The Black Box: Writing the Race

by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Enslaved people recognized the importance of naming. Naming oneself, protecting that name from generation to generation, and quite possibly protecting oneself from slave catchers, was an assertion of one’s humanity and individuality. Knowing the identities and names of one’s ancestors, especially one’s father and mother, was of great importance, too—and considering the abomination of family separation, not something to be taken for granted. In his 1901 autobiography, Up from Slavery, Booker T. Washington noted that there were two things “practically all” formerly enslaved people did after Emancipation: change their name in some way, even if it meant just adding a middle initial, which they called their “entitles”; and walk off the plantation on which they had been held in bondage, even if the only thing they did was to turn around and walk back.