Have you ever wondered exactly how average people responded to emancipation when the American Civil War ended? Slavery was an inherently American institution, which was so firmly interwoven within the economy, the society, the psychology as well as religious, philosophical, and ethical mores of the country, and was suddenly it was over. It must have been overwhelming in many ways! Indeed, scholars have and can continue to spend their entire careers examining the period, its impact then, and the continued effect upon this country.
It is well known that many of the formerly enslaved hit the road -- everywhere in land, all manner of black folks set out trying to find lost mothers, fathers, children, siblings -- lost lives. It is also well known that this is the period wherein many schools sprang up throughout the South to educate the formerly enslaved, which delighted the knowledge starved blacks and inflamed those who felt this upset the natural order of things. Leonard Pitts, Jr., a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Miami Herald, has taken these two elements and fashioned a remarkably powerful piece of historical fiction that depicts just how it must have been for some.
Sam Freeman sets out from Philadelphia, where he has been working in a library since his discharge from the Union army, and begins walking to Mississippi to find his wife, Tilda. He has not seen her in 15 years, and like most on similar searches, he has no idea if she is alive or dead, if she has taken another husband, been sold elsewhere. He knows only that he loves her and must be with her, if it is at all possible.
Prudence Cafferty Kent, a white widow from Boston, along with her black foster sister Bonnie, head to Buford, Mississippi to open a school. These are the main characters, and their story -- their quest for redemption, will capture you and keep you enthralled until the novel concludes. Hopefully, it will keep its readers thinking about the damage of America's peculiar institution long after completion.
432 pages, 15 hours, 46 minutes
