Barnes & Noble is pleased to announce a literary event featuring
Commissioner Michael Thurmond. This exciting event will take
place at the Fayetteville Barnes & Noble
Saturday located at 1415 Highway 85, Fayetteville, Ga. 30296
at 10:00am.
Freedom, unearths a remarkable part of black history in America
that will
surprise and enlighten many readers. Michael Thurmond spent
nine years
documenting the largely unknown acts of bravery, determination,
and
rebellion that enslaved black Georgians committed in the name
of freedom and
justice. While many assume that African-American slaves were
passive victims
of their fate, Freedom presents the compelling truth with a
wealth of
original research.
Thurmond traces the history of race relations
in Georgia back to its
founding moment: when General James Oglethorpe settled Georgia
as an
anti-slavery colony in the 1730s. But Oglethorpe's wishes would
soon be
overturned, and the legalization of slavery in 1750 paved the
way for a
century of struggle. The book recounts stories of courageous
men and women
who tested the limits of their bondage through organized rebellions,
escape
attempts, and wartime alliances with powers foreign and domestic.
Others
shrewdly worked within the system of laws to find a modicum
of liberty as
free blacks, and by 1840 Georgia boasted the third largest free
black
population in the South. The pivotal Civil War, as Thurmond
eloquently
argues, brought both new opportunities and new complications
for black
Georgians, and only further clouded the peculiar, intertwined
relationship
between white and black.
Georgia has been a touchstone of
controversy and a beacon of hope
in the
African-American struggle for equality not only during the modern
Civil
Rights era, but from its very founding in 1733. Utilizing an
impressive
number of historical resources, Freedom convincingly demonstrates
the
aggressive role black Georgians took in challenging their disenfranchised
condition and their lasting influence on the development of
their state.