Rosey E. Pool (1905–71) did not live an ordinary life. She witnessed the rise of the Nazis in Berlin firsthand, tutored Anne Frank, operated in a Jewish resistance group, escaped from a Nazi transit camp, published African American poets in Europe, operated a London “salon” with her partner, witnessed independence movements in Nigeria and Senegal, and took part in the American civil rights movement. I Lay This Body Down is the first study of Pool and her remarkable transatlantic life. A translator, educator, and anthologist of African American poetry, Pool corresponded, after World War II, with Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, Naomi Long Madgett, Owen Dodson, Gordon Heath, and others who fostered her involvement in the Black Arts Movement, both in Britain and the United States. Though Pool was often cast as an outsider—one poet was amazed that “one so removed” was interested in the Black cause—she saw herself as part of a transatlantic struggle against oppression. For Pool, the “yellow Jew stars” the Nazis forced her to wear “were our darker skins.” Rosey E. Pool’s life allows Lonneke Geerlings to explore intersections of European and American history. As a Holocaust survivor and activist fighting against segregation in the Deep South, Pool connects stories that are often studied and told in isolation. Her life helps us understand the intersecting histories of Jewish Europe and Black America, but it also allows us to see how Pool dealt with tragedy, trauma, and loss. At its core, this book is about resilience and hope. Indeed, Pool’s life illuminates the power of reinvention for dealing with both challenging personal circumstances and the traumas of global history.

The John S. Williams plantation in Georgia was operated largely with the labor of slaves--and this was in 1921, 56 years after the Civil War. Williams was not alone in using "peons," but his reaction to a federal investigation was almost unbelievable: he decided to destroy the evidence. Enlisting the aid of his trusted black farm boss, Clyde Manning, he began methodically killing his slaves. As this true story unfolds, each detail seems more shocking, and surprises continue in the aftermath, with a sensational trial galvanizing the nation and marking a turning point in the treatment of black Americans.

"Richly textured historical fiction with the urgency of a mystery novel. Fergus knows certain things, deep in the bone: horses, hunting, the folkways of rural places, and he weaves this wisdom into a stirring tale.” – Geraldine Brooks, author of March and People of the Book and Horse Lay This Body Down, the third Gideon Stoltz Mystery, takes place in 1837 during one of the most horrific periods in pre-Civil War America, when human beings were considered chattel and both northern and southern states grew rich from slave labor. A Pennsylvania sheriff like Gideon could choose to uphold the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 or defy that racist law at great peril. In this hard-hitting, action-packed novel, Gideon tries to protect a boy who has fled north from a Virginia plantation – and pays dearly for his principles. Written with the vivid, atmospheric prose that imbues the whole series, the life and times of an early American backwoods town and its hardscrabble citizens will grip readers as Gideon and his wife True solve a murder, bust a kidnapping ring, and help one unforgettable boy who courageously chooses freedom above all else.

"As this true story unfolds, each detail seems more shocking: a young man forced to methodically kill his friends; his calm, unresisting compliance; men chained together, two by two, weighted down with rocks, and slowly driven to the bridges where they would be thrown over, alive and terrified; men ordered to dig their own graves."--BOOK JACKET.

A celebration of African American life and culture brings together four hundred years of folklore, traditional tales, recipes, proverbs, legends, folk songs, and folk art.

First published in 1867, Slave Songs of the United States represents the work of its three editors, all of whom collected and annotated these songs while working in the Sea Islands of South Carolina during the Civil War, and also of other collectors who transcribed songs sung by former slaves in other parts of the country. The transcriptions are preceded by an introduction written by William Francis Allen, the chief editor of the collection, who provides his own explanation of the origin of the songs and the circumstances under which they were sung. One critic has noted that, like the editors' introductions to slave narratives, Allen's introduction seeks to lend to slave expressions the honor of white authority and approval. Gathered during and after the Civil War, the songs, most of which are religious, reflect the time of slavery, and their collectors worried that they were beginning to disappear. Allen declares the editors' purpose to be to preserve, "while it is still possible . . . these relics of a state of society which has passed away." A DOCSOUTH BOOK. This collaboration between UNC Press and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library brings classic works from the digital library of Documenting the American South back into print. DocSouth Books uses the latest digital technologies to make these works available in paperback and e-book formats. Each book contains a short summary and is otherwise unaltered from the original publication. DocSouth Books provide affordable and easily accessible editions to a new generation of scholars, students, and general readers.

Documenting multiple aspects of slavery and its development in North America, this collection provides more than one hundred excerpts from personal accounts, songs, legal documents, diaries, letters, and other written sources. The book assembles a remarkable portrayal of the day-to-day connections between, and among, slaves and their owners across more than two centuries of subjugation and resistance, despair and hope. Beginning with a chronicle of the origins of slavery in the British colonies of North America, the collection traces the growth of the system to the antebellum period and includes accounts of slave revolts, auctions, slave travel and laws, and family life. Intimate as well as comprehensive, the documents reveal the individual views, goals, and lives of slaves and their masters, making this engaging work one of the most respected catalogs of firsthand information about slavery in North America.

Beloved spirituals include such lasting favorites as All God's Children Got Shoes, Balm in Gilead, Deep River, Down by the Riverside, Ezekiel Saw the Wheel, Gimme That Ol'-Time Religion, He's Got the Whole World in His Hand, Roll, Jordan, Roll, Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, Steal Away to Jesus, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, This Train, Wade in the Water, We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder, Were You There When They Crucified My Lord? and many more. Excellent for sing-alongs, community programs, church functions, and other events.

Twindom is an imaginary community, outside of Nashville, where twins, separated (often by evil forces) are reunited. Most of the residents of Twindom have found each other through the Twindom website. However, some, driven by the circumstances of their existence, must travel through, and be rescued from, the Valley of Despair. Dr. Timothy Franklin and his twin brother, Thomas, a paramedic, usually make the rescues. They are spending Tim's sabbatical together in Twindom, before Tom enters medical school. The first person the Franklin twins rescued, Bob, discovers he has a twin brother when his adopted parents go through a divorce. Bob runs away shortly thereafter to keep from murdering his adopted mother. She was extremely cruel and tried to destroy his artistic bent. He finds himself in Twindom. Six years earlier Donald Brown, an African-American, saw his twin brother, Ronald, kidnapped in broad daylight. Now, a junior in high school, Donald, a trained runner, has developed a severe panic disorder and frequent breaks with reality, in response to the kidnapping. Donald goes off his medication for several days and makes the journey through the Valley of Despair (usually a two or three day trip) in 18 hours. Evil forces separate Margaret Elain Smith from her twin sister and younger brother, after their parents die in a plane crash. Her kidnapers carry her off to an abusive foster home. She escapes after three months. The Franklin twins sedate and bring Margaret Elain into the safety of Twindom. She arrives in Twindom with anorexia, the result of the abuse. Meanwhile, Bill Davis arrives from San Francisco and reunites with Bob. Bill Davis arrives with the Johnson diaries. These will unlock the mystery of the Johnson twins, whose statue stands at the center of the Garden of Hope. Indeed, the development and actions of the Johnson twins are central to this novel. On their sixteenth birthday, March 3, 1840, Levi and Eli Johnson first share with each other their conviction that slavery is wrong, as they walk in the woods behind the Johnson Plantation. Knowing they must take every precaution to keep their thoughts and feelings about slavery secret, especially from their father, Levi suggests they communicate on this subject only in writing. The Johnson twins were nineteen, when they attended their first Quaker meeting. The Quaker spirit was much more in tune with the twins' own gentle spirit. Soon, they secretly embraced the Quaker religion and its teachings against slavery. This step gave the twins an inside track towards fulfilling their larger goal of helping to end slavery everywhere. In 1848, Jeremiah Johnson died leaving to his twins, 100 slaves. Levi and Eli promptly free their slaves, and transform the Johnson Plantation into a haven for escaping slaves. Following the Civil War, the Plantation became a unique orphanage where Black and White children grew up and were educated together. In the 1940's, the Johnson Plantation falls under the control of extreme racists who transform it into a slave state unto itself. As a first step, the new managers separate the youth and children and force the African-Americans into slavery. The process expands as those, who agree with the new stance of the Johnson Plantation kidnap and sell additional African-American youth and children to the Plantation. Kidnapers also deliver White children, especially orphans, to Johnson's Haven. The adults at the plantation school and Johnson's Haven carefully groom the White children to become the future overseers and managers. Kidnapers deliver Mary Ellen and Billy Joe Smith. However, the staff cannot mold the Smith children, the grandchildren of those who worked alongside Martin Luther King, to fit its expectations. Once Bob and Bill Davis expose the slave traffic, the days of the Johnson Plantation are numbered. However, even before the authorities reach the Johnson Plantation, the Franklin twins re