Download or read book The Underground Railroad written by Colson Whitehead and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • "An American masterpiece" (NPR) that chronicles a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. • The basis for the acclaimed original Amazon Prime Video series directed by Barry Jenkins. Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman's will to escape the horrors of bondage—and a powerful meditation on the history we all share. Look for Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Crook Manifesto, coming soon!
Download or read book The Underground Railroad written by Colson Whitehead and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2016-10-06 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES BY BARRY JENKINS (COMING MAY 2021) WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2017 WINNER OF THE ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD 2017 LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER 2016 'Whitehead is on a roll: the reviews have been sublime' Guardian 'Luminous, furious, wildly inventive' Observer 'Hands down one of the best, if not the best, book I've read this year' Stylist 'Dazzling' New York Review of Books Praised by Barack Obama and an Oprah Book Club Pick, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead won the National Book Award 2016 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2017. Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. All the slaves lead a hellish existence, but Cora has it worse than most; she is an outcast even among her fellow Africans and she is approaching womanhood, where it is clear even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a slave recently arrived from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they take the perilous decision to escape to the North. In Whitehead's razor-sharp imagining of the antebellum South, the Underground Railroad has assumed a physical form: a dilapidated box car pulled along subterranean tracks by a steam locomotive, picking up fugitives wherever it can. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But its placid surface masks an infernal scheme designed for its unknowing black inhabitants. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher sent to find Cora, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. At each stop on her journey, Cora encounters a different world. As Whitehead brilliantly recreates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America, from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once the story of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shatteringly powerful meditation on history.
Download or read book Stolen written by Richard Bell and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “superbly researched and engaging” (The Wall Street Journal) true story about five boys who were kidnapped in the North and smuggled into slavery in the Deep South—and their daring attempt to escape and bring their captors to justice belongs “alongside the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edward P. Jones, and Toni Morrison” (Jane Kamensky, Professor of American History at Harvard University). Philadelphia, 1825: five young, free black boys fall into the clutches of the most fearsome gang of kidnappers and slavers in the United States. Lured onto a small ship with the promise of food and pay, they are instead met with blindfolds, ropes, and knives. Over four long months, their kidnappers drive them overland into the Cotton Kingdom to be sold as slaves. Determined to resist, the boys form a tight brotherhood as they struggle to free themselves and find their way home. Their ordeal—an odyssey that takes them from the Philadelphia waterfront to the marshes of Mississippi and then onward still—shines a glaring spotlight on the Reverse Underground Railroad, a black market network of human traffickers and slave traders who stole away thousands of legally free African Americans from their families in order to fuel slavery’s rapid expansion in the decades before the Civil War. “Rigorously researched, heartfelt, and dramatically concise, Bell’s investigation illuminates the role slavery played in the systemic inequalities that still confront Black Americans” (Booklist).
Download or read book Gateway to Freedom The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad written by Eric Foner and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-01-19 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom. More than any other scholar, Eric Foner has influenced our understanding of America's history. Now, making brilliant use of extraordinary evidence, the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian once again reconfigures the national saga of American slavery and freedom. A deeply entrenched institution, slavery lived on legally and commercially even in the northern states that had abolished it after the American Revolution. Slaves could be found in the streets of New York well after abolition, traveling with owners doing business with the city's major banks, merchants, and manufacturers. New York was also home to the North’s largest free black community, making it a magnet for fugitive slaves seeking refuge. Slave catchers and gangs of kidnappers roamed the city, seizing free blacks, often children, and sending them south to slavery. To protect fugitives and fight kidnappings, the city's free blacks worked with white abolitionists to organize the New York Vigilance Committee in 1835. In the 1840s vigilance committees proliferated throughout the North and began collaborating to dispatch fugitive slaves from the upper South, Washington, and Baltimore, through Philadelphia and New York, to Albany, Syracuse, and Canada. These networks of antislavery resistance, centered on New York City, became known as the underground railroad. Forced to operate in secrecy by hostile laws, courts, and politicians, the city’s underground-railroad agents helped more than 3,000 fugitive slaves reach freedom between 1830 and 1860. Until now, their stories have remained largely unknown, their significance little understood. Building on fresh evidence—including a detailed record of slave escapes secretly kept by Sydney Howard Gay, one of the key organizers in New York—Foner elevates the underground railroad from folklore to sweeping history. The story is inspiring—full of memorable characters making their first appearance on the historical stage—and significant—the controversy over fugitive slaves inflamed the sectional crisis of the 1850s. It eventually took a civil war to destroy American slavery, but here at last is the story of the courageous effort to fight slavery by "practical abolition," person by person, family by family.
Download or read book Harriet Tubman written by Ann Petry and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-09-08 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Outstanding Book for young adult readers, this biography of the famed Underground Railroad abolitionist is a lesson in valor and justice. Born into slavery, Harriet Tubman knew the thirst for freedom. Inspired by rumors of an “underground railroad” that carried slaves to liberation, she dreamed of escaping the nightmarish existence of the Southern plantations and choosing a life of her own making. But after she finally did escape, Tubman made a decision born of profound courage and moral conviction: to go back and help those she’d left behind. As an activist on the Underground Railroad, a series of safe houses running from South to North and eventually into Canada, Tubman delivered more than three hundred souls to freedom. She became an insidious threat to the Southern establishment—and a symbol of hope to slaves everywhere. In this “well-written and moving life of the ‘Moses of her people’’’ (The Horn Book), an acclaimed author makes vivid and accessible the life of a national hero, soon to be immortalized on the twenty-dollar bill. This intimate portrait follows Tubman on her journey from bondage to freedom, from childhood to the frontlines of the abolition movement and even the Civil War. In addition to being named a New York Times Outstanding Book, Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad was also selected as an American Library Association Notable Book.
Download or read book Through Darkness to Light written by Jeanine Michna-Bales and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2017-03-28 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They left in the middle of the night—often carrying little more than the knowledge to follow the North Star. Between 1830 and the end of the Civil War in 1865, an estimated one hundred thousand slaves became passengers on the Underground Railroad, a journey of untold hardship, in search of freedom. In Through Darkness to Light: Photographs Along the Underground Railroad, Jeanine Michna-Bales presents a remarkable series of images following a route from the cotton plantations of central Louisiana, through the cypress swamps of Mississippi and the plains of Indiana, north to the Canadian border— a path of nearly fourteen hundred miles. The culmination of a ten-year research quest, Through Darkness to Light imagines a journey along the Underground Railroad as it might have appeared to any freedom seeker. Framing the powerful visual narrative is an introduction by Michna-Bales; a foreword by noted politician, pastor, and civil rights activist Andrew J. Young; and essays by Fergus M. Bordewich, Robert F. Darden, and Eric R. Jackson.
Download or read book Summary written by Alpha Minds and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book summary is created for individuals who want to flesh out the essential contents but are too busy to go through the entire book. This book is not intended to replace the original book. Cora is a black slave, who dreamt of living her life in freedom and to look for her mother who abandoned her at young age. One day, she is then approached by another slave named Caesar, while working on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Caesar offered a glimpse of freedom to her. Persistent to get out of bondage, she found her courage and killed someone while escaping. She have gone through a lot and even pretended to be someone else. Colson Whitehead's haunting recapture of the numerous horrors of black slavery in the Southern part of the Americas is visibly featured in his award-winning literary masterpiece "The Underground Railroad", and serves as a conscious message of the white supremacy that existed for decades. Wait no more, take action and get this book now!
Download or read book Unspoken written by Henry Cole and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2016-10-25 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Civil War–era girl’s courage is tested in this haunting, wordless story. When a farm girl discovers a runaway slave hiding in the barn, she is at once startled and frightened. But the stranger’s fearful eyes weigh upon her conscience, and she must make a difficult choice. Will she have the courage to help him? Unspoken gifts of humanity unite the girl and the runaway as they each face a journey: one following the North Star, the other following her heart. Henry Cole’s unusual and original rendering of the Underground Railroad speaks directly to our deepest sense of compassion. Praise for Unspoken A New York Times Best Illustrated Book “Designed to present youngsters with a moral choice . . . the author, a former teacher, clearly intended Unspoken to be a challenging book, its somber sepia tone drawings establish a mood of foreboding.” —The New York Times Book Review “Moving and emotionally charged.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “Gorgeously rendered in soft dark pencils, this wordless book is reminiscent of the naturalistic pencil artistry of Maurice Sendak and Brian Selznick.” —School Library Journal, starred review “Cole’s . . . beautifully detailed pencil drawings on cream-colored paper deftly visualize a family’s ruggedly simple lifestyle on a Civil War–era homestead, while facing stark, ethical choices . . . Cole conjures significant tension and emotional heft . . . in this powerful tale of quiet camaraderie and courage.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
Download or read book Underground Airlines written by Ben H. Winters and published by Mulholland Books. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling book that asks the question: what would present-day America look like if the Civil War never happened? A New York Times bestseller; a Goodreads Choice finalist; named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, Slate, Publishers Weekly, Hudson Bookseller, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kirkus Reviews, AudioFile Magazine, and Amazon A young black man calling himself Victor has struck a bargain with federal law enforcement, working as a bounty hunter for the US Marshall Service in exchange for his freedom. He's got plenty of work. In this version of America, slavery continues in four states called "the Hard Four." On the trail of a runaway known as Jackdaw, Victor arrives in Indianapolis knowing that something isn't right -- with the case file, with his work, and with the country itself. As he works to infiltrate the local cell of a abolitionist movement called the Underground Airlines, tracking Jackdaw through the back rooms of churches, empty parking garages, hotels, and medical offices, Victor believes he's hot on the trail. But his strange, increasingly uncanny pursuit is complicated by a boss who won't reveal the extraordinary stakes of Jackdaw's case, as well as by a heartbreaking young woman and her child -- who may be Victor's salvation. Victor believes himself to be a good man doing bad work, unwilling to give up the freedom he has worked so hard to earn. But in pursuing Jackdaw, Victor discovers secrets at the core of the country's arrangement with the Hard Four, secrets the government will preserve at any cost. Underground Airlines is a ground-breaking novel, a wickedly imaginative thriller, and a story of an America that is more like our own than we'd like to believe.
Download or read book Henry s Freedom Box written by Ellen Levine and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stirring, dramatic story of a slave who mails himself to freedom by a Jane Addams Peace Award-winning author and a Coretta Scott King Award-winning artist. Henry Brown doesn't know how old he is. Nobody keeps records of slaves' birthdays. All the time he dreams about freedom, but that dream seems farther away than ever when he is torn from his family and put to work in a warehouse. Henry grows up and marries, but he is again devastated when his family is sold at the slave market. Then one day, as he lifts a crate at the warehouse, he knows exactly what he must do: He will mail himself to the North. After an arduous journey in the crate, Henry finally has a birthday -- his first day of freedom.
Download or read book Allen Jay and the Underground Railroad written by Marlene Targ Brill and published by Millbrook Press. This book was released on 2009-08-01 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Allen Jay's family farm is a stop on the Underground Railroad. Allen's parents give food and shelter to slaves escaping from the South. One day in 1842, Allen's father asks him to help a runaway slave. Is Allen brave enough? This exciting true story takes you along as Allen meets Henry James, an African American man struggling to find freedom.
Download or read book North by Night written by Katherine Ayres and published by Yearling. This book was released on 2013-03-27 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's 1851 and Lucy Spencer's family is keeping a secret. Their Ohio home is a station on the Underground Railroad, the network of people and places that helps fugitive slaves escape to freedom in Canada. Lucy believes in what she and her family do to help the fugitives, even if it means putting herself in danger. So Lucy doesn't hesitate when she is asked to stay with the Widow Aurelia Mercer and help her with a family of runaway slaves hiding in her attic. And she learns so much from her experience--about growing up, love, and standing on her own. But what will Lucy do when she is asked to make the ultimate sacrifice and leave all she loves behind?
Download or read book Frederick Douglass in Context written by Michaël Roy and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-08 with total page 753 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frederick Douglass in Context provides an in-depth introduction to the multifaceted life and times of Frederick Douglass, the nineteenth-century's leading black activist and one of the most celebrated American writers. An international team of scholars sheds new light on the environments and communities that shaped Douglass's career. The book challenges the myth of Douglass as a heroic individualist who towered over family, friends, and colleagues, and reveals instead a man who relied on others and drew strength from a variety of personal and professional relations and networks. This volume offers both a comprehensive representation of Douglass and a series of concentrated studies of specific aspects of his work. It will be a key resource for students, scholars, teachers, and general readers interested in Douglass and his tireless fight for freedom, justice, and equality for all.
Download or read book Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad written by Cheryl Janifer LaRoche and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2013-12-30 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This enlightening study employs the tools of archaeology to uncover a new historical perspective on the Underground Railroad. Unlike previous histories of the Underground Railroad, which have focused on frightened fugitive slaves and their benevolent abolitionist accomplices, Cheryl LaRoche focuses instead on free African American communities, the crucial help they provided to individuals fleeing slavery, and the terrain where those flights to freedom occurred. This study foregrounds several small, rural hamlets on the treacherous southern edge of the free North in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. LaRoche demonstrates how landscape features such as waterways, iron forges, and caves played a key role in the conduct and effectiveness of the Underground Railroad. Rich in oral histories, maps, memoirs, and archaeological investigations, this examination of the "geography of resistance" tells the new powerful and inspiring story of African Americans ensuring their own liberation in the midst of oppression.
Download or read book Underground Railroad written by Linda Russo and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Freedom Train North written by Julia Pferdehirt and published by Wisconsin Historical Society. This book was released on 2011-09 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People running from slavery made many hard journeys to find freedom—on steamboats and in carriages, across rivers and in hay-covered wagons. Some were shot at. Many were chased by slave catchers. Others hid in tunnels and secret rooms. But these troubles were worth it for the men, women, and children who eventually reached freedom. Freedom Train North tells the stories of fugitive slaves who found help in Wisconsin. Young readers (ages 7 to 12) will meet people like Joshua Glover, who was broken out of jail by a mob of freedom workers in Milwaukee, and Jacob Green, who escaped five times before he finally made it to freedom. This compelling book also introduces stories of the strangers who hid fugitive slaves and helped them on their way, brave men and women who broke the law to do what was right. As both a historian and a storyteller, author Julia Pferdehirt shares these exciting and important stories of a dangerous time in Wisconsin’s past. Using manuscripts, letters, and artifacts from the period, as well as stories passed down from one generation to another, Pferdehirt takes us deep into our state’s past, challenging and inspiring us with accounts of courage and survival.
Download or read book The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom written by Wilbur Henry Siebert and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-01-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1898, this comprehensive history was the first documented survey of a system that helped fugitive slaves escape from areas in the antebellum South to regions as far north as Canada. Comprising fifty years of research, the text includes interviews and excerpts from diaries, letters, biographies, memoirs, speeches, and a large number of other firsthand accounts. Together, they shed much light on the origins of a system that provided aid to runaway slaves, including the degree of formal organization within the movement, methods of procedure, geographical range, leadership roles, the effectiveness of Canadian settlements, and the attitudes of courts and communities toward former slaves.
