A compelling reconstruction of the life of a black suffragist, Adella Hunt Logan, blending family lore, historical research, and literary imagination"Both a definitive rendering of a life and a remarkable study of the interplay of race and gender in an America whose shadows still haunt us today."—Henry Louis Gates, Jr."If you combine the pleasures of a seductive novel, discovering a real American heroine, and learning the multiracial ...

This monumental history traces the rise of a resolute African American family (the author's own) from privation to the middle class. In doing so, it explodes the stereotypes that have shaped and distorted our thinking about African Americans--both in slavery and in freedom.Beginning with John Robert Bond, who emigrated from England to fight in the Union Army during the Civil War and married a recently freed slave, Alexander shows three generations of Bonds as they take chances and ...

When William Henry Hunt married Ida Alexander Gibbs in the spring of 1904, their wedding was a dazzling Washington social event that joined an Oberlin-educated diplomat's daughter and a Wall Street veteran who could trace his lineage to Jamestown. Their union took place in a world of refinement and privilege, but both William and Ida had mixed-race backgrounds, and their country therefore placed severe restrictions on their lives because at that time, "one drop of colored blood" classified...

A compelling reconstruction of the life of a black suffragist, Adella Hunt Logan, blending family lore, historical research, and literary imagination.Born during the Civil War into a slaveholding family that included black, white, and Cherokee forebears, Adella Hunt Logan dedicated herself to advancing political and educational opportunities for the African American community. She taught at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute but also joined the segregated woman suffrage ...

Race and racism have played a divisive and defining role throughout much of America's history. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, and Ku Klux Klan terrorism have inflicted deep psychic wounds, social disparities, and economic disadvantages that have diminished the promise of equal rights and opportunities for all.While much progress in race relations has been made in recent years-including the election of Barack Obama as President of the United State-it's clear that our journey t...