Accepting Kicks from Nobody: An American Family's Multigenerational Pursuit of Freedom, Equality, and Racial Justice

Accepting Kicks from Nobody follows multiple generations of a midwestern family from the closing decades of the eighteenth century well into the twentieth. Born enslaved immediately after the American Revolution, William Trail, the family patriarch, self-emancipated near the end of the War of 1812, escaping from western South Carolina to southeastern Indiana Territory. There, William helped to clear the land for settlement, established economic ties with his white neighbors, defended his fr...