The character of Jim in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain was written as a condemnation of the Jim Crow regimes that were springing up across the South as the Reconstruction Era slowly came to an end. Twain's Jim was the first Black character in popular American literature that can be thought of as being written in depth and without becoming another racist caricature. The story, set before the civil war, has been the subject of ongoing scholarship and contestation ever since. In this podcast episode, we hear from academic Shelley Fisher Fishkin whose new book Jim: The Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade explores the legacy of the character from the late 19th Century through to the Civil Rights era and the Black Lives Matter moment

I only ever talk about history on this podcast but I also have another life, yes, that of aspirant fantasy author and if that's your thing you can get a copy of my debut novel The Blood of Tharta, right here:

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