Historian Caleb McDaniel will join us to d iscuss his Pulitzer Prize winning book\, Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True St ory of Slavery and Restitution in America.
\nThe book deals with the history of the reverse Underground Railroad. It tells the story of Henrie tta Wood\, a formerly enslaved woman who\, in the twilight of Reconstructi on\, won the largest known sum ever awarded by a U.S. court in restitution for slavery. Although she was born in northern Kentucky and enslaved ther e and in Louisiana until she was nearly thirty years old\, in 1853 Wood wa s living as a free woman in Cincinnati when she was kidnapped\, taken to t hem South\, and reenslaved. How did she survive slavery\, twice\, and late r hold a powerful former enslaver to account? Where does her story fit in the longer history of reparations claims? And what does it tell us about d ebates over reparations today? \; What difference did the victory make for Wood and her descendants? \; At a time of increased public intere st in the history of slavery\, Wood's story offers important lessons about the impact restitution can make and about the limited power of payment al one.
\nDr. W. Caleb McDaniel is Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Humani ties and Chair of the History Department at Rice University\, where he als o serves as co-chair of the Task Force on Slavery\, Segregation\, and Raci al Injustice. His essays have appeared in appeared in the New York Times\, Smithsonian\, The Atlantic\, and other outlets\, and you can find him on Twitter at @wcaleb. He is also the author of two books on the history of s lavery\, abolition\, and the Civil War Era. In addition to Sweet Taste of Liberty\, he is also authored The Problem of Democracy in the Age of Slave ry (2013)\, which won the Merle Curti award from the Organization of Ameri can Historians.
\nThis event is co-sponsored by the Boone County Pub lic Library and the NPS\, National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program.
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