Essays examine recent cultural arguments about the way slavery is represented in books, films, historical sites, and museums and address controversies pertaining to such topics as the Library of Congress's 'Back of the Big House' exhibit and the DNA discoveries confirming Jefferson's relationship with slave Sally Hemmings.

The history of slavery is central to understanding the history of the United States. Slavery and the Making of America offers a richly illustrated, vividly written history that illuminates the human side of this inhumane institution, presenting it largely through stories of the slaves themselves. Readers will discover a wide ranging and sharply nuanced look at American slavery, from the first Africans brought to British colonies in the early seventeenth century to the end of Reconstruction. The authors document the horrors of slavery, particularly in the deep South, and describe the valiant struggles to escape bondage, from dramatic tales of slaves such as William and Ellen Craft to Dred Scott's doomed attempt to win his freedom through the Supreme Court. We see how slavery set our nation on the road of violence, from bloody riots that broke out in American cities over fugitive slaves, to the cataclysm of the Civil War. Along the way, readers meet such individuals as 'Black Sam' Fraunces, a West Indian mulatto who owned the Queen's Head Tavern in New York City, a key meeting place for revolutionaries in the 1760s and 1770s and Sergeant William H. Carney, who won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery at the crucial assault on Fort Wagner duringthe Civil War as well as Benjamin 'Pap' Singleton, a former slave who led freed African Americans to a new life on the American frontier.

A history of the African American experience from their arrival on American shores to the present day highlights their contributions, struggles, fight for equality, and their place in multicultural America.

A history of the African American experience from their arrival on American shores to the present day highlights their contributions, struggles, fight for equality, and their place in multicultural America.

Product Description: Hard Road to Freedom tells the story of African America from its African roots to the political and social upheavals at the end of the twentieth century. It interweaves the experiences of individual black Americans with an analysis of the nation's pursuit of its fundamental principles, of freedom, and civil rights...read more

A history of the African American experience from their arrival on American shores to the present day highlights their contributions, struggles, fight for equality, and their place in multicultural America. (view table of contents)

(view table of contents)

Examines the social and communal history of African Americans from 1650 through 1995 (view table of contents)