Describes his personal experience of having to work to rise up from the position of a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton Institute, to his work establishing vocational schools--most notably the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama--to help black people and other disadvantaged minorities learn useful, marketable skills and work to pull themselves, as a race, up by the bootstraps....

"In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave...

A lush and lyrical biography of Harriet Tubman, written in verse. An evocative poem and opulent watercolors come together to honor a woman of humble origins whose courage and compassion make her larger than life.

"Born enslaved, Harriet Tubman rose up to become one of the most successful, determined and well-known conductors of the Underground Railroad. With her familys love planted firmly in her heart, Harriet looked to the North Star for guidanceand its light helped guide her way out of slavery. Her courage made it possible for her to help others reach freedom too" --

A biography of the nineteenth-century woman who escaped slavery and helped many other slaves get to freedom on the Underground Railroad.

Nat Turner is a literate American slave and preacher. His financially strained owner accepts an offer to use Nat's preaching to subdue unruly slaves. But as Nat witnesses countless atrocities, he orchestrates an uprising in the hopes of leading his people to freedom.

"Capital Days spans more than sixty years of American history, highlighting a period of immense change in our country and its capital, much of it witnessed by Michael Shiner, a true American original who lived in Washington, D.C. [from approximately 1804 to 1880]. Born enslaved but eventually able to secure his freedom, the bold and daring Shiner, who worked at the Washington Navy Yard for many years, left behind a journal in which he recounted numerous...

"Bettye Kearse -- a descendant of an enslaved cook and, according to oral tradition, President James Madison -- shares her family story and explores the issues of legacy, race, and the powerful consequences of telling the whole truth."-- For thousands of years, West African griots and griottes have recited the stories of their people. Because of this, Kearse learned she is a descendant of President James Madison and his slave-- and half-sister--...

A simple biography of the black woman who helped over 300 slaves escape through the Underground Railroad and was never caught herself.