"Sitting in the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture is a rough cotton bag, called "Ashley's Sack," embroidered with just a handful of words that evoke a sweeping family story of loss and of love passed down through generations. In 1850s South Carolina, just before nine-year-old Ashley was sold, her mother, Rose, gave her a sack filled with just a few things as a token of her love. Decades later, Ashley's granddaughter,...

Behind the Scenes is the life story of Elizabeth Keckley, a shrewd entrepreneur who, while enslaved, raised enough money to purchase freedom for herself and her son. Keckley moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked as a seamstress and dressmaker for the wives of influential politicians. She eventually became a close confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln. Several years after President Lincoln's assassination, when Mrs. Lincoln's financial situation had...

After escaping from a plantation in North Carolina, Addy and her mother arrive in Philadelphia, where Addy goes to school and learns a lesson in true friendship.

Biography of the black woman who escaped from slavery to become famous as a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

In this wordless picture book, a young Southern farm girl discovers a runaway slave hiding behind the corn crib in the barn and decides to help him.

Biography of a little slave girl whipped for eating an apple, who later grew up to become a famous "conductor" for the underground railroad.

"For generations female slaves have played prominent roles throughout American history, but more than a century after Emancipation, no comprehensive overview of the history of the female American slave exists. In this book, historian Emily West offers the first comprehensive overview of the lives of enslaved women in America by placing their stories within the broader context of slavery in this country from the colonial era through to the end of the...

"The son of a blacksmith and slave learns that his father is using the rhythm of his hammering to communicate with travelers on the Underground Railroad"--