Washoe County Library System

In the years before the Civil War, Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, struggles through the miles-long march, seeks comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother, opening herself to a world beyond this world. "Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey...

Uncle Tom's Cabin is arguably the most controversial novel ever written by an American. The impetus for the story was the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, which required all residents of the United States to report to the proper authorities any knowledge they may have had of the whereabouts of escaped slaves.

The critique of greed and inhumanity, innocence and redemption, continues to spark debate about the role and the...

The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer examines life and moral evolution of Abraham Lincoln and how he navigated the crises of slavery, secession and war by both marshaling the power of the presidency while recognizing its limitations. "Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and #1 New York Times bestselling author Jon Meacham chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln, charting how-and why-he confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of...

In this retelling of a folktale, a group of slaves, unable to bear their sadness and starvation any longer, calls upon the African magic that allows them to fly away. "The well-known author retells 24 black American folk tales in sure storytelling voice: animal tales, supernatural tales, fanciful and cautionary tales, and slave tales of freedom. All are beautifully readable. With the added attraction of 40 wonderfully expressive paintings by the Dillons,...

Twelve-year-old Sarny's brutal life as a slave becomes even more dangerous when a newly arrived slave offers to teach her how to read.

A fictionalized look at the life of Joseph Jacobs, son of a slave, told in the form of letters that he might have written during his life in pre-Civil War North Carolina, on a whaling expedition, in New York, New England, and finally in California during the Gold Rush.

Continues the adventures of Sarny, the slave girl Nightjohn taught to read, through the aftermath of the Civil War during which time she taught other Blacks and lived a full life until age ninety-four.

Provides a look at how slaves lived and worked on plantations.

"In 1860, a ship called the Clotilda was smuggled through the Alabama Gulf Coast, carrying the last group of enslaved people ever brought to the U.S. from West Africa. Five years later, the shipmates were emancipated, but they had no way of getting back home. Instead they created their own community outside the city of Mobile, where they spoke Yoruba and appointed their own leaders, a story chronicled in Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon. That community,...

In 1831, when Virginia slave Nat Turner learns of slavery conditions in other parts of the state, he leads an uprising against slave owners in the area.