The day nine-year-old Grace is called to work in the kitchen in the Big House, everyone warns her to to keep her head down and her thoughts to herself, but the more she sees of the oppressive Master and his hateful wife, the more she questions things until one day her thoughts escape--and to avoid being separated she and her family flee into the Dismal Swamp, to join the other escaped slaves who live there.

"'This book is Clint Smith's contemporary portrait of the United States of America as a slave-owning nation." -- Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks--those that are honest about the past and those that are not--that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history and memory. It is the story of the Monticello...

"Bridging women's history, the history of the South, and African American history, this book makes a bold argument about the role of white women in American slavery. Historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers draws on a variety of sources to show that slave-owning women were sophisticated economic actors who directly engaged in and benefited from the South's slave market. Because women typically inherited more slaves than land, enslaved people were often...

"The author retraces Frederick Law Olmsted's journey across the American South in the 1850s, on the eve of the Civil War. Olmsted roamed eleven states and six thousand miles, and the New York Times published his dispatches about slavery and its defenders. More than 150 years later, Tony Horwitz followed Olmsted's route, and whenever possible his mode of transport--rail, riverboats, in the saddle--through Appalachia, down the Ohio and Mississippi,...

No war can be fought with clean hands. Not even the ones waged for the right reasons. Not even the ones you win. Tisaanah bargained away her own freedom to save those she left behind in slavery. Now, bound by her blood pact, she must fight the Orders' war -- and Max is determined to protect her at all costs. But when a betrayal tears apart Ara, Max and Tisaanah are pushed into an even bloodier conflict. Tisaanah must gamble with Reshaye's power to...

"The water-breathing descendants of African slave women tossed overboard have built their own underwater society -- and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future in this brilliantly imaginative novella inspired by the [...] song "The Deep" from Daveed Diggs's rap group clipping. Yetu holds the memories for her people -- water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners -- who live idyllic...

Based on the true story of Solomon Northup. It is 1841, and Northup, an accomplished, free citizen of New York, is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Stripped of his identity and deprived of all dignity, Northup is ultimately purchased by ruthless plantation owner Edwin Epps and must find the strength within to survive. Filled with powerful performances by an astonishing cast including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad...

William Craft (1824—1900) and Ellen Craft (1826—1891) were American slaves from Georgia who managed to escape to the North in 1848. Disguised as a white male painter (Ellen Craft) and servant (William Craft), they travelled openly by rail and river and arrived in Philadelphia on Christmas Day. Their exploit became well known and was covered widely in the press, which put their lives in danger and resulted in the pair moving to England, where they...

Is there anything new to say about Thomas Jefferson and slavery? The answer is a resounding yes. Master of the Mountain, Henry Wiencek's eloquent, persuasive book-based on new information coming from archaeological work at Monticello and on hitherto overlooked or disregarded evidence in Jefferson's papers-opens up a huge, poorly understood dimension of Jefferson's world. We must, Wiencek suggests, follow the money. So far, historians have offered...

"A life in slavery taught Tisaanah how to survive with nothing but a sharp eye, a quick mind, and a touch of magic. But the night she tried to buy her freedom, she nearly paid with her life. Instead, she murdered the most powerful man in Threll. Forced to flee, she has only one chance at saving those she left behind: pledging herself to the Orders, an organization of magic Wielders strong enough to destroy her former masters. To earn her place, Tisaanah...