Slavery by Another Name: Summary and book reviews of Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon, plus links to an excerpt from Slavery by Another Name and a biography of Douglas Blackmon.

Pulitzer Prize for Letters, Drama and Music, 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Letters, Drama and Music, 2009 In this groundbreaking historical expose, Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history—an “Age of Neoslavery” that thrived from the aftermath of the Civil War through the dawn of World War II. Using a vast record of original documents and personal narratives, Douglas A. Blackmon unearths the lost stories of slaves and their descendants who journeyed into freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation and then back into the shadow of involuntary servitude shortly thereafter. By turns moving, sobering, and shocking, this unprecedented account reveals the stories of those who fought unsuccessfully against the re-emergence of human labor trafficking, the companies that profited most from neoslavery, and the insidious legacy of racism that reverberates today.

Media Reviews

St Louis Post-Dispatch [A] formidably researched, powerfully written, wrenchingly detailed narrative of the mistreatment of millions of blacks in America, mistreatment that kept African-Americans in shackles of the body and mind long after slavery had officially ended.   The New York Times Shocking. . . . Eviscerates one of our schoolchildren's most basic assumptions: that slavery in America ended with the Civil War.   The Atlanta Journal-Constitution The genius of Blackmon's book is that it illuminates both the real human tragedy and the profoundly corrupting nature of the Old South slavery as it transformed to establish a New South social order   Chicago Tribune An astonishing book. . . . It will challenge and change your understanding of what we were as Americans-and of what we are.   The New York Times - Janet Maslin The torment that Mr. Blackmon catalogs is, if anything, understated here. But it loudly and stunningly speaks for itself.   Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Blackmon's book reveals in devastating detail the legal and commercial forces that created this neoslavery along with deeply moving and totally appalling personal testimonies of survivors. Every incident in this book is true, he writes; one wishes it were not so. Harriet A. Washington author of Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. To read this book is to cross an intellectual Rubicon: Once opened, you will no longer find it possible to relegate slavery to the distant past. Once opened, this book will change you, and how you perceive race relations in America. Jay Winik, author of April 1865: The Month That Saved America and The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World. For those who think the conversation about race or exploitation in America is over, they should read Douglas Blackmon’s cautionary tale, Slavery by Another Name. It is at once provocative and thought-provoking, sobering and heart-rending. Bill Cosby Urgent, definitive, powerful. The most important work of history published in a very long time.

Recent Reader Reviews

Rated of 5 by Terry
Deeply flawed work of fiction
Blackmon is looking for credibility, stating he is from the South. However, his deeply flawed work of fiction exposes his prejudices. Blackmon offers very little real evidence for most of his statements about the condition of blacks in the South....   Read More

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Books with similar themes

• History, Current Affairs & Science
  
• USA 
  
• 19th Century 
  
• 20th Century (multiple decades) 
  
• African American Authors & Leads 
  
• Controversial Subjects