It's still sound advice -- and in the intervening years, black authors have taken it, from Alex Haley's 1976 blockbuster, "Roots, " to Toni Morrison's haunting "Beloved" from 1987.

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And "Beloved, " starring Oprah Winfrey and based on Toni Morrison's novel of the same name, is the story of a former slave visited by the ghost of the daughter that she killed.

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