Due to the absences of racial dialogue in America and it’s obsession with restricting the population into neat, contrasting racial boxes, many African American women authors have written memoirs to disassemble these ideals. Shadowed by stereotypes that typecast an entire population as promiscuous, ill-kept, verbally loud, greedy and self-serving individuals, autobiographical writing provides personal as well as historical accounts that contrast these images. Recognizing the need of texts that voice the true experience of African American women, Harriet Jacobs and Zora Neale Hurston wrote trailblazing narratives in hopes of providing their own philosophy. Incidents of a Slave Girl and “How It Feels to be Colored Me,” bravely challenged negatively held standards of African American women by disclosing accurate accounts of their experiences in America and challenged the nation to take action towards drastic change. In "Incidents of a Slave Girl," Harriet Jacobs begins her narrative by exclaiming, “Readers, be assured, this narrative is no fictional” (Jacobs 5). Aiming for her readers to sympathize with the traumatizing life of a slave, Jacobs focuses her life’s journey on her maternal strife. Early on, Jacobs begs her readers to understand the dilemma of the slave mother, who must suffer “peculiar sorrows,” and who must live in “the system that has brutalized her from her children” (Jacobs 27). Demonstrated through Dr. Flint’s ownership of her body as well as reproductive abilities, she shows numerous examples of the true nature of slavery and its negative effects on the experience of motherhood. By focusing her writing on the victimization of slave mothers, Jacobs creates an intentional link between a female slave and the familiarity of motherhood. The condition in which the protagonist, Linda Brent, becomes a mother begins Jacobs’ emphasis on the female slave’s exclusions from true motherhood and ultimately true existence. Highlighting that the female slave’s journey into maternity was often unwelcomed, Brent’s swift decision to become a mother is prompted from Dr. Flint’s persistent sexual conquest. Brent discloses: "No pen can give an adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery. The slave girl is reared in an atmosphere of licentiousness and fear. The lash and foul talk of her master and his sons are her teachers. When she is fourteen or fifteen, her owner, or his sons, or the overseer, or perhaps all of them, begin to bribe her with presents. If these fail to accomplish their purpose, she is whipped or starved into submission... Resistance is hopeless" (Jacobs 79). Essentially the master’s property, this treatment of female slaves was acceptable and expected. While male slaves were brutally beaten or killed for disobedience (Jacobs 47), the female slave’s interactions with her master also included the likelihood of being raped (Jacobs 50). An issue which was largely unspoken, Jacobs calls attention to the objectification of the female slave’s body and the terrorizing systems set in slavery. Instead of being forced to submit to the persistence of her master and lose her little self-respect as a human being, Brent strived to take as much ownership of her womanhood she could possibly attain. Desperate, Brent becomes “reckless in [her] desire” (Jacobs 84) and seeks an affair with Mr. Sands in efforts to escape the powerful grasp of her master. By focusing on her reasoning skills, Jacobs displays humanistic traits in Brent which contrasts the animalistic portrayal that slaves often faced. Proving her incapability to follow the ideal standards of motherhood, Jacobs included Brent’s active desire to want to follow set standards of the caregiving, family oriented and childbearing mother. Forced by Dr. Flint's hand to submit herself willingly to Mr. Sands (Jacobs 85), Brent continuously demands that readers notice the female slave’s exclusion from motherhood and thus be cautious in their judgment of her