William Wells Brown, Frances E.W. Harper, and Charles W. Chesnutt, three black writers who bore witness to the experience of their people under slavery, create a portrait of black life in the 19th century in these three novels:
Clotel; or, The President's Daughter by William Wells Brown is considered to be the first novel written by an African American. It tells the story of three generations of black women who struggle with the constrictions of slavery.
Iola Leroy, or, Shadows Uplifted by Frances E.W. Harper, written in 1892, "attempted to counter specious notions of slavery popularized by white writers who idealized plantation life, while offering models of socially committed middle-class African Americans who exemplify the ideals of uplift that motivated much of Harper’s writing" (Encyclopedia Britannica School Edition).
The Marrow of Tradition by Charles W. Chesnutt, published in 1901, tells the story of a racial massacre in 1898 in Wilmington, North Carolina. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, it "was reviewed extensively throughout the United States as a timely study of troubling contemporary issues.”