18 Best Slavery Books
Slavery is a popular category for many book lovers. Our team at Speechify has curated a list of the top Slavery audiobooks everyone must read.
See the top 18 Slavery audiobooks below.
-
Kindred
- By: Octavia E. Butler
- Narrator: Octavia E. Butler
- Length: 10 hours 55 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: May 02, 2008
- Language: English
-
4.3(139771 ratings)
4.3(139771 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDThe first science fiction written by a Black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of Black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated herThe first science fiction written by a Black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of Black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given: to protect this young slaveholder until he can father her own great-grandmother. Author Octavia E. Butler skillfully juxtaposes the serious issues of slavery, human rights, and racial prejudice with an exciting science fiction, romance, and historical adventure. Kim Staunton’s narrative talent magically transforms the listener’s earphones into an audio time machine.
... Read more -
The Ledger and the Chain
- By: Joshua D. Rothman
- Narrator: Leon Nixon
- Length: 13 hours 40 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: April 20, 2021
- Language: English
-
4.28(178 ratings)
4.28(178 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0031.99 USDAn award-winning historian reveals the harrowing forgotten story of America’s internal slave trade–and its role in the making of America.Slave traders are peripheral figures in most histories of American slavery. But these men–whoAn award-winning historian reveals the harrowing forgotten story of America’s internal slave trade–and its role in the making of America.
... Read more
Slave traders are peripheral figures in most histories of American slavery. But these men–who trafficked and sold over half a million enslaved people from the Upper South to the Deep South–were essential to slavery’s expansion and fueled the growth and prosperity of the United States.
In The Ledger and the Chain, acclaimed historian Joshua D. Rothman recounts the shocking story of the domestic slave trade by tracing the lives and careers of Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard, who built the largest and most powerful slave-trading operation in American history. Far from social outcasts, they were rich and widely respected businessmen, and their company sat at the center of capital flows connecting southern fields to northeastern banks. Bringing together entrepreneurial ambition and remorseless violence toward enslaved people, domestic slave traders produced an atrocity that forever transformed the nation. -
The Great Stain
- By: Noel Rae
- Narrator: Steven Crossley
- Length: 24 hours 48 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2018
- Language: English
-
4.2(49 ratings)
4.2(49 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.95 USDComprising personal accounts from an intensely consequential chapter in human history, the transatlantic slave trade, The Great Stain takes listeners from the depths of suffering to the heights of human dignity. There have been numerous books aboutComprising personal accounts from an intensely consequential chapter in human history, the transatlantic slave trade, The Great Stain takes listeners from the depths of suffering to the heights of human dignity.
There have been numerous books about the why, when, and where of slavery in America, but there is a dearth of material exposing what slavery was actually like. In The Great Stain, researcher Noel Rae frames firsthand accounts from former slaves, slave owners, and even African slavers.
Rae exposes the commerce and culture of slavery, not only from an economic or moral standpoint but also through multitudinous perspectives within it: a young girl is beaten after being accused of stealing a piece of candy, a slave ship’s surgeon recounts brutal treatment and squalid conditions, an Englishman visiting Haiti observes as violent uprisings break out. So many viewpoints ensure that no historical blind spot will leave the picture of an era incomplete.
The Great Stain weaves a tapestry of good and evil, of greed and kindness, and of a civilization as it develops, evolves, and continues to move toward the future. More than that, the listener will encounter the complex economic underpinning of an entire society based on the exploitation of the cheapest labor.
... Read more -
Island on Fire
- By: Tom Zoellner
- Narrator: Mirron Willis
- Length: 10 hours 20 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2021
- Language: English
-
4.17(138 ratings)
4.17(138 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDFrom a New York Times bestselling author, a gripping account of the slave rebellion that led to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. For five horrific weeks after Christmas in 1831, Jamaica was convulsed by an uprising of its enslavedFrom a New York Times bestselling author, a gripping account of the slave rebellion that led to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.
For five horrific weeks after Christmas in 1831, Jamaica was convulsed by an uprising of its enslaved people. What started as a peaceful labor strike quickly turned into a full-blown revolt, leaving hundreds of plantation houses in smoking ruins. By the time British troops had put down the rebels, more than a thousand Jamaicans lay dead from summary executions and extrajudicial murder.
While the rebels lost their military gamble, their sacrifice accelerated the larger struggle for freedom in the British Atlantic. The daring and suffering of the Jamaicans galvanized public opinion throughout the empire, triggering a decisive turn against slavery. For centuries bondage had fed Britain’s appetite for sugar. Within two years of the Christmas rebellion, slavery was formally abolished.
Island on Fire is a dramatic day-by-day account of this transformative uprising. A skillful storyteller, Tom Zoellner goes back to the primary sources to tell the intimate story of the men and women who rose up and tasted liberty for a few brief weeks. He provides the first full portrait of the rebellion’s enigmatic leader, Samuel Sharpe, and gives us a poignant glimpse of the struggles and dreams of the many Jamaicans who died for liberty.
... Read more -
Sufferings in Africa
- By: James Riley
- Narrator: Brian Emerson
- Length: 9 hours 55 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2006
- Language: English
-
4.06(345 ratings)
4.06(345 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDIn this classic true adventure story, a young American sea captain named James Riley, shipwrecked off the western coast of North Africa in 1815, is captured by a band of nomadic Arabs and sold into slavery. Thus begins an epic adventure of survivalIn this classic true adventure story, a young American sea captain named James Riley, shipwrecked off the western coast of North Africa in 1815, is captured by a band of nomadic Arabs and sold into slavery. Thus begins an epic adventure of survival and a quest for freedom that takes him across the Sahara desert.
This dramatic account of Captain Riley’s trials and sufferings sold more than one million copies in his day and was even read by a young and impressionable Abraham Lincoln. The degradations of a slave existence and the courage to survive under the most harrowing conditions have rarely been recorded with such painful honesty.
Sufferings in Africa is a classic travel-adventure narrative and a fascinating testament of white Americans enslaved abroad, during a time when slavery flourished throughout the United States.
... Read more -
An Imperfect God
- By: Henry Wiencek
- Narrator: Rick Adamson
- Length: 7 hours 31 minutes
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Publish date: November 01, 2003
- Language: English
-
4.04(895 ratings)
4.04(895 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDA major new biography of Washington, and the first to explore his engagement with American slavery When George Washington wrote his will, he made the startling decision to set his slaves free; earlier he had said that holding slaves was hisA major new biography of Washington, and the first to explore his engagement with American slavery
When George Washington wrote his will, he made the startling decision to set his slaves free; earlier he had said that holding slaves was his “only unavoidable subject of regret.” In this groundbreaking work, Henry Wiencek explores the founding father’s engagement with slavery at every stage of his life–as a Virginia planter, soldier, politician, president, and statesman.
Washington was born and raised among blacks and mixed-race people; he and his wife had blood ties to the slave community. Yet as a young man he bought and sold slaves without scruple, even raffled off children to collect debts (an incident ignored by earlier biographers). Then, on the Revolutionary battlefields where he commanded both black and white troops, Washington’s attitudes began to change.Wiencek’s revelatory narrative, based on a meticulous examination of private papers, court records, and the voluminous Washington archives, documents for the first time the moral transformation culminating in Washington’s determination to emancipate his slaves. He acted too late to keep the new republic from perpetuating slavery, but his repentance was genuine. And it was perhaps related to the possibility that a slave named West Ford was the son of George and a woman named Venus; Wiencek has new evidence that this might indeed be true.
... Read more
George Washington’s heroic stature as Father of Our Country is not diminished in this superb, nuanced portrait: now we see Washington in full as a man of his time and ahead of his time. -
Madness Rules the Hour
- By: Paul Starobin
- Narrator: Paul Starobin
- Length: 8 hours 48 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: April 11, 2017
- Language: English
-
3.99(31 ratings)
3.99(31 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.98 USDFrom Lincoln’s election to secession from the Union, this compelling history explains how South Carolina was swept into a cultural crisis at the heart of the Civil War. “The tea has been thrown overboard — the revolution of 1860From Lincoln’s election to secession from the Union, this compelling history explains how South Carolina was swept into a cultural crisis at the heart of the Civil War.
“The tea has been thrown overboard — the revolution of 1860 has been initiated.” — Charleston Mercury, November 8, 1860
In 1860, Charleston, South Carolina, embodied the combustible spirit of the South. No city was more fervently attached to slavery, and no city was seen by the North as a greater threat to the bonds barely holding together the Union. And so, with Abraham Lincoln’s election looming, Charleston’s leaders faced a climactic decision: they could submit to abolition — or they could drive South Carolina out of the Union and hope that the rest of the South would follow.
In Madness Rules the Hour, Paul Starobin tells the story of how Charleston succumbed to a fever for war and charts the contagion’s relentless progress and bizarre turns. In doing so, he examines the wily propagandists, the ambitious politicians, the gentlemen merchants and their wives and daughters, the compliant pastors, and the white workingmen who waged a violent and exuberant revolution in the name of slavery and Southern independence. They devoured the Mercury, the incendiary newspaper run by a fanatical father and son; made holy the deceased John C. Calhoun; and adopted “Le Marseillaise” as a rebellious anthem. Madness Rules the Hour is a portrait of a culture in crisis and an insightful investigation into the folly that fractured the Union and started the Civil War.
... Read more -
The Empire of Necessity
- By: Greg Grandin
- Narrator: Greg Grandin
- Length: 11 hours 28 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: January 14, 2014
- Language: English
-
3.96(683 ratings)
3.96(683 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDFrom the acclaimed author of Fordlandia, the story of a remarkable slave rebellion that illuminates America’ s struggle with slavery and freedom during the Age of Revolution and beyond One morning in 1805, off a remote island in the SouthFrom the acclaimed author of Fordlandia, the story of a remarkable slave rebellion that illuminates America’ s struggle with slavery and freedom during the Age of Revolution and beyond One morning in 1805, off a remote island in the South Pacific, Captain Amasa Delano, a New England seal hunter, climbed aboard a distressed Spanish ship carrying scores of West Africans he thought were slaves. They weren’ t. Having earlier seized control of the vessel and slaughtered most of the crew, they were staging an elaborate ruse, acting as if they were humble servants. When Delano, an idealistic, anti-slavery republican, finally realized the deception, he responded with explosive violence. Drawing on research on four continents, The Empire of Necessity explores the multiple forces that culminated in this extraordinary event– an event that already inspired Herman Melville’ s masterpiece Benito Cereno. Now historian Greg Grandin, with the gripping storytelling that was praised in Fordlandia, uses the dramatic happenings of that day to map a new transnational history of slavery in the Americas, capturing the clash of peoples, economies, and faiths that was the New World in the early 1800s.
... Read more -
The Black Presidency
- By: Michael Eric Dyson
- Narrator: Michael Eric Dyson
- Length: 10 hours 1 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: February 02, 2016
- Language: English
-
3.95(488 ratings)
3.95(488 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDA provocative, lively deep-dive into the meaning of America’s first black president and first black presidency, from “one of the most graceful and lucid intellectuals writing on race and politics today” (Vanity Fair) -
Redeeming the Great Emancipator
- By: Allen C. Guelzo
- Narrator: Will Damron
- Length: 3 hours 28 minutes
- Publisher: Dreamscape Media
- Publish date: February 12, 2016
- Language: English
-
3.94(30 ratings)
3.94(30 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDThe larger-than-life image Abraham Lincoln projects across the screen of American history owes much to his role as the Great Emancipator during the Civil War. Yet this noble aspect of Lincoln’s identity is precisely the dimension that someThe larger-than-life image Abraham Lincoln projects across the screen of American history owes much to his role as the Great Emancipator during the Civil War. Yet this noble aspect of Lincoln’s identity is precisely the dimension that some historians have cast into doubt. Redeeming the Great Emancipator enumerates Lincoln’s anti-slavery credentials, showing that a deeply held belief in the God-given rights of all people steeled the president in his commitment to emancipation and his hope for racial reconciliation. Emancipation did not achieve complete freedom for American slaves, nor was Lincoln entirely above some of the racial prejudices of his time. Nevertheless, his conscience and moral convictions far outweighed political calculations in ultimately securing freedom for African Americans.
... Read more -
Debunking the 1619 Project
- By: Mary Grabar
- Narrator: Liisa Ivary
- Length: 10 hours 55 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2021
- Language: English
-
3.94(64 ratings)
3.94(64 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDIt’s the New “Big Lie” According the New York Times’s “1619 Project,” America was not founded in 1776, with a declaration of freedom and independence, but in 1619 with the introduction of African slavery into theIt’s the New “Big Lie”
According the New York Times’s “1619 Project,” America was not founded in 1776, with a declaration of freedom and independence, but in 1619 with the introduction of African slavery into the New World. Ever since then, the “1619 Project” argues, American history has been one long sordid tale of systemic racism.
Celebrated historians have debunked this, more than two hundred years of American literature disproves it, parents know it to be false, and yet it is being promoted across America as an integral part of grade school curricula and unquestionable orthodoxy on college campuses.
The “1619 Project” is not just bad history, it is a danger to our national life, replacing the idea, goal, and reality of American unity with race-based obsessions that we have seen play out in violence, riots, and the destruction of American monuments–not to mention the wholesale rewriting of America’s historical and cultural past.
In her new book, Debunking the 1619 Project, scholar Mary Grabar, shows, in dramatic fashion, just how full of flat-out lies, distortions, and noxious propaganda the “1619 Project” really is. It is essential listening for every concerned parent, citizen, school board member, and policymaker.
... Read more -
The Amistad Rebellion
- By: Marcus Rediker
- Narrator: Marcus Rediker
- Length: 9 hours 37 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: December 21, 2012
- Language: English
-
3.92(280 ratings)
3.92(280 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDNoted historian Marcus Rediker has earned numerous awards for his work, including the sought-after George Washington Book Prize. In The Amistad Rebellion, he turns his attention to the famed slave ship that set sail from Havana in 1839.Noted historian Marcus Rediker has earned numerous awards for his work, including the sought-after George Washington Book Prize. In The Amistad Rebellion, he turns his attention to the famed slave ship that set sail from Havana in 1839. Painstakingly researched, Rediker’s account follows the slaves’ point of view, from the joyous moments after they seized the ship through the harrowing court case that would become a touchstone in the struggle for civil rights.
... Read more -
Black Fortunes
- By: Shomari Wills
- Narrator: Ron Butler
- Length: 6 hours 51 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: January 30, 2018
- Language: English
-
3.86(2927 ratings)
3.86(2927 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0021.99 USDThe astonishing untold history of America’s first black millionaires–former slaves who endured incredible challenges to amass and maintain their wealth for a century, from the Jacksonian period to the Roaring Twenties–self-madeThe astonishing untold history of America’s first black millionaires–former slaves who endured incredible challenges to amass and maintain their wealth for a century, from the Jacksonian period to the Roaring Twenties–self-made entrepreneurs whose unknown success mirrored that of American business heroes such as Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and Thomas Edison.
While Oprah Winfrey, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Michael Jordan, and Will Smith are among the estimated 35,000 black millionaires in the nation today, these famous celebrities were not the first blacks to reach the storied one percent. Between the years of 1830 and 1927, as the last generation of blacks born into slavery was reaching maturity, a small group of smart, tenacious, and daring men and women broke new ground to attain the highest levels of financial success.
Black Fortunes is an intriguing look at these remarkable individuals, including Napoleon Bonaparte Drew–author Shomari Wills’ great-great-great-grandfather–the first black man in Powhatan County (contemporary Richmond) to own property in post-Civil War Virginia. His achievements were matched by five other unknown black entrepreneurs including:
- Mary Ellen Pleasant, who used her Gold Rush wealth to further the cause of abolitionist John Brown;
- Robert Reed Church, who became the largest landowner in Tennessee;
- Hannah Elias, the mistress of a New York City millionaire, who used the land her lover gave her to build an empire in Harlem;
- Orphan and self-taught chemist Annie Turnbo-Malone, who developed the first national brand of hair care products;
- Madam C. J Walker, Turnbo-Malone’s employee who would earn the nickname America’s “first female black millionaire;”
- Mississippi school teacher O. W. Gurley, who developed a piece of Tulsa, Oklahoma, into a “town” for wealthy black professionals and craftsmen” that would become known as “the Black Wall Street.”
A fresh, little-known chapter in the nation’s story–A blend of Hidden Figures, Titan, and The Tycoons—Black Fortunes illuminates the birth of the black business titan and the emergence of the black marketplace in America as never before.
... Read more -
Negro President
- By: Garry Wills
- Narrator: Garry Wills
- Length: 8 hours 35 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: July 13, 2012
- Language: English
-
3.75(208 ratings)
3.75(208 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDIn “Negro President” the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills explores a pivotal moment in American history through the lens of Thomas Jefferson and the now largely forgotten Timothy Pickering, and “prods readers toIn “Negro President” the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills explores a pivotal moment in American history through the lens of Thomas Jefferson and the now largely forgotten Timothy Pickering, and “prods readers to appreciate essential aspects of our distressed but well-intentioned representative democracy” (Chicago Tribune). In 1800 Jefferson won the presidential election with Electoral College votes derived from the three-fifths representation of slaves – slaves who could not vote but were still partially counted as citizens. Moving beyond the recent revisionist debate over Jefferson’s own slaves and his relationship with Sally Hemings, Wills instead probes the heart of Jefferson’s presidency and political life, revealing how the might of the slave states remained a concern behind his most important policies and decisions. In an eye-opening, ingeniously argued exposE, Wills restores Timothy Pickering and the Federalists’ dramatic struggle to our understanding of Jefferson, the creation of the new nation, and the evolution of our representative democracy.
... Read more -
Jump Ship to Freedom
- By: James Lincoln Collier
- Narrator: Sean Crisden
- Length: 3 hours 48 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2013
- Language: English
-
3.75(281 ratings)
3.75(281 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0014.95 USDYoung Daniel Arabus and his mother are slaves in the house of Captain Ivers of Stratford, Connecticut. By law they should be free, since Daniel’s father fought in the Revolutionary army and earned enough in soldiers’ notes to buy hisYoung Daniel Arabus and his mother are slaves in the house of Captain Ivers of Stratford, Connecticut. By law they should be free, since Daniel’s father fought in the Revolutionary army and earned enough in soldiers’ notes to buy his family’s freedom.
But now Daniel’s father is dead, and Mrs. Ivers has taken the notes from his mother. When Daniel bravely steals the notes back, a furious Captain Ivers forces him aboard a ship bound for the West Indies–and certain slavery. Even if Daniel can manage to jump ship in New York, will he be able to travel the long and dangerous road to freedom?
The second book in the Arabus family saga finds young Daniel trying to retrieve the notes that ensure his and his mother’s freedom, until he is forced aboard a boat and headed for certain slavery in the West Indies.
... Read more -
The Manor
- By: Mac Griswold
- Narrator: Mac Griswold
- Length: 14 hours 12 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: February 07, 2014
- Language: English
-
3.3(277 ratings)
3.3(277 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDMac Griswold’ s The Manor is the biography of a uniquely American place that has endured through wars great and small, through fortunes won and lost, through histories bright and sinister– and of the family that has lived there since itsMac Griswold’ s The Manor is the biography of a uniquely American place that has endured through wars great and small, through fortunes won and lost, through histories bright and sinister– and of the family that has lived there since its founding as a New England slave plantation three and a half centuries ago. In 1984, the landscape historian Mac Griswold was rowing along a Long Island creek when she came upon a stately yellow house and a garden guarded by looming boxwoods. She instantly knew that boxwoods that large– twelve feet tall, fifteen feet wide– had to be hundreds of years old. So, as it happened, was the house: Sylvester Manor had been held in the same family for eleven generations. Formerly encompassing all of Shelter Island, a pearl of 8,000 acres caught between the North and South Forks of Long Island, the manor had dwindled to 243 acres. Still, its hidden vault proved to be full of revelations and treasures, including the 1666 charter for the land, and correspondence from Thomas Jefferson. Most notable was the short and steep flight of steps the family had called the ” slave staircase,” which would provide clues to the extensive but little-known story of Northern slavery. Alongside a team of archaeologists, Griswold began a dig that would uncover a landscape bursting with stories Based on years of archival and field research, as well as voyages to Africa, the West Indies, and Europe, The Manor is at once an investigation into forgotten lives and a sweeping drama that captures our history in all its richness and suffering. It is a monumental achievement.
... Read more -
Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation, 1838-1839
- By: Frances Anne Kemble
- Narrator: Alison Larkin
- Length: 12 hours 33 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDA personal indictment of the institute of slavery in the Southern United States, as witnessed directly by Fanny Kemble, a British actress in 1838 and 1839. Her husband, the heir to the plantations in Georgia, however, forebade her to publish thisA personal indictment of the institute of slavery in the Southern United States, as witnessed directly by Fanny Kemble, a British actress in 1838 and 1839. Her husband, the heir to the plantations in Georgia, however, forebade her to publish this material on pain of never seeing her daughters again. She complied, until the two daughters had reached the age of twenty-one, and then allowed the journal to be published in 1863, when the Northern troops were already present along the coast near the Altamaha River, where the plantations were located. In a very personal way, she relates her many varied experiences, efforts to make life easier for the slaves despite her husband’s stubborn resistance. As an English citizen, she had seen the total end of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833, just a few years before her journey to Georgia. She ends her account with a stirring defense of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which had raised such a storm of controversy in the United States. Like Stowe, Kemble sees all sides of the situation, with her eyes and with her heart.
... Read more -
Africatown
- By: Nick Tabor
- Narrator: Chris Butler
- Length: 13 hours 27 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2023
- Language: English
Regular Price:Try for $0.0022.95 USDAn epic story, Africatown charts the fraught history of America from those who were brought here as slaves but nevertheless established a home for themselves and their descendants, a community which often thrived despite persistent racism andAn epic story, Africatown charts the fraught history of America from those who were brought here as slaves but nevertheless established a home for themselves and their descendants, a community which often thrived despite persistent racism and environmental pollution.
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 US 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, Africatown, has endured to the present day, and many of the community residents are the shipmates’ direct descendants. After many decades of neglect and a Jim Crow legal system that targeted the area for industrialization, the community is struggling to survive. Many community members believe the pollution from the heavy industry surrounding their homes has caused a cancer epidemic among residents, and companies are eyeing even more land for development.
At the same time, after the discovery of the remains of the Clotilda in the riverbed nearby, a renewed effort is underway to create a living memorial to the community and the lives of the slaves who founded it.
... Read more
Cliff Weitzman
Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.
Recent Blogs
-
July 06, 2023
Which books are available on Spotify?
-
July 06, 2023
Are audiobooks free on Spotify with membership?
-
June 25, 2023
Top Destinations for Free eBooks and Audiobooks Online
-
June 25, 2023
Best Alternative to Barnes & Noble Online
-
June 25, 2023
The Best Places to Buy eBooks: Beyond the Kindle Ecosystem
-
June 25, 2023
What are the best places to find free ebooks?
-
June 25, 2023
Best Independent Companies to Buy eBooks from
-
April 19, 2023
How many Game of Thrones books are there?
-
April 19, 2023
Where to buy cheap books: A comprehensive guide
-
April 19, 2023
How many Jack Reacher books are there?
-
April 19, 2023
How many FNAF books are there?
-
April 19, 2023
How many Warrior Cats books are there?
-
April 19, 2023
How many Wheel of Time books are there?
-
April 19, 2023
The best Vampire Survivors powerups in order
-
April 19, 2023
How to read the Robert Galbraith books in order
-
April 19, 2023
How to read the Artemis Fowl books in order
-
April 19, 2023
How to read Craig Johnson’s books in order
-
April 19, 2023
How to read Cassandra Clare’s books in order
-
April 19, 2023
How to read Lee Child’s books in order
-
April 18, 2023
How to read the In Death book series in order
-
April 18, 2023
Best book quotes
-
April 18, 2023
A tale of two cities reviewed
-
April 18, 2023
All the President’s Men reviewed
-
April 18, 2023
Tintin reviewed
-
April 18, 2023
What are adult coloring books?
-
April 18, 2023
How to read the Percy Jackson books in order
-
April 11, 2023
How to find charities for the blind
-
April 11, 2023
What is the best Bible app
-
April 11, 2023
Where to find free audio Bible downloads
-
April 11, 2023
What is the best free Bible app
More in this series
- 22 Best Christian, Religion Books
- 29 Best Superheroes, Fiction Books
- 13 Best Agriculture & Food Books
- 14 Best Science & Technology, Science Books
- 10 Best Training, Business & Economics Books
- Best books by Mick Foley
- 10 Best Devotional & Prayer, Juvenile Nonfiction Books
- 29 Best Subjects & Themes Books
- 29 Best Text, Religion Books
- 23 Best Success, Religion Books
- Best books by Alan Moore
- 22 Best Small Business, Business & Economics Books
- 19 Best Monsters Books
- 29 Best Adventurers & Explorers Books
- 19 Best Pirates, Juvenile Fiction Books
- 29 Best Economic Policy Books
- 20 Best Native American Studies Books
- 29 Best Alternative Therapies Books
- 29 Best Emotions & Feelings Books
- 29 Best History & Surveys Books
- 29 Best Romance, Fiction Books
- 13 Best Genocide & War Crimes Books
- 24 Best Halloween, Juvenile Fiction Books
- 29 Best Comics & Graphic Novels Books
- 26 Best Economic History Books
- 13 Best Transgender Books
- 12 Best Cleaning & Caretaking, Self-Help Books
- 28 Best Space Exploration Books
- 29 Best International Relations Books
- 24 Best Violence in Society Books