ABOLITION AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN STORY

Williams Dockery, who contributed Slavery and the African American Story (2023) to the Race to the Truth series, returns to remedy the widespread omission of “free and enslaved Africans and African Americans…from history books.”

Focusing primarily on the late 1700s through Reconstruction, she shows how people challenged slavery through overt and covert measures, leading to many judicial cases, such as Plessy v. Ferguson and Prigg v. Pennsylvania. Detailed explanations pepper each chapter, including anecdotes that show how states’ conflicting views of slavery resulted in laws that affected the lives of enslaved people and led to the Civil War and the broken promises of Reconstruction. Throughout, the author shares stories of brave people helping each other escape from slavery, including partnerships with Indigenous people and the Underground Railroad. She also highlights lesser-known examples of Black people’s contributions to American society and concludes with a discussion of the modern-day prison abolition movement. The chapters connect related concepts from different time periods, but because the book has few transitions between sections and the content skips around temporally, some readers may find the structure confusing. Some undefined terms and references indicate that this title may be best for readers who already possess some degree of background knowledge. Nevertheless, this volume is a valuable resource that helps push back against problematic erasure.

Fleshes out an often-oversimplified era with a nuanced web of historical information.