Sugar of the Crop: My Journey to Find the Children of Slaves - Tapa dura

"Sugar of the Crop" is the story of an unprecedented quest to find the last surviving children of slaves. In a revealing search from Los Angeles to New Orleans, from Virginia nursing homes to Alabama churches, Sana Butler provides a fascinating picture of African American life and its legacy in the post-Civil War world. What she finds will change our sense of black identity in America. Drawing on interviews she began in the summer of 1997 with the sons and daughters of slaves, Sana Butler reveals how African Americans emerged from slavery with a deep commitment to the future and a powerful energy to make the most of their opportunities, large and small. Like explorers in a new land, freed slaves faced a new America with enthusiastic hopes and dreams for their children. Impelled by a generation that exercised political power at a rate never since seen in this country, the children of slaves were raised to be independent and often fearless thinkers, laying the groundwork for what would later become the Civil Rights Movement. As it opens up a new perspective on African American history, "Sugar of the Crop" is not just about the effects of slavery, but essentially about the power of the human spirit and nurturing strength of unconditional love. It will enlighten, haunt, and inspire.

From Lexington, Kentucky, to Los Angeles, a Personal Journey Across America to Find and Interview the Children of Former Slaves Sugar of the Crop reveals the human stories never told before of how slaves emerged from the Civil War to become selfless parents, and how they faced a new America with a powerful energy that helped lay the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement a century later. Opening up a new perspective on African American history, this book?based on the author’s interviews with sons and daughters of slaves?will enlighten, haunt, and inspire.