Slavery's Descendants

Reviews / Votes

In its first-hand chronicles of courage, rage, forgiveness, and the solace of an embrace, Slavery's Descendants unleashes powerful emotions. Full of hard-won wisdom, this book also captures the painful ambiguities our past fastens on us. "I want revelation," one participant says, "and yet, I dread it, too."
- Henry Wiencek (author of The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White) "In these moving essays, we see the testaments of journeys made by both descendants of enslavers and descendants of the enslaved to reckon with pain of the past, and look beneath the skin of the present for healing. Using poetry, essay, oral history, genealogical shard, these writings bear witness to the search to find and give language to our tangled, fraught, but ultimately shared history. Puzzling through the intimate histories that link us as Americans to one another- though often violent or painful- each writer here finds a way of knowing the past that offers the present more freedom, more hope. Here are stories told at a human scale, full of longing, honesty, grief, and also hope. In a difficult time, these writers lay down these meditations in the hope of a better, freer future for all of us. Their efforts are paths we would do well to follow. They offer us a chance for greater wholeness, too." - Tess Taylor (author of The Forage House) Fordham Magazine mention of Slavery's Descendants edited by Jill Strauss and Dionne Ford (Fordham Magazine) '"They were once America's cruelest, richest slave traders. Why does no one know their names?" by Hannah Natanson
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/09/14/they-were-once-americas-cruelest-richest-slave-traders-why-does-no-one-know-their-names/?wpisrc=nl_mostwpmm=1 (Washington Post) Interview with Jill Strauss and Dionne Ford, Slavery's Descendants and Coming to the Table
https://networks.h-net.org/node/11465/pages/5424505/interview-jill-strauss-and-dionne-ford-slaverys-descendants-and-coming (H-Net)