Slavery's Descendants: Shared Legacies of Race and Reconciliation (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781978800762)

Race remains a potent and divisive force in our society. Whether it is the shooting of minority people by the police, the mass incarceration of people of color, or the recent KKK rallies that have been in the news, it is clear that the scars from the United States' histories of slavery and racial discrimination run too deep to simply be ignored. But what are the most productive ways to deal with the toxic and torturous legacies of American racism?

Slavery's Descendants brings together contributors from a variety of racial backgrounds, all members or associates of a national racial reconciliation organization called Coming to the Table, to tell their stories of dealing with America's racial past through their experiences and their family histories. Some are descendants of slaveholders, some are descendants of the enslaved, and many are descendants of both slaveholders and slaves. What they all have in common is a commitment toward collective introspection, and a willingness to think critically about how the nation's histories of oppression continue to ripple into the present, affecting us all.

The stories in Slavery's Descendants deal with harrowing topics--rape, lynching, cruelty, shame--but they also describe acts of generosity, gratitude, and love. Together, they help us confront the legacy of slavery to reclaim a more complete picture of U.S. history, one cousin at a time.

Funding for the production of this book was provided by Furthermore, a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund (https: //www.furthermore.org).

Author: Jill Strauss
ISBN-10: 1978800762
ISBN-13: 9781978800762
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Language: English
Published: 05/10/2019
Pages: 280
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.30w x 1.10d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 05/24/2019 pg. 1