Gretchen Gerzina

Black London, by Gretchen Gerzina, Kathe Tappe Vernon Professor of Biography at Dartmouth College, is a fascinating account of London blacks, focusing on the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Because of a paucity of sources from blacks themselves, Gerzina had to rely primarily on glimpses through white eyes, especially those of antislavery advocate Granville Sharp. Gerzina is quite adept at culling evidence of a rich, complex black life, with significant interaction (and intermarriage) with the white community. Although subjected to much discrimination, London blacks never suffered as much as their American counterparts. The author rightly concludes that blacks have played an important role in the life of London for much of its history.

"The idea that Britain became a mixed-race country only after 1945 is a common mistake. Even in Shakespeare's England black people were numerous enough for Queen Elizabeth to demand they all leave. She was, perhaps, the first to fear that whites would lose their jobs, yet her edict was ignored without ill effects." "By the eighteenth century the work of all kinds of artists - Hogarth, Reynolds, Gillray, Rowlandson - as well as work by poets, playwrights and novelists, reveals to sharp eyes that not everyone in that elegant, vigorous, earthy world was white. In fact there were black pubs and clubs, balls for blacks only, black churches, and organizations for helping blacks out of work or in trouble. Many blacks were prosperous and respected: George Bridgtower was a concert violinist who knew Beethoven; Ignatius Sancho corresponded with Laurence Sterne; Francis Williams studied at Cambridge. Others, like Jack Beef, were successful stewards or men of business. But many more were servants or beggars, some turning to prostitution or theft." "Alongside the free black world was slavery, from which many of these people escaped. In particular, it was the business of kidnapping blacks for export to the West Indies that made Granville Sharp an abolitionist and brought the celebrated Somerset case before Lord Justice Mansfield. Those men are now heroes of human rights, yet Sharp probably did not believe in racial equality; and Mansfield, whose own much-loved great-niece was black, was so worried about property rights that he did all he could to avoid a judgment that would set blacks free." "The ties and conflicts of black and white in England, often cruel, often moving, were also complex and surprising. This book presents a fascinating chapter of history and one long in need of exploration."--BOOK JACKET.

Merging comprehensive research and grand storytelling, Mr. and Mrs. Prince reveals the true story of a remarkable pre-Civil War African-American family, as well as the challenges that faced African-Americans who lived in the North versus the slave who lived in the south. Both accomplished people, Lucy Terry, a devoted wife and mother, was the first known African-American poet and Abijah Prince, her husband, was a veteran of the French and Indian wars and an entrepreneur. Together they pursued what would become the cornerstone of the American dream -- having a family and owning property where they could live, grow, and prosper. Owning land in both Vermont and Massachusetts, they were well on their way to settling in when bigoted neighbors tried to run them off. Rather than fleeing, they asserted their rights, as they would do many times, in court. Here is a story that not only demonstrate the contours of slavery in New England but also unravels the most complete history of a pre-Civil War black family known to exist. Illuminating and inspiring, Mr. and Mrs. Prince uncovers the lives of those who could have been forgotten and brings to light a history that's intrigued but eluded many until now. - Jacket flap.