The American Dream in Song of Solomon, The Tale of Frederick Douglass, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and PushIn an Age When "Knowledge it is power,” the emphasis on literacy in African American texts is undeniable. Starting with the earliest African American literary works, the slave narratives, through the canon's most recent hits such as Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and Sapphire's Push, the theme of literacy is almost inextricably connected to freedom and power. Closer investigation, however, leads the reader to another, less direct message, which indicates that perhaps this belief in literacy as a path to the “American Dream” of freedom and social and economic success is contradictory or, at least, insufficient in social and economic terms. cultural terms. In this way, African American literature reconstructs the "American dream" into an even more complex "deferred dream". In his introduction to The Classic Slave Narratives, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. states, “In literacy lies true freedom for the black slave.” ,” (ix). Such is the case of Frederick Douglass, whose initial guardianship by his mistress, Mrs. Auld, and subsequent rejection of that guardianship by Mr. Auld enlightens Douglass to “an entirely new line of thought ", which allows him to understand "the path from slavery to freedom" (275). Understanding that maintaining the illiteracy of the slave population was “the white man's power to enslave the black man” (275), Douglass realizes that learning to read is a potential path to freedom from the shackles of slavery. It is here, however, that the distinction between freedom from slavery and the freedom inherent in the ideology of the "American Dream" begins to shatter what Harvey Graff calls "the myth of literacy." ....in the successful negotiation not only of illiteracy, but of a history of social and cultural denial. This is the nature of the deferred dream. WORKS CITED Brent, Linda. Incidents in the life of a slave. Classic slave narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Penguin Group, 1987. Douglas, Frederick. An account of the life of Frederick Douglass. Classic slave narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Penguin Group, 1987.Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Introduction. Classic slave narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Penguin Group, 1987. ix-xviii.Graff, Harvey J. The Myth of Literacy: Literacy and Social Structure in the Nineteenth-Century City. New York: Academic Press, 1979. Morrison, Toni. Song of Songs. New York: The Penguin Group, 1977. Sapphire. Push. New York: Vintage Contemporary, 1996.