Nothing But Freedom examines the aftermath of emancipation in the South and the restructuring of society by which the former slaves gained, beyond their freedom, a new relation to the land they worked on, to the men they worked for, and to the government they lived under. Taking a comparative approach, Eric Foner examines Reconstruction in the southern states against the experience of Haiti, where a violent slave revolt was followed by the establishment of an undemocratic government and the imposition of a system of forced labor; the British Caribbean, where the colonial government oversaw an orderly transition from slavery to the creation of an almost totally dependent work force; and early twentieth-century southern and eastern Africa, where a self-sufficient peasantry was dispossessed in order to create a dependent black work force. Measuring the progress of freedmen in the post--Civil War South against that of freedmen in other recently emancipated societies, Foner reveals Reconstruction to have been, despite its failings, a unique and dramatic experiment in interracial democracy in the aftermath of slavery. Steven Hahn's timely new foreword places Foner's analysis in the context of recent scholarship and assesses its enduring impact in the twenty-first century.

The dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom. More than any other scholar, Eric Foner has influenced our understanding of America's history. Now, making brilliant use of extraordinary evidence, the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian once again reconfigures the national saga of American slavery and freedom. A deeply entrenched institution, slavery lived on legally and commercially even in the northern states that had abolished it after the American Revolution. Slaves could be found in the streets of New York well after abolition, traveling with owners doing business with the city's major banks, merchants, and manufacturers. New York was also home to the North’s largest free black community, making it a magnet for fugitive slaves seeking refuge. Slave catchers and gangs of kidnappers roamed the city, seizing free blacks, often children, and sending them south to slavery. To protect fugitives and fight kidnappings, the city's free blacks worked with white abolitionists to organize the New York Vigilance Committee in 1835. In the 1840s vigilance committees proliferated throughout the North and began collaborating to dispatch fugitive slaves from the upper South, Washington, and Baltimore, through Philadelphia and New York, to Albany, Syracuse, and Canada. These networks of antislavery resistance, centered on New York City, became known as the underground railroad. Forced to operate in secrecy by hostile laws, courts, and politicians, the city’s underground-railroad agents helped more than 3,000 fugitive slaves reach freedom between 1830 and 1860. Until now, their stories have remained largely unknown, their significance little understood. Building on fresh evidence—including a detailed record of slave escapes secretly kept by Sydney Howard Gay, one of the key organizers in New York—Foner elevates the underground railroad from folklore to sweeping history. The story is inspiring—full of memorable characters making their first appearance on the historical stage—and significant—the controversy over fugitive slaves inflamed the sectional crisis of the 1850s. It eventually took a civil war to destroy American slavery, but here at last is the story of the courageous effort to fight slavery by "practical abolition," person by person, family by family.

Elected six times to the House from the state of Georgia, Cynthia McKinney cut a trail through Congressional deceit like a hot ember through ash. She discovered legislators who passed laws without reading them. Party leaders who colluded across party lines against their constituents' interests. Black-skinned individuals shilling for the white status quo. She excoriated government lassitude over Hurricane Katrina, uncovering dark secrets. She held the only critical Congressional briefing on 9/11, introducing counter- testimony of scholars, investigators, former intelligence agents. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, she held Rumsfeld to account for malfeasance by military contractors and missing billions in the Pentagon’s budget. Then she hammered him on the reasons for the failure of NORAD air defenses on 9/11. She read truth into the Congressional Record, held town halls and hearings, led protests, showed up while others played along to get along, took the side of the people against the will of the Party. And when she got too truth seeking and speaking, the Republicans rigged the Democratic primaries to boot her out, leaving behind a trail of achievements mostly won singlehandedly as a result of her service on the House International Relations, House Agriculture, House Armed Services, and Budget Committees and the Select Committee on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita But McKinney rose again like a Phoenix, answering the call to run as 2008 Green Party candidate for President, challenging the corrupt two-party stranglehold on American democracy. Then it was on to the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, to be seized on the high seas and imprisoned in Israel. On to Tripoli, to serve as witness to the NATO terror bombing of Libya. On to Malaysia to serve on the War Crimes Commission... Often introduced as the Sojourner Truth, the Harriet Tubman of our age, McKinney reflects here on the Biblical figures of Esther, Deborah and Naomi. This is the Cynthia McKinney saga as it stands to date-- what she saw, what she learned, and how she fought for change.

Nothing But Freedom examines the aftermath of emancipation in the South and the restructuring of society by which the former slaves gained, beyond their freedom, a new relation to the land they worked on, to the men they worked for, and to the government they lived under. Taking a comparative approach, Foner examines Reconstruction in the Southern states against the experience of Haiti, the British Caribbean, and early twentieth-century southern and eastern Africa. He reveals Reconstruction to have been, despite its failings, a unique and dramatic experiment in interracial democracy in the aftermath of slavery. Steven Hahn's timely new foreword places Foner's analysis in the context of recent scholarship and assesses its enduring impact in the twenty-first century.

Biography of Joan Trumpauer Mulholland follows her from her childhood in 1950s Virginia through her high school and college years, when she joined the Civil Rights Movement, attending demonstrations and sit-ins. She also participated in the Freedom Rides of 1961 and was arrested and imprisoned. Her life has been spent standing up for human rights.

Freedom is the cornerstone of his sweeping narrative that focuses not only congressional debates and political treatises since the Revolution but how the fight for freedom took place on plantation and picket lines and in parlors and bedrooms.