"In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis, the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag with a few precious items as a token of love and to try to ensure Ashley's survival. Soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley's granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the bag in spare yet haunting language--including Rose's wish...

In December 1848, a young enslaved couple named Ellen and William Craft traveled openly by rail, coach and steamship from Macon, Georgia, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Ellen, who passed for white, disguised herself as a wealthy disabled man, with William as "his" slave. Woo follows their journey north, and in joining the abolitionist lecture circuit. When the new Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 put them at risk, they fled from the United States. Their...

"Winter 1838--Kentucky. Determined to save her toddler son from being sold as a slave, the woman who became known as Eliza Harris trekked through the forest, in the dark of night with wild animals on her heels. Her goal: cross the Ohio River, the boundary between the North and the South, between slavery and freedom. Although the journey would be perilous, Eliza looked out at the treacherous frozen waters and quickly decided she couldn't let fear stop...

The compelling, hidden story of Cathy Williams, a former slave and the first woman to ever serve in the US Army. "Here's the first thing you need to know about Miss Cathy Williams: I am the daughter of a daughter of a queen and my Mama never let me forget it." Cathy Williams was born and lived a slave until the Union army came and destroyed the only world she had ever known. Separated from her family, she makes the impossible decision: to fight with...

"Sarah Margru Kinson, as she came to be known, was only nine years old when she was taken from her home in Africa and brought to Cuba, where she and fifty-two other captives, including three other children, were sold and taken aboard the Amistad. The Africans revolted and took over the ship, but were later captured and put on trial, a trial that went all way to the Supreme Court and was argued in the Africans' favor by John Quincy Adams, allowing...

"Sixteen-year-old Lorena Leland's dreams of a rich and fulfilling life as a writer are dashed when the stock market crashes in 1929. Seven years into the Great Depression, Rena's banker father has retreated into the bottle, her sister is married to a lazy charlatan and gambler, and Rena is an unemployed newspaper reporter. Eager for any writing job, Rena accepts a position interviewing former slaves for the Federal Writers' Project. There, she meets...