Book

Girl in black and white : the story of Mary Mildred Williams and the abolition movement

Morgan-Owens, Jessie, author

Overview

\"The riveting, little-known story of Mary Mildred Williams--a slave girl who looked 'white'--whose photograph transformed the abolitionist movement. When a decades-long court battle resulted in her family's freedom in 1855, seven-year-old Mary Mildred Williams unexpectedly became the face of American slavery. During a sold-out abolitionist lecture series, Senator Charles Sumner paraded Mary in front of rapt audiences as evidence that slavery knew no bounds. Weaving together long-overlooked primary sources and arresting images, including the daguerreotype that turned Mary into the poster child of a movement, Jessie Morgan-Owens investigates tangled generations of sexual enslavement and the fraught politics that led Mary to Sumner. She restores Mary's story to history and uncovers a dramatic narrative of travels along the Underground Railroad, relationships tested by oppression, and the struggles of life after emancipation. The result is an exposâe of the thorny racial politics of the abolitionist movement and the pervasive colorism that dictated where white sympathy lay--one that sheds light on a shameful legacy that still affects us profoundly today\"-- Provided by publisher.

• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
• Subject: Williams, Mary Mildred, 1847-1921. / Williams, Mary Mildred, 1847-1921. Family. / Child slaves United States Biography. / Slaves United States Biography. / Photographs Political aspects United States History 19th century. / Colorism United States. / Antislavery movements United States History 19th century. / Racism United States History 19th century. / United States Race relations History 19th century.
• ISBN: 9780393609240

Item info:

1 item available

1 item total in all locations

Holdings :

Call Number	Copies	Material	Location
E444.W746 M67 2019	1	BOOK	AUTOSTORE