Freedom's Children: The Journey from Emancipation Into the Twentieth Century [With Removable Documents]

by Velma Maia Thomas

Book Overview

This sequel to 1998's award-winningLest We Forgetchronicles the jubilation and despair of newly freed slaves turned loose, as Frederick Douglass put it, "to the wrath of our infuriated masters." Without land, money or education, former slaves had to fend for themselves in the hostile environment of a vanquished South. Covering the period from the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation to the start of the Great Migration, Freedom's Children tells...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609604813
• ISBN13: 9780609604816
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 10.4" x 10.2"

Customer Reviews

Social Studies

Beautiful pictures and documents to be used for better understanding of The Great Migration and Emancipation!

Freedom's Children is a testament to enduring dignity

An interactive book featuring historical photographs & removable documents charting the course of the people of American slavery after the Civil War.This is a solemn book written & composed by an ordained minister & creator of the Black Holocaust Exhibit in Atlanta. In it Velma Maia Thomas refers to slaves & freedpeople as "my people" [which I must surround in quotation marks because I am an immigrant from the other side of the Atlantic.] Freedom's Children has envelopes, slots & pouches out of which the reader can withdraw facsimiles of railroad tickets to Colorado, newspaper clippings about Black Senators & pages from letters & speeches. Other pages are illustrated by sepia tinted photographs of wilderness pioneers, personal advertisements requesting the whereabouts of loved ones & a miniature copy of the Freedman's Third Reader. Open the flaps to find special sections on college education, historical photographs & information on such luminaries as Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois or the Black cowboys' way of life.A beautifully profound book, worthy of repeated readings for its myriad & fascinating details, its enduring determination for peace & a life of equality & its dignified & idiosyncratic presentation & language.

A Vibrant Educational Tool

Having read Ms. Thomas's first interactive African American History book titled, "Lest We Forget", I was quite anxious to peruse this second masterpiece. It was all that I expectd. Clearly informative,the photos reach out to touch you with the the reality of what it was like to be black and a slave in America--on the verge of Freedom. The documents and other materials contained in the book are arranged with the text and photos in such a manner that one is literally pulled into living through that time period. The book represents an excellent mechanism for teaching young people about the trials and tribulations--as well as the exhilirating journey of African Americans finding their way onto the landscape of Freedom.