Customer Reviews

Freedom's Children: The Passage from Emancipation to the Great Migration

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An interactive book featuring historical photographs & removable documents charting the course of the people of American slavery after the Civil War.

This is a solemn book written & composed by an ordained minister & creator of the Black Holocaust Exhibit in Atlanta. In it Velma Maia Thomas refers to slaves & freedpeople as "my people" [which I must surround in quotation marks because I am an immigrant from the other side of the Atlantic.]

Freedom's Children has envelopes, slots & pouches out of which the reader can withdraw facsimiles of railroad tickets to Colorado, newspaper clippings about Black Senators & pages from letters & speeches. Other pages are illustrated by sepia tinted photographs of wilderness pioneers, personal advertisements requesting the whereabouts of loved ones & a miniature copy of the Freedman's Third Reader. Open the flaps to find special sections on college education, historical photographs & information on such luminaries as Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois or the Black cowboys' way of life.

A beautifully profound book, worthy of repeated readings for its myriad & fascinating details, its enduring determination for peace & a life of equality & its dignified & idiosyncratic presentation & language.

Having read Ms. Thomas's first interactive African American History book titled, "Lest We Forget", I was quite anxious to peruse this second masterpiece. It was all that I expectd. Clearly informative,the photos reach out to touch you with the the reality of what it was like to be black and a slave in America--on the verge of Freedom. The documents and other materials contained in the book are arranged with the text and photos in such a manner that one is literally pulled into living through that time period. The book represents an excellent mechanism for teaching young people about the trials and tribulations--as well as the exhilirating journey of African Americans finding their way onto the landscape of Freedom.

This part 2 of the series was not nearly as comprehensive and informative as the first book...but still a worthwhile investment if you have the first book...I felt that it left me wanting more...More information, more photos, more documents (like the first book did...it might have been helpful to have had more old newpaper clippings, or articles written during the period, journal entrys, letters, etc. The content should be commensurate with the price...I personally felt, it wasn't. Again, it left me wanting more.

I have each of the other publications by the author. I use thee interactive

books not only for reading purposes, but to show the samples and reproductions

held within the bindings. Unfortunately one pass used by slaves to travel along

with it's bill of sale was missing. This should have been stated by the seller.

Beautiful pictures and documents to be used for better understanding of The Great Migration and Emancipation!