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

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Taste the sweetness of freedom and the bitter struggle for equality through the documents that impacted the lives of an entire race. Freedom's Children, the sequel to the best-selling Lest We Forget, is a stirring collection of photographs and removable documents that bring to life the heart-wrenching, inspiring tale of freedmen and freedwomen during reconstruction and into the twentieth century. The story of a people who refused to be defeated is continued through this three-dimensional, interactive format.

Study an excerpt from a schoolbook used to teach the newly freed how to read.

Hold in your hand a grant giving twenty acres of land to a former slave who had previously owned nothing.

Read a confidential message from a World War I general detailing the lower status to be accorded black soldiers.

From the Inside Flap

This sequel to 1998's award-winning Lest We Forget chronicles the jubilation and despair of newly freed slaves turned loose, as Frederick Douglass put it, "to the wrath of our infuriated masters."

Without land, money or education, former slaves had to fend for themselves in the hostile environment of a vanquished South. Covering the period from the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation to the start of the Great Migration, Freedom's Children tells the stories of courageous African-Americans who struggled to construct schools and establish businesses while trying to reunite families scattered by slavery. Even the creation of the Freedmen's Bureau could do little to provide real help. So they learned to make their own opportunities, often in other parts of the country.

Extraordinary interactive elements bring the lives of these American heroes into chilling focus. Readers can examine the "Freedman's Third Reader" used to teach former slaves to read, open a change pouch and touch "script" money paid to sharecroppers for use in the company store, peruse an account book from the Freedman's Bank, and much more. Freedom's Children is an unforgettable reading -- and interactive -- experience.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1st edition (October 17, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609604813
• ISBN-13: 978-0609604816
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 10.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #681,593 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Freedom's Children is a testament to enduring dignity, May 21, 2001

By	Rebecca Brown "rebeccasreads" (Clallam Bay, WA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Vibrant Educational Tool, December 7, 2000

By	"sirrah1" (Washington, DC ; USA) - See all my reviews

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Historical Account, February 6, 2002

By	LP Johnson "brother in the struggle" (Harlem, , NY, USA, World) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.