From John Hope Franklin, America's foremost African American historian, comes this groundbreaking analysis of slave resistance and escape. A sweeping panorama of plantation life before the Civil War, this book reveals that slaves frequently rebelled against their masters and ran away from their plantations whenever they could.
For generations, important aspects about slave life on the plantations of the American South have remained shrouded. Historians thought, for instance, that slaves were generally pliant and resigned to their roles as human chattel, and that racial violence...

Recipient of 2007 The Hyde Park Historical Society Paul Cornell Award
At fifteen, Earl Burrus Dickerson stowed away on a train in Canton, Mississippi, fleeing the racial oppression of his native South. But Chicago, the boy's destination, was no haven of racial fairness and equality. His flight north was in fact the beginning of a journey that would last a lifetime--and would forever pit Dickerson against the forces of racial injustice. Earl B. Dickerson's story, told here for the first time, is one of courage and character, of remarkable accomplishment in the face of terrible odds; it is...