PROFILES IN BLACK AND WHITE: Stories of Men and Women Who Fought Against Slavery

by Elizabeth F. Chittenden ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1973

This curious mixture of old-fashioned style and forthright characterization features such lesser known (to juveniles) anti-slavery fighters as Prudence Crandall who was jailed for operating a school for black girls in Connecticut, Theodore Parker who organized Bostonians to resist the Fugitive Slave Laws, P. B. S. Pinchback, a black man who was elected to the Senate from Louisiana but was denied his seat, and William Nell who fought for the integration of Boston's public schools. In following the careers of the other, more familiar, leaders -- Charlotte Forten, William and Ellen Craft, Elijah Lovejoy, and the Grimkes -- one becomes uncomfortably aware of the tedious invented dialogue, slave dialect and rather starchy emphasis on how teachers like Sarah Dickey taught their pupils the virtues of good hygiene and promptness. Still, these faults are a matter of degree and Chittenden never wavers in her admiration for such maligned figures as Lovejoy (even John Brown makes an unhysterical, if brief appearance) and the fictionalized drama embroiders the facts without replacing them. For larger collections.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Scribners

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION