Families and Freedom
A sequel to the award-winning Free at Last that includes moving letters from freed enslaved people to their families
“These poignant letters show the devotion and love that existed among African American relatives despite all efforts to destroy slave families. A revealing history about the precarious state of black families during and after the Civil War.” —Kirkus Reviews
Drawn from the work of award-winning Freedmen and Southern Society Project at the University of Maryland, Families and Freedomtells the story of the remaking of the black family during the tumultuous years of the Civil War era. Through the dramatic and moving letters and testimony of freed enslaved persons, the documents in Families and Freedomprovide deep insight into the most intimate aspects of the transformation of captives to free people. This book is the sequel to the 1994 Lincoln Prize winner Free at Last, which was described in the New York Timesas “this generation’s most significant encounter with the American past.”
