If ever a book cried out for an audio version, it's this fascinating study of the lives of John Washington and Wallace Turnage. Both were sold or born into slavery, ran away repeatedly and eventually freed themselves. Although Blight, a Yale professor who specializes in the study of these rare documents, does a splendid job in setting up their stories, it is the superbly talented narrators who make listening such a richly nuanced delight. As Washington, Richard Allen (Ragtime: The Musical) is wise and jaunty, remembering his early years with pleasure and masking his bitterness at being a slave with Mark Twain-like ironic humor. Dion Graham (from TV's The Wire) portrays Turnage with barely restrained anger. Although both narratives apologize for their lack of education and writing skills, they add immensely to our knowledge of what it was like to be a young man growing up in a world he never made. Simultaneous release with the Harcourt hardcover (Reviews, Aug. 20). (Nov.)
Copyright 2007Reed Business InformationSlave narratives are extremely rare. Of the one hundred or so of these testimonies that survive, a mere handful are first-person accounts by slaves who ran away and freed themselves. Now two newly uncovered narratives, and the biographies of the men who wrote them, join that exclusive group.
Wallace Turnage was a teenage field hand on an Alabama plantation, John Washington an urban slave in Virginia. They never met. But both men saw opportunity in the chaos of the Civil War, both escaped North, and both left us remarkable accounts of their flights to freedom. Handed down through family and friends these narratives tell gripping stories of escape.
Working from an unusual abundance of genealogical material, historian David W. Blight has reconstructed Turnage's and Washington's childhoods as sons of white slaveholders and their climb to black working-class stability in the North, where they reunited their families. In A SLAVE NO MORE, the untold stories of two ordinary men take their place at the heart of the American experience.
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Wallace Turnage was a teenage field hand on an Alabama plantation, John Washington an urban slave in Virginia. They never met. But both men saw opportunity in the chaos of the Civil War, both escaped North, and both left us remarkable accounts of their flights to freedom. Handed down through family and friends these narratives tell gripping stories of escape.
Working from an unusual abundance of genealogical material, historian David W. Blight has reconstructed Turnage's and Washington's childhoods as sons of white slaveholders and their climb to black working-class stability in the North, where they reunited their families. In A SLAVE NO MORE, the untold stories of two ordinary men take their place at the heart of the American experience.
A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation
Slave narratives are extremely rare. Of the one hundred or so of these testimonies that survive, a mere handful are first-person accounts by slaves who ran away and freed themselves. Now two newly uncovered narratives, and the biographies of the men who wrote them, join that exclusive group.
Wallace Turnage was a teenage field hand on an Alabama plantation, John Washington an urban slave in Virginia. They never met. But both men saw opportunity in the chaos of the Civil War, both escaped North, and both left us remarkable accounts of their flights to freedom. Handed down through family and friends these narratives tell gripping stories of escape.
Working from an unusual abundance of genealogical material, historian David W. Blight has reconstructed Turnage's and Washington's childhoods as sons of white slaveholders and their climb to black working-class stability in the North, where they reunited their families. In A SLAVE NO MORE, the untold stories of two ordinary men take their place at the heart of the American experience.
Wallace Turnage was a teenage field hand on an Alabama plantation, John Washington an urban slave in Virginia. They never met. But both men saw opportunity in the chaos of the Civil War, both escaped North, and both left us remarkable accounts of their flights to freedom. Handed down through family and friends these narratives tell gripping stories of escape.
Working from an unusual abundance of genealogical material, historian David W. Blight has reconstructed Turnage's and Washington's childhoods as sons of white slaveholders and their climb to black working-class stability in the North, where they reunited their families. In A SLAVE NO MORE, the untold stories of two ordinary men take their place at the heart of the American experience.
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A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation
A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation
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Product Details
BN ID: | 2940172108525 |
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Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
Publication date: | 11/06/2007 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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