Five for Freedom by
On October 16, 1859, John Brown and his band of eighteen raiders descended on Harpers Ferry. In an ill-fated attempt to incite a slave insurrection, they seized the federal arsenal, took hostages, and retreated to a fire engine house where they barricaded themselves until a contingent of US Marines battered their way in on October 18. The raiders were routed, and several were captured. Soon after, they were tried, convicted, and hanged. Among Brown's fighters were five African American men--John Copeland, Shields Green, Dangerfield Newby, Lewis Leary, and Osborne Perry Anderson--whose lives and deaths have long been overshadowed by their martyred leader and who, even today, are little remembered. Only Anderson survived, later publishing the lone insider account of the event that, most historians agree, was a catalyst to the catastrophic American Civil War that followed. Five for Freedom is the story of these five brave men, the circumstances in which they were born and raised, how they came together at this fateful time and place, and the legacies they left behind. It is an American story that continues to resonate.
Freedom's Dawn by
John Brown's failed raid on the federal armory in Harper's Ferry Virginia served as a vital precursor to the Civil War, but its importance to the struggle for justice is free standing and exceptional in the history of the United States. In Freedom's Dawn, Louis DeCaro, Jr., has written the first book devoted exclusively to Brown during the six weeks between his arrest and execution. DeCaro traces his evolution from prisoner to convicted felon, to a prophetic figure, then martyr, and finally the rise of his legacy. In doing so he touches upon major biographical themes in Brown's story, but also upon antebellum political issues, violence and terrorism, and the themes of political imprisonment and martyrdom.
The Last Slave Ship: the true story of how Clotilda was found, her descendants, and an extraordinary reckoning by 
Africatown: America's last slave ship and the community it created by 
The Survivors of the Clotilda: the lost stories of the last captives of the American slave trade by
Joining the ranks of Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Zora Neale Hurston's rediscovered classic Barracoon, an immersive and revelatory history of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on US soil, told through the stories of its survivors--the last documented survivors of any slave ship--whose lives diverged and intersected in profound ways. The Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on American soil, docked in Mobile Bay, Alabama, in July 1860--more than half a century after the passage of a federal law banning the importation of captive Africans, and nine months before the beginning of the Civil War. The last of its survivors lived well into the twentieth century. They were the last witnesses to the final act of a terrible and significant period in world history. In this epic work, Dr. Hannah Durkin tells the stories of the Clotilda's 110 captives, drawing on her intensive archival, historical, and sociological research. The Survivors of the Clotilda follows their lives from their kidnappings in what is modern-day Nigeria through a terrifying 45-day journey across the Middle Passage; from the subsequent sale of the ship's 103 surviving children and young people into slavery across Alabama to the dawn of the Civil Rights movement in Selma; from the foundation of an all-Black African Town (later Africatown) in Northern Mobile--an inspiration for writers of the Harlem Renaissance, including Zora Neale Hurston--to the foundation of the quilting community of Gee's Bend--a Black artistic circle whose cultural influence remains enormous. An astonishing, deeply compelling tapestry of history, biography, and social commentary, The Survivors of the Clotilda is a tour de force that deepens our knowledge and understanding of the Black experience and of America and its tragic past. The Survivors of the Clotilda includes 30 artworks and photographs.