Podcasts about forging freedom black women

Our book is: The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) by award-winning historian Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers. Dr. Myers has recovered the riveting, troubling, and complicated story of Julia Ann Chinn (ca. 1796–1833), the enslaved wife of Richard Mentor Johnson. Johnson was the owner of Blue Spring Farm, a veteran of the War of 1812, and the US vice president under Martin Van Buren. Johnson never freed Chinn, but during his frequent absences from his estate, he delegated to her the management of his property, including Choctaw Academy, a boarding school for Indigenous men and boys on the grounds of the estate. This meant that Chinn, although enslaved herself, oversaw Blue Spring's slave labor force and had substantial control over economic, social, financial, and personal affairs within the couple's world. Chinn's relationship with Johnson was unlikely to have been consensual since she was never manumitted. What makes Chinn's life exceptional is the power that Johnson invested in her, the opportunities the couple's relationship afforded her and her daughters, and their community's tacit acceptance of the family—up to a point. When the family left their farm, they faced steep limits: pews at the rear of the church, burial in separate graveyards, exclusion from town dances, and more. Johnson's relationship with Chinn ruined his political career but as Dr. Myers compellingly demonstrates, it wasn't interracial sex that led to his downfall but his refusal to keep it—and Julia Chinn—behind closed doors. Our guest is: Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, who is the Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor of History and gender studies at Indiana University Bloomington. She is the author of Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston, and The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the creator, producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast. Listeners may enjoy this playlist: Never Caught The Story of President Lincoln, from No Way They Were Gay We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance Running From Bondage How Girls Achieve Remembering Lucille Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by sharing episodes. Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 240+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Our book is: The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) by award-winning historian Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers. Dr. Myers has recovered the riveting, troubling, and complicated story of Julia Ann Chinn (ca. 1796–1833), the enslaved wife of Richard Mentor Johnson. Johnson was the owner of Blue Spring Farm, a veteran of the War of 1812, and the US vice president under Martin Van Buren. Johnson never freed Chinn, but during his frequent absences from his estate, he delegated to her the management of his property, including Choctaw Academy, a boarding school for Indigenous men and boys on the grounds of the estate. This meant that Chinn, although enslaved herself, oversaw Blue Spring's slave labor force and had substantial control over economic, social, financial, and personal affairs within the couple's world. Chinn's relationship with Johnson was unlikely to have been consensual since she was never manumitted. What makes Chinn's life exceptional is the power that Johnson invested in her, the opportunities the couple's relationship afforded her and her daughters, and their community's tacit acceptance of the family—up to a point. When the family left their farm, they faced steep limits: pews at the rear of the church, burial in separate graveyards, exclusion from town dances, and more. Johnson's relationship with Chinn ruined his political career but as Dr. Myers compellingly demonstrates, it wasn't interracial sex that led to his downfall but his refusal to keep it—and Julia Chinn—behind closed doors. Our guest is: Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, who is the Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor of History and gender studies at Indiana University Bloomington. She is the author of Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston, and The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the creator, producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast. Listeners may enjoy this playlist: Never Caught The Story of President Lincoln, from No Way They Were Gay We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance Running From Bondage How Girls Achieve Remembering Lucille Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by sharing episodes. Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 240+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Our book is: The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) by award-winning historian Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers. Dr. Myers has recovered the riveting, troubling, and complicated story of Julia Ann Chinn (ca. 1796–1833), the enslaved wife of Richard Mentor Johnson. Johnson was the owner of Blue Spring Farm, a veteran of the War of 1812, and the US vice president under Martin Van Buren. Johnson never freed Chinn, but during his frequent absences from his estate, he delegated to her the management of his property, including Choctaw Academy, a boarding school for Indigenous men and boys on the grounds of the estate. This meant that Chinn, although enslaved herself, oversaw Blue Spring's slave labor force and had substantial control over economic, social, financial, and personal affairs within the couple's world. Chinn's relationship with Johnson was unlikely to have been consensual since she was never manumitted. What makes Chinn's life exceptional is the power that Johnson invested in her, the opportunities the couple's relationship afforded her and her daughters, and their community's tacit acceptance of the family—up to a point. When the family left their farm, they faced steep limits: pews at the rear of the church, burial in separate graveyards, exclusion from town dances, and more. Johnson's relationship with Chinn ruined his political career but as Dr. Myers compellingly demonstrates, it wasn't interracial sex that led to his downfall but his refusal to keep it—and Julia Chinn—behind closed doors. Our guest is: Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, who is the Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor of History and gender studies at Indiana University Bloomington. She is the author of Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston, and The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the creator, producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast. Listeners may enjoy this playlist: Never Caught The Story of President Lincoln, from No Way They Were Gay We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance Running From Bondage How Girls Achieve Remembering Lucille Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by sharing episodes. Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 240+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Our book is: The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) by award-winning historian Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers. Dr. Myers has recovered the riveting, troubling, and complicated story of Julia Ann Chinn (ca. 1796–1833), the enslaved wife of Richard Mentor Johnson. Johnson was the owner of Blue Spring Farm, a veteran of the War of 1812, and the US vice president under Martin Van Buren. Johnson never freed Chinn, but during his frequent absences from his estate, he delegated to her the management of his property, including Choctaw Academy, a boarding school for Indigenous men and boys on the grounds of the estate. This meant that Chinn, although enslaved herself, oversaw Blue Spring's slave labor force and had substantial control over economic, social, financial, and personal affairs within the couple's world. Chinn's relationship with Johnson was unlikely to have been consensual since she was never manumitted. What makes Chinn's life exceptional is the power that Johnson invested in her, the opportunities the couple's relationship afforded her and her daughters, and their community's tacit acceptance of the family—up to a point. When the family left their farm, they faced steep limits: pews at the rear of the church, burial in separate graveyards, exclusion from town dances, and more. Johnson's relationship with Chinn ruined his political career but as Dr. Myers compellingly demonstrates, it wasn't interracial sex that led to his downfall but his refusal to keep it—and Julia Chinn—behind closed doors. Our guest is: Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, who is the Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor of History and gender studies at Indiana University Bloomington. She is the author of Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston, and The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the creator, producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast. Listeners may enjoy this playlist: Never Caught The Story of President Lincoln, from No Way They Were Gay We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance Running From Bondage How Girls Achieve Remembering Lucille Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by sharing episodes. Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 240+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Our book is: The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) by award-winning historian Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers. Dr. Myers has recovered the riveting, troubling, and complicated story of Julia Ann Chinn (ca. 1796–1833), the enslaved wife of Richard Mentor Johnson. Johnson was the owner of Blue Spring Farm, a veteran of the War of 1812, and the US vice president under Martin Van Buren. Johnson never freed Chinn, but during his frequent absences from his estate, he delegated to her the management of his property, including Choctaw Academy, a boarding school for Indigenous men and boys on the grounds of the estate. This meant that Chinn, although enslaved herself, oversaw Blue Spring's slave labor force and had substantial control over economic, social, financial, and personal affairs within the couple's world. Chinn's relationship with Johnson was unlikely to have been consensual since she was never manumitted. What makes Chinn's life exceptional is the power that Johnson invested in her, the opportunities the couple's relationship afforded her and her daughters, and their community's tacit acceptance of the family—up to a point. When the family left their farm, they faced steep limits: pews at the rear of the church, burial in separate graveyards, exclusion from town dances, and more. Johnson's relationship with Chinn ruined his political career but as Dr. Myers compellingly demonstrates, it wasn't interracial sex that led to his downfall but his refusal to keep it—and Julia Chinn—behind closed doors. Our guest is: Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, who is the Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor of History and gender studies at Indiana University Bloomington. She is the author of Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston, and The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the creator, producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast. Listeners may enjoy this playlist: Never Caught The Story of President Lincoln, from No Way They Were Gay We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance Running From Bondage How Girls Achieve Remembering Lucille Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by sharing episodes. Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 240+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our book is: The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) by award-winning historian Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers. Dr. Myers has recovered the riveting, troubling, and complicated story of Julia Ann Chinn (ca. 1796–1833), the enslaved wife of Richard Mentor Johnson. Johnson was the owner of Blue Spring Farm, a veteran of the War of 1812, and the US vice president under Martin Van Buren. Johnson never freed Chinn, but during his frequent absences from his estate, he delegated to her the management of his property, including Choctaw Academy, a boarding school for Indigenous men and boys on the grounds of the estate. This meant that Chinn, although enslaved herself, oversaw Blue Spring's slave labor force and had substantial control over economic, social, financial, and personal affairs within the couple's world. Chinn's relationship with Johnson was unlikely to have been consensual since she was never manumitted. What makes Chinn's life exceptional is the power that Johnson invested in her, the opportunities the couple's relationship afforded her and her daughters, and their community's tacit acceptance of the family—up to a point. When the family left their farm, they faced steep limits: pews at the rear of the church, burial in separate graveyards, exclusion from town dances, and more. Johnson's relationship with Chinn ruined his political career but as Dr. Myers compellingly demonstrates, it wasn't interracial sex that led to his downfall but his refusal to keep it—and Julia Chinn—behind closed doors. Our guest is: Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, who is the Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor of History and gender studies at Indiana University Bloomington. She is the author of Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston, and The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the creator, producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast. Listeners may enjoy this playlist: Never Caught The Story of President Lincoln, from No Way They Were Gay We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance Running From Bondage How Girls Achieve Remembering Lucille Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by sharing episodes. Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 240+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!

Richard Mentor Johnson is one of the most famous Kentuckians of the nineteenth century, having ascended to the position of Vice President of the United States in 1837. While much has been written about Johnson's political career, nobody has uncovered the story of the enslaved woman whom he considered his wife, Julia Chinn, until now. Join us today for a discussion with a former research fellow who wrote a book about Julia Chinn and who will explain why we should remember her story. Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers is the Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor in the Departments of History and Gender Studies at Indiana University. A historian of the Black female experience in America, she is the author of Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston. In 2012-13, she received a fellowship to the Kentucky Historical Society to begin working on her second book. In 2023, she published The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn. We are delighted to talk with her today about this excellent book. Kentucky Chronicles is inspired by the work of researchers from across the world who have contributed to the scholarly journal, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, in publication since 1903. https://history.ky.gov/explore/catalog-research-tools/register-of-the-kentucky-historical-society Hosted by Dr. Daniel J. Burge, associate editor of The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, and coordinator of our Research Fellows program, which brings in researchers from across the world to conduct research in the rich archival holdings of the Kentucky Historical Society. https://history.ky.gov/khs-for-me/for-researchers/research-fellowships Kentucky Chronicles is presented by the Kentucky Historical Society, with support from the Kentucky Historical Society Foundation. https://history.ky.gov/about/khs-foundation Our show is recorded and produced by Gregory Hardison, and edited by Gregory P. Meyer. Thanks to Dr. Stephanie Lang for her support and guidance. Our theme music, “Modern Documentary” was created by Mood Mode and is used courtesy of Pixabay. Other backing tracks are also used courtesy of Pixabay. To learn more about our publication of The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, or to learn more about our Research Fellows program, please visit our website: https://history.ky.gov/ https://history.ky.gov/khs-podcasts

Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston For black women in antebellum Charleston, freedom was not a static legal category but a fragile and contingent experience. A deeply researched social history, Forging Freedom reveals the ways in which black women in Charleston acquired, defined, and defended their own vision of freedom. Drawing on legislative and judicial materials, probate data, tax lists, church records, family papers, and more, Myers creates detailed portraits of individual women while exploring how black female Charlestonians sought to create a fuller freedom by improving their financial, social, and legal standing. Examining both those who were officially manumitted and those who lived as free persons but lacked official documentation, Myers reveals that free black women filed lawsuits and petitions, acquired property (including slaves), entered into contracts, paid taxes, earned wages, attended schools, and formed familial alliances with wealthy and powerful men, black and white--all in an effort to solidify and expand their freedom. Never fully free, black women had to depend on their skills of negotiation in a society dedicated to upholding both slavery and patriarchy. Forging Freedom thus examines the many ways in which Charleston's black women crafted a freedom of their own design instead of accepting the limited existence imagined for them by white Southerners. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers earned her doctorate in American History from Rutgers University. A historian of the black female experience, she is interested in race, gender, sexuality, rights, freedom, and citizenship and the ways in which these constructs intersect with one another in the lives of black women in the Old South. She is currently Associate Professor of History and Gender Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.

Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston For black women in antebellum Charleston, freedom was not a static legal category but a fragile and contingent experience. A deeply researched social history, Forging Freedom reveals the ways in which black women in Charleston acquired, defined, and defended their own vision of freedom. Drawing on legislative and judicial materials, probate data, tax lists, church records, family papers, and more, Myers creates detailed portraits of individual women while exploring how black female Charlestonians sought to create a fuller freedom by improving their financial, social, and legal standing. Examining both those who were officially manumitted and those who lived as free persons but lacked official documentation, Myers reveals that free black women filed lawsuits and petitions, acquired property (including slaves), entered into contracts, paid taxes, earned wages, attended schools, and formed familial alliances with wealthy and powerful men, black and white--all in an effort to solidify and expand their freedom. Never fully free, black women had to depend on their skills of negotiation in a society dedicated to upholding both slavery and patriarchy. Forging Freedom thus examines the many ways in which Charleston's black women crafted a freedom of their own design instead of accepting the limited existence imagined for them by white Southerners. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers earned her doctorate in American History from Rutgers University. A historian of the black female experience, she is interested in race, gender, sexuality, rights, freedom, and citizenship and the ways in which these constructs intersect with one another in the lives of black women in the Old South. She is currently Associate Professor of History and Gender Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.  

How were black women manumitted in the Old South, and how did they live their lives in freedom before the Civil War? Historian, Amrita Chakrabarti Myers (Associate Professor in the Department of History at Indiana University in Bloomington) answers this complex question by explaining the precarious nature freedom for African American women in Charleston before the Civil War in Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston (UNC Press, 2011). In three tightly woven sections, she tells stories that reveal what it meant to glimpse, build and experience freedom from the early national period to the end of the antebellum era. Her beautifully written prose, coupled with thorough research to understand black women's experiences in antebellum Charleston, makes her work an important contribution to the historical literature. Furthermore, her book has been awarded several prizes, namely the Julia Cherry Spruill Prize (2012) from the Southern Association of Women Historians, the George C. Rogers Jr. Award (2011) from the South Carolina Historical Society, and the Anna Julia Cooper – CLR James Book Award (2011) from the National Council for Black Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How were black women manumitted in the Old South, and how did they live their lives in freedom before the Civil War? Historian, Amrita Chakrabarti Myers (Associate Professor in the Department of History at Indiana University in Bloomington) answers this complex question by explaining the precarious nature freedom for African American women in Charleston before the Civil War in Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston (UNC Press, 2011). In three tightly woven sections, she tells stories that reveal what it meant to glimpse, build and experience freedom from the early national period to the end of the antebellum era. Her beautifully written prose, coupled with thorough research to understand black women's experiences in antebellum Charleston, makes her work an important contribution to the historical literature. Furthermore, her book has been awarded several prizes, namely the Julia Cherry Spruill Prize (2012) from the Southern Association of Women Historians, the George C. Rogers Jr. Award (2011) from the South Carolina Historical Society, and the Anna Julia Cooper – CLR James Book Award (2011) from the National Council for Black Studies.

How were black women manumitted in the Old South, and how did they live their lives in freedom before the Civil War? Historian, Amrita Chakrabarti Myers (Associate Professor in the Department of History at Indiana University in Bloomington) answers this complex question by explaining the precarious nature freedom for African American women in Charleston before the Civil War in Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston (UNC Press, 2011). In three tightly woven sections, she tells stories that reveal what it meant to glimpse, build and experience freedom from the early national period to the end of the antebellum era. Her beautifully written prose, coupled with thorough research to understand black women’s experiences in antebellum Charleston, makes her work an important contribution to the historical literature. Furthermore, her book has been awarded several prizes, namely the Julia Cherry Spruill Prize (2012) from the Southern Association of Women Historians, the George C. Rogers Jr. Award (2011) from the South Carolina Historical Society, and the Anna Julia Cooper – CLR James Book Award (2011) from the National Council for Black Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How were black women manumitted in the Old South, and how did they live their lives in freedom before the Civil War? Historian, Amrita Chakrabarti Myers (Associate Professor in the Department of History at Indiana University in Bloomington) answers this complex question by explaining the precarious nature freedom for African American women in Charleston before the Civil War in Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston (UNC Press, 2011). In three tightly woven sections, she tells stories that reveal what it meant to glimpse, build and experience freedom from the early national period to the end of the antebellum era. Her beautifully written prose, coupled with thorough research to understand black women’s experiences in antebellum Charleston, makes her work an important contribution to the historical literature. Furthermore, her book has been awarded several prizes, namely the Julia Cherry Spruill Prize (2012) from the Southern Association of Women Historians, the George C. Rogers Jr. Award (2011) from the South Carolina Historical Society, and the Anna Julia Cooper – CLR James Book Award (2011) from the National Council for Black Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How were black women manumitted in the Old South, and how did they live their lives in freedom before the Civil War? Historian, Amrita Chakrabarti Myers (Associate Professor in the Department of History at Indiana University in Bloomington) answers this complex question by explaining the precarious nature freedom for African American women in Charleston before the Civil War in Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston (UNC Press, 2011). In three tightly woven sections, she tells stories that reveal what it meant to glimpse, build and experience freedom from the early national period to the end of the antebellum era. Her beautifully written prose, coupled with thorough research to understand black women’s experiences in antebellum Charleston, makes her work an important contribution to the historical literature. Furthermore, her book has been awarded several prizes, namely the Julia Cherry Spruill Prize (2012) from the Southern Association of Women Historians, the George C. Rogers Jr. Award (2011) from the South Carolina Historical Society, and the Anna Julia Cooper – CLR James Book Award (2011) from the National Council for Black Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How were black women manumitted in the Old South, and how did they live their lives in freedom before the Civil War? Historian, Amrita Chakrabarti Myers (Associate Professor in the Department of History at Indiana University in Bloomington) answers this complex question by explaining the precarious nature freedom for African American women in Charleston before the Civil War in Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston (UNC Press, 2011). In three tightly woven sections, she tells stories that reveal what it meant to glimpse, build and experience freedom from the early national period to the end of the antebellum era. Her beautifully written prose, coupled with thorough research to understand black women’s experiences in antebellum Charleston, makes her work an important contribution to the historical literature. Furthermore, her book has been awarded several prizes, namely the Julia Cherry Spruill Prize (2012) from the Southern Association of Women Historians, the George C. Rogers Jr. Award (2011) from the South Carolina Historical Society, and the Anna Julia Cooper – CLR James Book Award (2011) from the National Council for Black Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How were black women manumitted in the Old South, and how did they live their lives in freedom before the Civil War? Historian, Amrita Chakrabarti Myers (Associate Professor in the Department of History at Indiana University in Bloomington) answers this complex question by explaining the precarious nature freedom for African American women in Charleston before the Civil War in Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston (UNC Press, 2011). In three tightly woven sections, she tells stories that reveal what it meant to glimpse, build and experience freedom from the early national period to the end of the antebellum era. Her beautifully written prose, coupled with thorough research to understand black women's experiences in antebellum Charleston, makes her work an important contribution to the historical literature. Furthermore, her book has been awarded several prizes, namely the Julia Cherry Spruill Prize (2012) from the Southern Association of Women Historians, the George C. Rogers Jr. Award (2011) from the South Carolina Historical Society, and the Anna Julia Cooper – CLR James Book Award (2011) from the National Council for Black Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies