, and unflagging faith in God.\u00a0 Instead, he spins a tale of success laced with mistakes, missed opportunities, and even doubt about his ability to spread the Gospel.<\/p>\nMuch of the pleasure in reading In His Own Words <\/em>comes from Holloway\u2019s memorable descriptions of people and places.\u00a0 For example, his father \u201cwas far above the Average slave[.]\u00a0 Rather Bright Complecttion [sic<\/em>] long Black hair about five feet six Inches\u2026 he always wore a tall Beaver hat and a broad Cloth Suat [sic<\/em>]”(1). Holloway framed his experience of learning of his emancipation in the character of his life.\u00a0 Hoping to attend a meeting at Mount Carmel Methodist Church, he asked his master for a pass.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cHe told us that we would not need one.\u00a0 This was the last time that [I] ever asked for a pass, June 4 1865\u201d (131). Later that day, he recorded saying only \u201cAmen. Amen. Amen.\u00a0 I could hardly ask to feel any better than I did that day.\u00a0 [T]he Thought thrills me to this day.\u00a0 Just think of it.\u00a0 I had been sold 3 times, once at Sheriff[\u2018s] sail [sic<\/em>] and twice privately\u201d (132).<\/p>\nAlso impressive is Paterson\u2019s editorial skill.\u00a0 He exercises a careful and conservative hand, allowing Holloway\u2019s voice to emerge through words spelled and arranged as found in the original manuscript.\u00a0 Paterson intervenes sparingly and only to insert punctuation marks, indent sentences to mark the obvious start of paragraphs, add words implied but not fully stated, or clarify ambiguity in a word not fully spelled out, converting, for example, \u201cthre\u201d to \u201cth[e]re.\u201d\u00a0 The greater share of his labor is devoted to tracking down people and places mentioned in the manuscript.\u00a0 Indeed, the footnotes and appendices are a tour de force, demonstrating a passion for research and professionalism that ultimately make the manuscript richer as a piece of literature.<\/p>\n
Paterson provides an important addition to the list of former slaves\u2019 autobiographies and an exemplary edited text.\u00a0 In His Own Words <\/em>is a necessary addition to the shelves of any student of African American history and sacred life in the nineteenth-century South.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Review: In His Own Words John M. Giggie John M. Giggie is Associate Professor of History at the University of Alabama. JSR Volume 18 Cite this Article John M. Giggie, “Review: In His Own Words,”\u00a0Journal of Southern Religion (18) (2016): wp.jsreligion.org\/vol18\/giggie. Open-access license This work is licensed CC-BY. You are encouraged to make free use…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-681","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jsreligion.org\/vol18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jsreligion.org\/vol18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jsreligion.org\/vol18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jsreligion.org\/vol18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jsreligion.org\/vol18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jsreligion.org\/vol18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":699,"href":"https:\/\/jsreligion.org\/vol18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/681\/revisions\/699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jsreligion.org\/vol18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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