Girl in Black and White: The Story of Mary Mildred Williams and the Abolition Movement

An “engrossing narrative history” (Joanna Scutts, The Lily) of the enslaved girl whose photograph transformed the abolition movement.

When a decades-long court battle resulted in her family’s freedom in 1855, seven-year-old Mary Mildred Williams unexpectedly became the face of American slavery. Due to generations of sexual violence, Mary’s skin was so light she “passed” as white—a fact abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner knew would be the key to his white audience’s sympathy. Girl in Black a...