Black autobiography can only be viewed sensibly in the classroom if an attempt is made to come to terms with the social and historical milieu in which the work was produced and with the persona and ethos of the writer. Critical failure to do so puts critic and text at a serious disadvantage because such failure restricts critical vision to the point of absurdity, insisting by implication that the social and historical milieu of the critic is the only valid context for viewing the work. Booker T. Washington's embarrassingly simplistic "Frederick Douglass" (a biography) is an example of a reductive misreading which creates the impression that Douglass did not really put his heart into all that firebrand abolitionist rhetoric he was putting out and was regretfully driven into such rhetoric by the times. Black autobiographers have inherited from Douglass the dual and simultaneous purpose of creating a voice to be heard within their subculture as well as obtaining acceptance in larger social settings through the power of a sanctioned language. Awareness of each historical and social milieu occupied by the individual writer leads to an enhancement of the student's capacity for understanding each individual work. (KEH)