Why am I passionate about this?
When I was growing up, I had no idea that New York State had 200 years of slavery. And when I realized that my Dutch American ancestors had been some of the most fervent enslavers, I knew I had to know more. It wasn’t until I met Eleanor Mire, a woman who is descended from the very people that my family enslaved, that my story became fuller. We realized that, through rape, we shared ancestors, which makes us “linked descendants.” Rather than turning away from the upsetting history, we became friends who knew we needed to keep learning and tell the stories of those who had been lost.
Debra's book list on slavery that will surprise you
Why did Debra love this book?
Although this book is less about slavery as it happened and more about what took place after the Civil War ended slavery in the United States, it is one of the best books I’ve ever seen that explains just how America still hasn’t recovered from its legacy.
This is one of those books where I kept underlining passages, such as one where the racist Southerner said that slavery was like an “apprenticeship” for “savage races” or how nostalgia for a romantic version of the Civil War poisoned our understanding of history. I want to read this book three more times so that I can fully absorb its wise lessons.
4 authors picked Race and Reunion as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Winner of the Bancroft Prize
Winner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize
Winner of the Merle Curti award
Winner of the Frederick Douglass Prize
No historical event has left as deep an imprint on America's collective memory as the Civil War. In the war's aftermath, Americans had to embrace and cast off a traumatic past. David Blight explores the perilous path of remembering and forgetting, and reveals its tragic costs to race relations and America's national reunion.In 1865, confronted with a ravaged landscape and a torn America, the North and South began a slow and painful process of reconciliation. The…