Catalog Search Results
Author
Description
The country of Arketta calls them Good Luck Girls, but they know their luck is anything butsold to a "welcome house" as children and branded with cursed markings, trapped in a life they would never have chosen. When one of them accidentally kills a man, five girls risk a dangerous escape and harrowing journey to find freedom, justice, and revenge in a country which wants them to have nothing. Pursued by Arketta's most vicious and powerful forces,...
Author
Description
"An engrossing, epic American drama told from four distinct perspectives, spanning the first major wave of Irish immigration to New York through the end of the Civil War. Four unique voices; two parallel love stories; one sweeping novel rich in the history of nineteenth century America. This remarkable debut draws from the great themes of literature--famine, war, love, and family--as it introduces four unforgettable characters. Ethan McOwen is an...
Author
Description
What have I to fear? My master broke every promise to me. I lost my beloved wife and our dear children. All, sold South. Neither my time nor my body is mine. The breath of life is all I have to lose. And bondage is suffocating me. Henry Brown wrote that long before he came to be known as Box, he “entered the world a slave.” He was put to work as a child and passed down from one generation to the next — as property. When he was an adult, his...
Author
Description
"From American master James Lee Burke comes a novel set in Civil War-era Louisiana as the South transforms and a brilliant cast of characters-enslaved and free women, plantation gentry, and battle-weary Confederate and Union soldiers-are caught in the maelstrom. In the fall of 1863, the Union Army is in control of the Mississippi River. Much of Louisiana, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge, is occupied. The Confederate Army is in disarray, corrupt...
46) Finding freedom
Author
Description
"Addy Walker's family is planning a dangerous escape from slavery during the summer of 1864. But before they can leave, the most terrible thing Addy can imagine happens -- her Poppa and her brother, Sam, are sold! Addy and her Momma decide they must head out on their own. Although the road to freedom is difficult, Addy's new life brings new friends, school, and even the opportunity to help others. But when will her family be reunited?"--
47) James: a novel
Author
Appears on list
Description
"From Percival Everett-a recipient of the NBCC Lifetime Achievement Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize, and numerous PEN awards-comes James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby...
Author
Formats
Description
After learning of her familyâs ties to the slaveholding South, Sylvia Compson scours her attic for clues and discovers a window into the world of her ancestors: the memoir of her great-grandfatherâs spinster sister, Gerda Bergstrom. Gerdaâs memoir chronicles the founding of Elm Creek Manor and the tumultuous years when Hans, Anneke, and Gerda Bergstrom sheltered fugitive slaves within its walls, using quilts as a signal of sanctuary....
Author
Description
In 1848, thirteen-year-old Emily Edmonson, five of her siblings, and seventy other enslaved people boarded the Pearl under cover of night in Washington, D.C., hoping to sail north to freedom. Within a day, the schooner was captured, and the Edmonsons were sent to New Orleans to be sold into even crueler conditions. Passenger on the Pearl is the story of this thwarted escape, of the ramifications of its attempt, and of a family for whom freedom was...
Author
Description
"The decades preceding the Civil War were rife with fierce sectarian violence along the borders between slave and free states. The Ohio River was one such border. Here in the river towns of Ohio and Kentucky, abolitionists and slave chasers confronted each other during the "war before the war." Slave masters and bounty hunters chased runaway slaves from Kentucky into Ohio, hoping to catch their quarry before the slaves disappeared on the underground...
54) The house girl
Author
Description
Weaving together the story of an escaped slave in the pre-Civil War South and a determined junior lawyer, The House Girl follows Lina Sparrow as she looks for an appropriate lead plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking compensation for families of slaves. In her research, she learns about Lu Anne Bell, a renowned prewar artist whose famous works might have actually been painted by her slave, Josephine.
Author
Description
"The paths of three young Black women in pre-Civil War Philadelphia unexpectedly--and dangerously--collide in this dramatic debut novel inspired by the explosive history of a city at war with itself. Philadelphia, 1837. When nineteen-year-old Charlotte escaped from the deteriorating White Oaks plantation four years ago, she'd expected freedom to look completely different from her former life as an enslaved housemaid. Instead, she's locked away playing...
56) Remembrance
Author
Description
"Remembrance...It's a rumor, a whisper passed in the fields and veiled behind sheets of laundry. A hidden stop on the underground road to freedom, a safe haven protected by more than secrecy...if you can make it there. Ohio, present day. A refugee struggling to rebuild her life in America after the devastating Haitian earthquake is suddenly inexplicably bound to a mysterious old woman who is not at all what she seems. Haiti, 1791, on the brink of...
57) A slave no more: two men who escaped to freedom : including their own narratives of emancipation
Author
Description
The newly discovered slave narratives of John Washington and Wallace Turnage-and their harrowing and empowering journey to emancipation. Slave narratives, among the most powerful records of our past, are extremely rare, with only fifty-five surviving post-Civil War. This book is a major new addition to this imperative part of American history-the firsthand accounts of two slaves, John Washington and Wallace Turnage, who through a combination of...
Author
Description
"When cholera strikes San Antonio in 1843, Aurelia Ruiz discovers that she might have the power to heal and also to curse. She definitely has the power to attract men. Is she a witch, a bruja?" "Meanwhile, Joseph Kimmel, son of a Polish Jew, who has been teaching school in Missouri, learns of his brother's death in San Antonio and sets off for the Republic of Texas. On the way he encounters Luck, a runaways slave who robs him, and is rescued and befriended...