A collection of incredibly rare images of African-Americans taken just before, during, and after the Civil War. As slaves, African-Americans were virtually invisible to history. Even after the Civil War there were not many African-American photographers, and very few black people had the time, money or freedom for a portrait sitting. Consequently only a few hundred pictures have survived from that time to bear witness to slaves and the lives they led.
Jackie Napolean Wilson, whose own grandfather was born a slave in South Carolina, has assembled the most comprehensive and significant collection of such images ever compiled. Scenes of maternal affection, matrimony, war, and the grim reality of the master/slave relationship help focus our perceptions of the African-American experience in ways not otherwise available to the modern reader of history.
- Hardcover, Copyright 1999
- 134 pages
- By Jackie Napolean Wilson