{"product_id":"freedoms-mirage-sydney-nathans-9781469682655","title":"Freedom's Mirage: Virgil Bennehan's Odyssey from Emancipation to Exile","description":"\u003ci\u003eFreedom's Mirage\u003c\/i\u003e traces the exceptional life of Virgil Bennehan, born in bondage in 1808 in Piedmont North Carolina, who rose to become an enslaved doctor on one of the South's largest plantations and to view himself as a friend to Blacks and whites alike. Emancipated in 1848 but required to leave the state to be free, he was sent to Liberia. Though richly endowed and royally welcomed, he found himself subject to new rulers and mired in the worst medical catastrophe in Liberian history. Recrossing the Atlantic, he boldly returned to North Carolina to warn slave owners that Liberia was a death trap. Yet again exiled from his native state, he declared in March 1849 his intention to go to gold-rush California, the one place at midcentury that seemed to offer an open field, even to a man of color. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIntrepidly researched and grippingly told, Virgil Bennehan's story reveals the complexity and fragility of human relationships within bondage. Once liberated, Bennehan led a tumultuous life that dramatized the fleeting promise and pervasive limits of Black freedom in the era of slavery--and foreshadowed the future for generations that followed. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Sydney Nathans\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1469682656\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781469682655\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of North Carolina Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/12\/2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 200\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback","brand":"Sydney Nathans","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":45332047331583,"sku":"9781469682655","price":27.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_f3a542ff-9759-4206-ba00-59e5ce2e4411.jpg?v=1713971598","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/freedoms-mirage-sydney-nathans-9781469682655","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}