-
The 272
- The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church
- Narrated by: Karen Murray
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $18.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
“An absolutely essential addition to the history of the Catholic Church, whose involvement in New World slavery sustained the Church and, thereby, helped to entrench enslavement in American society.”—Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello and On Juneteenth
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Time, Chicago Public Library, Kirkus Reviews
In 1838, a group of America’s most prominent Catholic priests sold 272 enslaved people to save their largest mission project, what is now Georgetown University. In this groundbreaking account, journalist, author, and professor Rachel L. Swarns follows one family through nearly two centuries of indentured servitude and enslavement to uncover the harrowing origin story of the Catholic Church in the United States. Through the saga of the Mahoney family, Swarns illustrates how the Church relied on slave labor and slave sales to sustain its operations and to help finance its expansion.
The story begins with Ann Joice, a free Black woman and the matriarch of the Mahoney family. Joice sailed to Maryland in the late 1600s as an indentured servant, but her contract was burned and her freedom stolen. Her descendants, who were enslaved by Jesuit priests, passed down the story of that broken promise for centuries. One of those descendants, Harry Mahoney, saved lives and the church’s money in the War of 1812, but his children, including Louisa and Anna, were put up for sale in 1838. One daughter managed to escape, but the other was sold and shipped to Louisiana. Their descendants would remain apart until Rachel Swarns’s reporting in The New York Times finally reunited them. They would go on to join other GU272 descendants who pressed Georgetown and the Catholic Church to make amends, prodding the institutions to break new ground in the movement for reparations and reconciliation in America.
Swarns’s journalism has already started a national conversation about universities with ties to slavery. The 272 tells an even bigger story, not only demonstrating how slavery fueled the growth of the American Catholic Church but also shining a light on the enslaved people whose forced labor helped to build the largest religious denomination in the nation.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Black AF History
- The Un-Whitewashed Story of America
- By: Michael Harriot
- Narrated by: Michael Harriot
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America’s backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory. It should come as no surprise that the dominant narrative of American history is blighted with errors and oversights—after all, history books were written by white men with their perspectives at the forefront. It could even be said that the devaluation and erasure of the Black experience is as American as apple pie. In Black AF History, Michael Harriot presents a more accurate version of American history.
-
-
LOVE It!
- By KMB on 09-29-23
By: Michael Harriot
-
The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy
- And the Path to a Shared American Future
- By: Robert P. Jones
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beginning with contemporary efforts to reckon with the legacy of white supremacy in America, Jones returns to the fateful year when a little-known church doctrine emerged that shaped the way five centuries of European Christians would understand the “discovered” world and the people who populated it. From this vantage point, Jones illuminates how the enslavement of Africans was not America’s original sin but, rather, the continuation of acts of genocide and dispossession flowing from the first European contact with Native Americans.
-
-
The Doctrine of discovery matters to our history
- By Adam Shields on 09-13-23
By: Robert P. Jones
-
Judgment at Tokyo
- World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia
- By: Gary J. Bass
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 31 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the world turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Chiang Kai-shek, and their fellow victors, the question of justice seemed clear: Japan’s militaristic leaders needed to be tried and punished for the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor.
-
-
Biased revisionist history
- By Amazon Customer on 12-31-23
By: Gary J. Bass
-
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
- A Novel
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.
-
-
Multiple Stories Obfuscate Narrative
- By Stephnsea on 08-12-23
By: James McBride
-
Prequel
- An American Fight Against Fascism
- By: Rachel Maddow
- Narrated by: Rachel Maddow
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inspired by her research for the hit podcast Ultra, Rachel Maddow charts the rise of a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has been alive on the far-right edge of our politics for the better part of a century. Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it.
-
-
The fight to keep democracy alive
- By Rex on 10-19-23
By: Rachel Maddow
-
Enough
- By: Cassidy Hutchinson
- Narrated by: Cassidy Hutchinson
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ever since a childhood visit to Washington, DC, Cassidy Hutchinson aspired to serve her country in government. Raised in a working-class family with a military background, she was the first in her immediate family to graduate from college. Despite having no ties to Washington, Hutchinson landed a vital position at the center of the Trump White House.
-
-
Painful
- By Melissa C. on 09-28-23
-
Black AF History
- The Un-Whitewashed Story of America
- By: Michael Harriot
- Narrated by: Michael Harriot
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America’s backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory. It should come as no surprise that the dominant narrative of American history is blighted with errors and oversights—after all, history books were written by white men with their perspectives at the forefront. It could even be said that the devaluation and erasure of the Black experience is as American as apple pie. In Black AF History, Michael Harriot presents a more accurate version of American history.
-
-
LOVE It!
- By KMB on 09-29-23
By: Michael Harriot
-
The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy
- And the Path to a Shared American Future
- By: Robert P. Jones
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beginning with contemporary efforts to reckon with the legacy of white supremacy in America, Jones returns to the fateful year when a little-known church doctrine emerged that shaped the way five centuries of European Christians would understand the “discovered” world and the people who populated it. From this vantage point, Jones illuminates how the enslavement of Africans was not America’s original sin but, rather, the continuation of acts of genocide and dispossession flowing from the first European contact with Native Americans.
-
-
The Doctrine of discovery matters to our history
- By Adam Shields on 09-13-23
By: Robert P. Jones
-
Judgment at Tokyo
- World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia
- By: Gary J. Bass
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 31 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the world turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Chiang Kai-shek, and their fellow victors, the question of justice seemed clear: Japan’s militaristic leaders needed to be tried and punished for the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor.
-
-
Biased revisionist history
- By Amazon Customer on 12-31-23
By: Gary J. Bass
-
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
- A Novel
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.
-
-
Multiple Stories Obfuscate Narrative
- By Stephnsea on 08-12-23
By: James McBride
-
Prequel
- An American Fight Against Fascism
- By: Rachel Maddow
- Narrated by: Rachel Maddow
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inspired by her research for the hit podcast Ultra, Rachel Maddow charts the rise of a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has been alive on the far-right edge of our politics for the better part of a century. Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it.
-
-
The fight to keep democracy alive
- By Rex on 10-19-23
By: Rachel Maddow
-
Enough
- By: Cassidy Hutchinson
- Narrated by: Cassidy Hutchinson
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ever since a childhood visit to Washington, DC, Cassidy Hutchinson aspired to serve her country in government. Raised in a working-class family with a military background, she was the first in her immediate family to graduate from college. Despite having no ties to Washington, Hutchinson landed a vital position at the center of the Trump White House.
-
-
Painful
- By Melissa C. on 09-28-23
-
King: A Life
- By: Jonathan Eig
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig’s King: A Life is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.—and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself.
-
-
My Time
- By Susan on 06-18-23
By: Jonathan Eig
-
An Amerikan Family
- The Shakurs and the Nation They Created
- By: Santi Elijah Holley
- Narrated by: Adam Lazarre-White
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For over fifty years, the Shakurs have inspired generations of activists, scholars, and music fans. Many people are only familiar with Assata Shakur, the popular author and thinker, living for three decades in Cuban exile; or the late rapper Tupac. But the branches of the Shakur family tree extend widely, and the roots reach into the most furtive and hidden depths of the underground. Whether founding one of the most notorious Black Panther chapters in the country, spearheading community-based healthcare, or engaging in armed struggle with systemic oppression, the Shakurs were at the forefront.
-
-
Drama, only in Amerika
- By Alday on 12-27-23
-
Necessary Trouble
- Growing Up at Midcentury
- By: Drew Gilpin Faust
- Narrated by: Drew Gilpin Faust
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To grow up in the 1950s was to enter a world of polarized national alliances, nuclear threat, and destabilized social hierarchies. To be a privileged white girl in conservative, segregated Virginia was to be expected to adopt a willful blindness to the inequities of race and the constraints of gender. For young Drew Gilpin Faust, the acceptance of both female subordination and racial privilege proved intolerable and galvanizing. Urged to become “well adjusted" and to fill the role of a poised young lady that her upbringing imposed, she found resistance was the necessary price of survival.
-
-
My Life written by Her.
- By Jacqueline L Larner on 09-03-23
-
I Saw Death Coming
- A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction
- By: Kidada E. Williams
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In I Saw Death Coming, Kidada E. Williams offers a breakthrough account of the much-debated Reconstruction period, transporting listeners into the daily existence of formerly enslaved people building hope-filled new lives.
-
-
Underrepresented piece of history
- By James O'Hanlon on 07-05-23
-
Built from the Fire
- The Epic Story of Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street; One Hundred Years in the Neighborhood That Refused to Be Erased
- By: Victor Luckerson
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 19 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Ed Goodwin moved with his parents to the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, his family joined a community soon to become the center of black life in the West. But just a few years later, on May 31, 1921, the teenaged Ed hid in a bathtub as a white mob descended on his neighborhood, laying waste to thirty-five blocks and murdering as many as three hundred people in one of the worst acts of racist violence in U.S. history. The Goodwins and their neighbors soon rebuilt the district into “a Mecca,” in Ed’s words, where nightlife thrived and small businesses flourished. E
-
-
Brilliant and Moving
- By Peter Riley on 07-24-23
By: Victor Luckerson
-
Black Folk
- The Roots of the Black Working Class
- By: Blair L.M. Kelley
- Narrated by: Anika Noni Rose
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There have been countless books, articles, and televised reports in recent years about the almost mythic "white working class," a tide of commentary that has obscured the labor, and even the very existence, of entire groups of working people, including everyday Black workers. In this brilliant corrective, Black Folk, acclaimed historian Blair LM Kelley restores the Black working class to the center of the American story.
-
-
Brilliant, Devastating, Inspiring
- By Philana Payton on 04-10-24
-
The Coming
- By: Daniel Black
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lyrical, poetic, and hypnotizing, The Coming tells the story of a people's capture and sojourn from their homeland across the Middle Passage - a traumatic trip that exposed the strength and resolve of the African spirit. Extreme conditions produce extraordinary insight, and only after being stripped of everything do they discover the unspeakable beauty they once took for granted. This powerful, haunting novel will shake listeners to their very souls.
-
-
A Necessary and Disturbing Read
- By P. E. Hall on 08-06-18
By: Daniel Black
-
Up Home
- One Girl's Journey
- By: Ruth J. Simmons
- Narrated by: Ruth J. Simmons
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in 1945, Ruth J. Simmons grew up the twelfth child of sharecroppers. Her first home had no running water, no electricity, no books to read. Yet despite this—or, in her words, because of it—Simmons would become the first Black president of an Ivy League university. The former president of Smith College, Brown University, and Prairie View A&M, Texas’s oldest HBCU, Simmons has inspired generations of students as she herself made history.
-
-
Beautiful narrative
- By Jesse Saucedo on 07-08-24
By: Ruth J. Simmons
-
Anansi's Gold
- The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World
- By: Yepoka Yeebo
- Narrated by: Jude Owusu
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Ghana achieved independence from Britain in 1957, it instantly became a target for home-grown opportunists and rapacious Western interests determined to claim whatever assets colonialism hadn’t already stripped. A CIA-funded military junta ousted the new nation’s inspiring president, Kwame Nkrumah, then falsely accused him of hiding the country’s gold overseas. Into this big lie stepped one of history’s most charismatic scammers, a con man to rival the trickster god Anansi.
-
-
Great story on how the world works
- By Godfred Yemofio on 02-09-24
By: Yepoka Yeebo
-
Ebony and Ivy
- Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities
- By: Craig Steven Wilder
- Narrated by: Corey Allen
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A 2006 report commissioned by Brown University revealed that institution's complex and contested involvement in slavery - setting off a controversy that leapt from the ivory tower to make headlines across the country. But Brown's troubling past was far from unique. In Ebony and Ivy, Craig Steven Wilder, a rising star in the profession of history, lays bare uncomfortable truths about race, slavery, and the American academy.
-
-
Detailed chronicle of ed & Slavery's entwinement
- By Scott on 07-23-16
-
American Whitelash
- A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress
- By: Wesley Lowery
- Narrated by: Wesley Lowery
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In American Whitelash, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and best-selling author Wesley Lowery charts the return of this blood-stained trend, showing how the forces of white power retaliated against Obama’s victory—and both profited from, and helped to propel, the rise of Donald Trump. Interweaving deep historical analysis with gripping firsthand reporting on both victims and perpetrators of violence, Lowery uncovers how this vicious cycle is carrying us into ever more perilous territory, how the federal government has failed to intervene, and how we still might find a route of escape.
-
-
I hate that our country is this way
- By Cullen on 07-22-23
By: Wesley Lowery
-
Girls and Their Monsters
- The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America
- By: Audrey Clare Farley
- Narrated by: Kate Udall
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1954, researchers at the newly formed National Institute of Mental Health set out to study the genetics of schizophrenia. When they got word that four 24-year-old identical quadruplets in Lansing, Michigan, had all been diagnosed with the mental illness, they could hardly believe their ears. Here was incontrovertible proof of hereditary transmission and, thus, a chance to bring international fame to their fledgling institution.
-
-
A writer with an agenda
- By Pink Amy on 06-23-23
Critic reviews
“No single work of history can remedy the vexing issue of repair for slavery in America, but The 272 advances the conversation and challenges the collective conscience; without knowing this history in its complexity we are left with only raw, uncharted memory.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A brilliant blend of history and journalism, this book unearths the story of the enslaved people whose labor benefited the Catholic Church—and what happened when their descendants sought answers.”—People
“Swarns is a gifted writer and storyteller. But The 272 succeeds not only in its telling of a tragic story. [She] centers the experiences of enslaved people owned by the Jesuits for nearly two centuries who remained largely unnamed and unknown until now.”—The Washington Post
Related to this topic
-
The Ledger and the Chain
- How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America
- By: Joshua D. Rothman
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Slave traders are peripheral figures in most histories of American slavery. But these men - who trafficked and sold over half a million enslaved people from the Upper South to the Deep South - were essential to slavery's expansion and fueled the growth and prosperity of the United States. In The Ledger and the Chain, acclaimed historian Joshua D. Rothman recounts the shocking story of the domestic slave trade by tracing the lives and careers of Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard, who built the largest and most powerful slave-trading operation in American history.
-
-
This is a Historical Study! And a Great Read
- By BookwormHLH on 08-15-22
-
Dreams of Africa in Alabama
- The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America
- By: Sylviane A. Diouf
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1860, more than 50 years after the United States legally abolished the international slave trade, 110 men, women, and children from Benin and Nigeria were brought ashore in Alabama under cover of night. They were the last recorded group of Africans deported to the United States as slaves. This book reconstructs the lives of the people in West Africa, recounts their capture and passage in the slave pen in Ouidah, and describes their experience of slavery alongside American-born enslaved men and women.
-
-
Should be required reading in all schools.
- By Anonymous User on 12-31-21
-
She Came to Slay
- The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman
- By: Erica Armstrong Dunbar
- Narrated by: Robin Miles, with Erica Armstrong Dunbar
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harriet Tubman is best known as one of the most famous conductors on the Underground Railroad. As a leading abolitionist, her bravery and selflessness has inspired generations in the continuing struggle for civil rights. Now, National Book Award nominee Erica Armstrong Dunbar presents a fresh take on this American icon blending traditional biography and engaging sidebars that illuminate the life of Tubman as never before.
-
-
Magnificent!
- By Maurice Wilson on 01-25-20
-
The Road to Dawn: Josiah Henson and the Story That Sparked the Civil War
- By: Jared A. Brock
- Narrated by: Ryan Vincent Anderson
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This sweeping biography about the man who was the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is an epic tale of courage and bravery in the face of unimaginable trials. The Road to Dawn tells the improbable story of Josiah Henson - a dynamic, driven man with exceptional intelligence and unyielding principles, who overcame incredible odds to escape from slavery and improve the lives of hundreds of freedmen throughout his long life. He was immortalized by Harriet Beecher Stowe in her 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.
-
-
Great book and very informative
- By plcd22 on 07-04-18
By: Jared A. Brock
-
The Devil's Half Acre
- The Untold Story of How One Woman Liberated the South's Most Notorious Slave Jail
- By: Kristen Green
- Narrated by: Deanna Anthony
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Kristen Green draws on years of research to tell the extraordinary and little-known story of young Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who blazed a path of liberation for thousands. She was forced to have the children of a brutal slave trader and live on the premises of his slave jail, known as the “Devil’s Half Acre”. When she inherited the jail after the death of her slaveholder, she transformed it into “God’s Half Acre”, a school where Black men could fulfill their dreams.
-
-
Preachy
- By Elizabeth Combs on 09-13-22
By: Kristen Green
-
Harriet Tubman
- The Road to Freedom
- By: Catherine Clinton
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Celebrated for her courageous exploits as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman has entered history as one of 19th-century America's most enduring and important figures. But just who was this remarkable woman?
-
-
Returning this book
- By KMS on 07-11-18
-
The Ledger and the Chain
- How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America
- By: Joshua D. Rothman
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Slave traders are peripheral figures in most histories of American slavery. But these men - who trafficked and sold over half a million enslaved people from the Upper South to the Deep South - were essential to slavery's expansion and fueled the growth and prosperity of the United States. In The Ledger and the Chain, acclaimed historian Joshua D. Rothman recounts the shocking story of the domestic slave trade by tracing the lives and careers of Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard, who built the largest and most powerful slave-trading operation in American history.
-
-
This is a Historical Study! And a Great Read
- By BookwormHLH on 08-15-22
-
Dreams of Africa in Alabama
- The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America
- By: Sylviane A. Diouf
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1860, more than 50 years after the United States legally abolished the international slave trade, 110 men, women, and children from Benin and Nigeria were brought ashore in Alabama under cover of night. They were the last recorded group of Africans deported to the United States as slaves. This book reconstructs the lives of the people in West Africa, recounts their capture and passage in the slave pen in Ouidah, and describes their experience of slavery alongside American-born enslaved men and women.
-
-
Should be required reading in all schools.
- By Anonymous User on 12-31-21
-
She Came to Slay
- The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman
- By: Erica Armstrong Dunbar
- Narrated by: Robin Miles, with Erica Armstrong Dunbar
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harriet Tubman is best known as one of the most famous conductors on the Underground Railroad. As a leading abolitionist, her bravery and selflessness has inspired generations in the continuing struggle for civil rights. Now, National Book Award nominee Erica Armstrong Dunbar presents a fresh take on this American icon blending traditional biography and engaging sidebars that illuminate the life of Tubman as never before.
-
-
Magnificent!
- By Maurice Wilson on 01-25-20
-
The Road to Dawn: Josiah Henson and the Story That Sparked the Civil War
- By: Jared A. Brock
- Narrated by: Ryan Vincent Anderson
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This sweeping biography about the man who was the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is an epic tale of courage and bravery in the face of unimaginable trials. The Road to Dawn tells the improbable story of Josiah Henson - a dynamic, driven man with exceptional intelligence and unyielding principles, who overcame incredible odds to escape from slavery and improve the lives of hundreds of freedmen throughout his long life. He was immortalized by Harriet Beecher Stowe in her 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.
-
-
Great book and very informative
- By plcd22 on 07-04-18
By: Jared A. Brock
-
The Devil's Half Acre
- The Untold Story of How One Woman Liberated the South's Most Notorious Slave Jail
- By: Kristen Green
- Narrated by: Deanna Anthony
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Kristen Green draws on years of research to tell the extraordinary and little-known story of young Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who blazed a path of liberation for thousands. She was forced to have the children of a brutal slave trader and live on the premises of his slave jail, known as the “Devil’s Half Acre”. When she inherited the jail after the death of her slaveholder, she transformed it into “God’s Half Acre”, a school where Black men could fulfill their dreams.
-
-
Preachy
- By Elizabeth Combs on 09-13-22
By: Kristen Green
-
Harriet Tubman
- The Road to Freedom
- By: Catherine Clinton
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Celebrated for her courageous exploits as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman has entered history as one of 19th-century America's most enduring and important figures. But just who was this remarkable woman?
-
-
Returning this book
- By KMS on 07-11-18
-
Bound for Canaan
- The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement
- By: Fergus Bordewich
- Narrated by: Peter J. Fernandez
- Length: 19 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Civil War brought to a climax the country's bitter division. But the beginnings of slavery's denouement can be traced to a courageous band of ordinary Americans, black and white, slave and free, who joined forces to create what would come to be known as the Underground Railroad, a movement that occupies as romantic a place in the nation's imagination as the Lewis and Clark expedition.
-
-
The Heroic Missing Piece
- By Paul Frandano on 03-03-17
By: Fergus Bordewich
-
An Imperfect God
- George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America
- By: Henry Wiencek
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Washington was born and raised among Blacks and mixed-race people; he and his wife had blood ties to the slave community. Yet as a young man he bought and sold slaves without scruple, even raffled off children to collect debts (an incident ignored by earlier biographers). Then, on the Revolutionary battlefields where he commanded both Black and White troops, Washington's attitudes began to change.
-
-
Excellent handling of one part of Wahington's life
- By buffaloboy on 05-20-04
By: Henry Wiencek
-
Sweet Taste of Liberty
- A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America
- By: W. Caleb McDaniel
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born into slavery, Henrietta Wood was taken to Cincinnati and legally freed in 1848. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward colluded with Wood's employer, abducted her, and sold her back into bondage. She remained enslaved throughout the Civil War, giving birth to a son in Mississippi and never forgetting who had put her in this position. By 1869, Wood had obtained her freedom for a second time and returned to Cincinnati, where she sued Ward for damages in 1870. Astonishingly, after eight years of litigation, Wood won her case: In 1878, a Federal jury awarded her $2,500.
-
-
insightful and educational
- By Mark W. on 06-29-20
-
Ebony and Ivy
- Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities
- By: Craig Steven Wilder
- Narrated by: Corey Allen
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A 2006 report commissioned by Brown University revealed that institution's complex and contested involvement in slavery - setting off a controversy that leapt from the ivory tower to make headlines across the country. But Brown's troubling past was far from unique. In Ebony and Ivy, Craig Steven Wilder, a rising star in the profession of history, lays bare uncomfortable truths about race, slavery, and the American academy.
-
-
Detailed chronicle of ed & Slavery's entwinement
- By Scott on 07-23-16
-
Stolen
- The Astonishing Odyssey of Five Boys Along the Reverse Underground Railroad
- By: Richard Bell
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Philadelphia, 1825: Five young, free Black boys fall into the clutches of the most fearsome gang of kidnappers and slavers in the US. Lured onto a small ship with the promise of food and pay, they are instead met with blindfolds, ropes, and knives. Over four long months, their kidnappers drive them overland into the Cotton Kingdom to be sold as slaves. Determined to resist, the boys form a tight brotherhood as they struggle to free themselves and find their way home.
-
-
Should have been a fact based novel
- By Cate F. on 01-11-21
By: Richard Bell
-
The American Slave Coast
- A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry
- By: Ned Sublette, Constance Sublette
- Narrated by: Robin Eller
- Length: 30 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The American Slave Coast tells the horrific story of how the slavery business in the United States made the reproductive labor of "breeding women" essential to the expansion of the nation. The book shows how slaves' children, and their children's children, were human savings accounts that were the basis of money and credit. This was so deeply embedded in the economy of the slave states that it could be decommissioned only by emancipation, achieved through the bloodiest war in the history of the United States.
-
-
Get "The Half Has Never Been Told" instead!
- By Ary Shalizi on 11-28-16
By: Ned Sublette, and others
-
The Bone and Sinew of the Land
- By: Anna-Lisa Cox
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Starting in our nation's earliest years, thousands of free African Americans were building hundreds of settlements in the Northwest Territory, a territory that banned slavery and gave equal voting rights to all men. This groundbreaking work of research reveals the lost history of the nation's first Great Migration. Though forgotten today, these pioneers were a matter of national importance at the time; their mere existence leading to fierce political movements and battles that tore families and communities apart long before the Civil War erupted.
-
-
A must read for all!
- By Linda on 05-14-19
By: Anna-Lisa Cox
-
Sugar in the Blood
- A Family's Story of Slavery and Empire
- By: Andrea Stuart
- Narrated by: Lisa Reneé Pitts
- Length: 14 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the late 1630s, lured by the promise of the New World, Andrea Stuart's earliest known maternal ancestor, George Ashby, set sail from England to settle in Barbados. He fell into the life of a sugar plantation owner by mere chance, but by the time he harvested his first crop, a revolution was fully under way, binding together ambitious White entrepreneurs and enslaved Black workers in a strangling embrace....
-
-
A sweet, historical gem
- By Adrian on 06-29-13
By: Andrea Stuart
-
Bury the Chains
- Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves
- By: Adam Hochschild
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In early 1787, 12 men - a printer, a lawyer, a clergyman, and others united by their hatred of slavery - came together in a London printing shop and began a remarkable grass-roots movement, battling for the rights of people on another continent. Masterfully stoking public opinion, the movement's leaders pioneered a variety of techniques that have been adopted by citizens' movements ever since, from consumer boycotts to wall posters and lapel buttons to celebrity endorsements.
-
-
Great Eye-Opener
- By Carl Thompson on 01-06-19
By: Adam Hochschild
-
Dawn of Detroit
- A Chronicle of Bondage and Freedom in the City of the Straits
- By: Tiya Miles
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most Americans believe that slavery was a creature of the South, and that Northern states and territories provided stops on the Underground Railroad for fugitive slaves on their way to Canada. In this paradigm-shifting book, celebrated historian Tiya Miles reveals that slavery was at the heart of the Midwest's iconic city: Detroit. In this richly researched and eye-opening book, Miles has pieced together the experience of the unfree - both native and African American - in the frontier outpost of Detroit.
-
-
Great!
- By Melissa Eisner on 05-30-18
By: Tiya Miles
-
Master Slave Husband Wife
- An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom
- By: Ilyon Woo
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Leon Nixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.
-
-
Necessary story well told!
- By Marc W Rhoades on 01-19-23
By: Ilyon Woo
-
Liberty's Exiles
- American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World
- By: Maya Jasanoff
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 16 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maya Jasanoff won the National Book Critics Circle Award for her groundbreaking work Liberty's Exiles. After the American Revolution, 60,000 British loyalists fled the U.S. for Canada, the Caribbean, India, and other points abroad. Jasanoff traces their harrowing journeys across the globe, shedding light on their ambitions, the post-revolutionary world they encountered, and their legacies.
-
-
Staggering in its Breadth
- By Anders P Morley on 02-21-21
By: Maya Jasanoff
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The House Where My Soul Lives
- The Life of Margaret Walker
- By: Maryemma Graham
- Narrated by: Kelechi Ezie
- Length: 33 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This first complete biography of poet and writer Margaret Walker (1915-98) offers a comprehensive close reading of a pillar in American culture for a majority of the 20th century. Without defining herself as a radical or even a feminist, Walker followed the precepts of both. She was an artist of tradition and social change, a public intellectual and institution builder. Among the first to recognize the impact of black women in literature, Walker became a chief architect of what many have called the new Black South Renaissance.
By: Maryemma Graham
-
My People
- Five Decades of Writing About Black Lives
- By: Charlayne Hunter-Gault
- Narrated by: Charlayne Hunter-Gault
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At just nineteen years old, Charlayne Hunter-Gault made national news after she had mounted a successful legal challenge that culminated in her admission to the University of Georgia in January 1961—making her one of the first two Black students to integrate the institution. As an adult, Charlayne switched from being the subject of news to covering it, becoming one of its most recognized and acclaimed interpreters.
-
Black Folk
- The Roots of the Black Working Class
- By: Blair L.M. Kelley
- Narrated by: Anika Noni Rose
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There have been countless books, articles, and televised reports in recent years about the almost mythic "white working class," a tide of commentary that has obscured the labor, and even the very existence, of entire groups of working people, including everyday Black workers. In this brilliant corrective, Black Folk, acclaimed historian Blair LM Kelley restores the Black working class to the center of the American story.
-
-
Brilliant, Devastating, Inspiring
- By Philana Payton on 04-10-24
-
The Survivors of the Clotilda
- The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the American Slave Trade
- By: Hannah Durkin
- Narrated by: Tariye Peterside
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on American soil, docked in Mobile Bay, Alabama, in July 1860—more than half a century after the passage of a federal law banning the importation of captive Africans, and nine months before the beginning of the Civil War. The last of its survivors lived well into the twentieth century. They were the last witnesses to the final act of a terrible and significant period in world history. In this epic work, Dr. Hannah Durkin tells the stories of the Clotilda’s 110 captives, drawing on her intensive archival, historical, and sociological research.
-
-
Great reader!
- By Robin E Moore on 07-07-24
By: Hannah Durkin
-
Isn't Her Grace Amazing!
- The Women Who Changed Gospel Music
- By: Cheryl Wills
- Narrated by: Tracey Leigh
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nothing in the world soothes the soul better than Gospel music. From the foot-stomping, hand-clapping melodies of yesterday to the head-bobbing, bass-thumping hits of today, Gospel music ignites the spirit and delivers the inspiration that takes us from the rough side of the mountain to the peak of God’s love and grace. That feeling of joy, peace, love, and contentment is amplified when it’s ringing through the voice of a sister who can SANG, Cheryl Wills reminds us.
By: Cheryl Wills
-
Built from the Fire
- The Epic Story of Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street; One Hundred Years in the Neighborhood That Refused to Be Erased
- By: Victor Luckerson
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 19 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Ed Goodwin moved with his parents to the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, his family joined a community soon to become the center of black life in the West. But just a few years later, on May 31, 1921, the teenaged Ed hid in a bathtub as a white mob descended on his neighborhood, laying waste to thirty-five blocks and murdering as many as three hundred people in one of the worst acts of racist violence in U.S. history. The Goodwins and their neighbors soon rebuilt the district into “a Mecca,” in Ed’s words, where nightlife thrived and small businesses flourished. E
-
-
Brilliant and Moving
- By Peter Riley on 07-24-23
By: Victor Luckerson
-
The House Where My Soul Lives
- The Life of Margaret Walker
- By: Maryemma Graham
- Narrated by: Kelechi Ezie
- Length: 33 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This first complete biography of poet and writer Margaret Walker (1915-98) offers a comprehensive close reading of a pillar in American culture for a majority of the 20th century. Without defining herself as a radical or even a feminist, Walker followed the precepts of both. She was an artist of tradition and social change, a public intellectual and institution builder. Among the first to recognize the impact of black women in literature, Walker became a chief architect of what many have called the new Black South Renaissance.
By: Maryemma Graham
-
My People
- Five Decades of Writing About Black Lives
- By: Charlayne Hunter-Gault
- Narrated by: Charlayne Hunter-Gault
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At just nineteen years old, Charlayne Hunter-Gault made national news after she had mounted a successful legal challenge that culminated in her admission to the University of Georgia in January 1961—making her one of the first two Black students to integrate the institution. As an adult, Charlayne switched from being the subject of news to covering it, becoming one of its most recognized and acclaimed interpreters.
-
Black Folk
- The Roots of the Black Working Class
- By: Blair L.M. Kelley
- Narrated by: Anika Noni Rose
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There have been countless books, articles, and televised reports in recent years about the almost mythic "white working class," a tide of commentary that has obscured the labor, and even the very existence, of entire groups of working people, including everyday Black workers. In this brilliant corrective, Black Folk, acclaimed historian Blair LM Kelley restores the Black working class to the center of the American story.
-
-
Brilliant, Devastating, Inspiring
- By Philana Payton on 04-10-24
-
The Survivors of the Clotilda
- The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the American Slave Trade
- By: Hannah Durkin
- Narrated by: Tariye Peterside
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on American soil, docked in Mobile Bay, Alabama, in July 1860—more than half a century after the passage of a federal law banning the importation of captive Africans, and nine months before the beginning of the Civil War. The last of its survivors lived well into the twentieth century. They were the last witnesses to the final act of a terrible and significant period in world history. In this epic work, Dr. Hannah Durkin tells the stories of the Clotilda’s 110 captives, drawing on her intensive archival, historical, and sociological research.
-
-
Great reader!
- By Robin E Moore on 07-07-24
By: Hannah Durkin
-
Isn't Her Grace Amazing!
- The Women Who Changed Gospel Music
- By: Cheryl Wills
- Narrated by: Tracey Leigh
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nothing in the world soothes the soul better than Gospel music. From the foot-stomping, hand-clapping melodies of yesterday to the head-bobbing, bass-thumping hits of today, Gospel music ignites the spirit and delivers the inspiration that takes us from the rough side of the mountain to the peak of God’s love and grace. That feeling of joy, peace, love, and contentment is amplified when it’s ringing through the voice of a sister who can SANG, Cheryl Wills reminds us.
By: Cheryl Wills
-
Built from the Fire
- The Epic Story of Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street; One Hundred Years in the Neighborhood That Refused to Be Erased
- By: Victor Luckerson
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 19 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Ed Goodwin moved with his parents to the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, his family joined a community soon to become the center of black life in the West. But just a few years later, on May 31, 1921, the teenaged Ed hid in a bathtub as a white mob descended on his neighborhood, laying waste to thirty-five blocks and murdering as many as three hundred people in one of the worst acts of racist violence in U.S. history. The Goodwins and their neighbors soon rebuilt the district into “a Mecca,” in Ed’s words, where nightlife thrived and small businesses flourished. E
-
-
Brilliant and Moving
- By Peter Riley on 07-24-23
By: Victor Luckerson
-
Ebony and Ivy
- Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities
- By: Craig Steven Wilder
- Narrated by: Corey Allen
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A 2006 report commissioned by Brown University revealed that institution's complex and contested involvement in slavery - setting off a controversy that leapt from the ivory tower to make headlines across the country. But Brown's troubling past was far from unique. In Ebony and Ivy, Craig Steven Wilder, a rising star in the profession of history, lays bare uncomfortable truths about race, slavery, and the American academy.
-
-
Detailed chronicle of ed & Slavery's entwinement
- By Scott on 07-23-16
-
Madness
- Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum
- By: Antonia Hylton
- Narrated by: Antonia Hylton
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a cold day in March of 1911, officials marched twelve Black men into the heart of a forest in Maryland. Under the supervision of a doctor, the men were forced to clear the land, pour cement, lay bricks, and harvest tobacco. When construction finished, they became the first twelve patients of the state’s Hospital for the Negro Insane. For centuries, Black patients have been absent from our history books. Madness transports listeners behind the brick walls of a Jim Crow asylum. In Madness, journalist Antonia Hylton tells the 93-year-old history of Crownsville Hospital.
-
-
Glad to have added this to my cerebral quarters
- By Alednam A Uonopk on 04-25-24
By: Antonia Hylton
-
Pivot and Pursue It
- An inspirational intensive to jumpstart your reinvention.
- By: Coach Pamela Mitchell
- Narrated by: Coach Pamela Mitchell
- Length: 1 hr and 26 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Do you have a dream sitting on a shelf that you're ready to bring to life? Or maybe you've begun your journey of change but feel stuck, stalled, and uncertain about what to do next. The time has come for you to create your own path—not follow the one presented to you—and you could use a powerful dose of guidance to get you there. This is exactly where you need to be. In Pivot and Pursue It, reinvention expert Coach Pamela Mitchell delivers 90 minutes of concrete advice on how to envision your next destination and then get there.
-
-
Excellent
- By Corrie on 09-24-22
-
The American Queen
- By: Vanessa Miller
- Narrated by: Angel Pean
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Transformative and honest, The American Queen is based on actual events that occurred between 1865 - 1889 and shares the unsung history of a Black woman who built a kingdom in Appalachia as a refuge for the courageous people who dared to dream of a different way of life. Over the twenty-four years she was enslaved on the Montgomery Plantation, Louella learned to feel one thing: hate. Hate for the man who sold her mother. Hate for the overseer who left her daddy to hang from a noose. Hate so powerful there's no room in her heart for love, not even for the honorable Reverend William.
-
-
The life of the Queen
- By R. Dameron on 03-26-24
By: Vanessa Miller
-
The Door to Tamba
- A Short Story
- By: Ishmael Beah
- Narrated by: Maduka Steady
- Length: 51 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning author and human rights activist Ishmael Beah brings us The Door to Tamba, a powerful story centered on a mining village in West Africa where the destruction of earth and pollution of life impacts the mind, body, and soul of communities. Hindolo, a storyteller, returns to his hometown after 30 years and recalls the solitary and formidable old man who opened his home to him and introduced a world of literature and imagination, which for many years, was his only escape. Hindolo begins writing the stories down on paper stolen from a nearby mine to share with his classmates.
-
-
Excellent
- By Tereza Jenkins on 02-04-24
By: Ishmael Beah
-
Fear of Black Consciousness
- By: Lewis R. Gordon
- Narrated by: Landon Woodson, Lewis R. Gordon
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this original and penetrating audiobook, Lewis R. Gordon, one of the leading scholars of Black existentialism and anti-Blackness, takes the listener on a journey through the historical development of racialized Blackness, the problems this kind of consciousness produces, and the many creative responses from Black and non-Black communities in contemporary struggles for dignity and freedom. Skillfully navigating a difficult and traumatic terrain, Gordon cuts through the mist of White narcissism and the versions of consciousness it perpetuates.
-
-
take the time slow down and understand this piece
- By Alday on 02-22-24
By: Lewis R. Gordon
-
Up Home
- One Girl's Journey
- By: Ruth J. Simmons
- Narrated by: Ruth J. Simmons
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in 1945, Ruth J. Simmons grew up the twelfth child of sharecroppers. Her first home had no running water, no electricity, no books to read. Yet despite this—or, in her words, because of it—Simmons would become the first Black president of an Ivy League university. The former president of Smith College, Brown University, and Prairie View A&M, Texas’s oldest HBCU, Simmons has inspired generations of students as she herself made history.
-
-
Beautiful narrative
- By Jesse Saucedo on 07-08-24
By: Ruth J. Simmons
-
When Crack Was King
- A People's History of a Misunderstood Era
- By: Donovan X. Ramsey
- Narrated by: Donovan X. Ramsey
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s is arguably the least examined crisis in American history. Beginning with the myths inspired by Reagan’s war on drugs, journalist Donovan X. Ramsey’s exacting analysis traces the path from the last triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement to the devastating realities we live with today: a racist criminal justice system, continued mass incarceration and gentrification, and increased police brutality.
-
-
Done by Design
- By Roberta S. White on 04-01-24
-
Our Secret Society
- Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement
- By: Tanisha Ford
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An engrossing social history and memoir of the unsinkable Mollie Moon, the stylish founder of the National Urban League Guild and fundraiser extraordinaire who reigned over the glittering "Beaux Arts Ball,” the social event of New York and Harlem society for fifty years—a glamorous event rivalling today’s Met Gala, drawing America’s wealthy and cultured, both Black and white.
-
-
Inside Pool --Behind the Struggle
- By JRR on 10-13-24
By: Tanisha Ford
-
Battle of Ink and Ice
- A Sensational Story of News Barons, North Pole Explorers, and the Making of Modern Media
- By: Darrell Hartman
- Narrated by: Mack Sanderson
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the fall of 1909, a pair of bitter contests captured the world’s attention. The American explorers Robert Peary and Frederick Cook both claimed to have discovered the North Pole, sparking a vicious feud that was unprecedented in international scientific and geographic circles. At the same time, the rivalry between two powerful New York City newspapers—the storied Herald and the ascendant Times—fanned the flames of the so-called polar controversy, as each paper financially and reputationally committed itself to an opposing explorer and fought desperately to defend him.
-
-
Entangled History
- By Bryon Christensen on 05-20-24
By: Darrell Hartman
-
Nightbloom
- By: Peace Adzo Medie
- Narrated by: Jessica Sarkodie, Ekua Ekumah, Sarah Dorgbadzi
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Selasi and Akorfa were young girls in Ghana, they were more than just cousins; they were inseparable. Selasi was exuberant and funny, Akorfa quiet and studious. They would do anything for each other, imploring their parents to let them be together, sharing their secrets and desires and private jokes. Then Selasi begins to change, becoming hostile and quiet; her grades suffer; she builds a space around herself, shutting Akorfa out.
-
-
Unique but universal
- By Carly on 09-04-23
By: Peace Adzo Medie
-
Soul by Soul
- Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market
- By: Walter Johnson
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Soul by Soul tells the story of slavery in antebellum America by moving away from the cotton plantations and into the slave market itself, the heart of the domestic slave trade. Taking us inside the New Orleans slave market, the largest in the nation, where 100,000 men, women, and children were packaged, priced, and sold, Walter Johnson transforms the statistics of this chilling trade into the human drama of traders, buyers, and slaves, negotiating sales that would alter the life of each.
-
-
Heartbreaking
- By Cathy Bown on 07-30-21
By: Walter Johnson
What listeners say about The 272
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Collis
- 03-23-24
Details!
The details and research done to give a 360* look at this is beyond impressive and appreciated.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael S. Henderson
- 09-06-23
Hard, but absolutely worthwhile.
A meticulously researched, personal and illuminating read. If it’s not grueling at times you may have a missing piece but it’s worth it, beginning to end. Not recommended if you for some reason still have, or would like to keep, any love for the Catholic Church.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jeremy Prater
- 07-17-23
Thanks for the Journey "Back to the Future"
This history is a personal account of what my family (Patrick & Letty Blacklock-Hawkins (along with son Jackson 'Jack' Hawkins; Gabriel & Adelphia 'Delphy' West-Butler; Isaac Hawkins; and Ignatius 'Nace' and Bibianna 'Biby' Mahoney-Butler) endured during their enslaved by the Jesuits!
Love, love, the extensive history accounts. It's a stack of receipts so high there is NO WAY one can remain "sleep". The case for #WOKE
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- KH79
- 03-19-24
I am blown away....
This was a history lesson and possibly a genealogy lesson as well. As an African American Roman Catholic with roots dating back to Maryland around 1775...and a great aunt who was a Roman Catholic Nun in Maryland....I am floored by this book. My family names are Hawkins, Brown, and Butler.....I will be listening to this book again, taking notes, and hitting Ancestory.com for more information. The Church we love so much played part in the destruction of black families through slavery. This book was mind blowing.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- steve
- 08-16-23
Excellent book
Narration was well done
This story is well worth your time. The details and writing make the families come alive. The Jesuits should be ashamed. The families are classy and great people
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Valerie
- 04-26-24
very interesting
I learned so much from this book about Catholics and Salvery. It makes you think about other families and their story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Freeman Fridie Jr.
- 08-16-23
Well Done
This is my favorite type of history. History that helps to fill in all the things that were intentionally left out of our history classes as children.
This is an engaging, informative read from the perspective of the enslaved families that were destroyed and sold off to save a Jesuit school.
The narration by Karen Murray is lovely; I could listen to her all day.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 04-05-24
Jesuit accountability
This wonderfully detailed book compels both national and more specifically Jesuit accountability. The church must confess and atone not in ways that are self-suiting but in ways that suit the people they oppressed.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- NW P
- 06-16-23
Not surprising…
…but fundamentally disappointing in the Jesuit response to several hundred years of abuse and enslavement, I have long embraced Catholic education as a Protestant. But the long-standing denial by the church is disheartening. It, at the moment, makes me feel deceived and disappointed…if only in my naivety. I shall not immediately disclose my shattering revelation to my two sons who currently believe in the catholic education system and values as they makes decisions about the education of their children.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mike
- 04-02-24
The scholarship and attention to detail.
This book demonstrates what can be done when people decide to do something about the harm their ancestors caused and perpetuated. Coming face to face with the wrongs done to generations took courage. I am grateful for that. So much more needs to be said and done. America has great wealth, and I am hope it will pay attention and accept its larger role in slavery. This is a very good beginning !
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!