Painter traces how through the long Jim Crow decades, blacks succeeded against enormous odds, creating schools and businesses and laying the foundations of our popular culture. The book examines the Civil War, revealing that it only slowly became a war to end slavery, and shows how Reconstruction, after a promising start, was shut down by terrorism by white supremacists. Painter looks at the free black population, numbering close to half a million by 1860 (compared to almost four million slaves), and provides a gripping account of the horrible conditions of slavery itself. The book describes the staggering number of Africans - over ten million - forcibly transported to the New World, most doomed to brutal servitude in Brazil and the Caribbean. Historian Nell Irvin Painter blends a vivid narrative based on the latest research with a wonderful array of artwork by African-American artists, works which add a new depth to our understanding of black history." "Painter offers a history written for a new generation of African Americans, stretching from life in Africa before slavery to today's hip-hop culture.
"Here is an account of a past rich in beauty and creativity, but also in tragedy and trauma.
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