JUNETEENTH: Summer Reading List
By Kate O'Brien-Nicholson
19th June 2021
Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas with news that the Civil War was over and enslaved people were free. The news was cause for celebration to be sure, although it arrived a full two and a half years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
FUP joins communities around the country to recognize and celebrate Juneteenth, which marks the end of slavery in the United States. To help represent this holiday, we are highlighting books from our Race Collection for summer reading.
SUMMER READING LIST | #ReadUP
“A history of an African-American family, from Yarrow Mamout’s enslaved arrival in North America in 1752, proceeding through Robert Turner Ford’s debut at (residentially segregated) Harvard College in 1923, and beyond. The family was remarkable from the outset: Mamout, freed, was painted by Charles Willson Peale.” ―Harvard Magazine 
” . . . Portray[s] an illuminating, thought-provoking, relatively unusual moment in early American history. ” ―Publishers Weekly 
“Important documents, and painstaking scholarship, become more significant over time. ‘Pretends to Be Free’ was a revelation two decades ago, and it remains one today. The first slave narratives were the ones told by the master class, but they are no less informative for that―especially when collected with such care and contextualized with recent and sympathetic scholarship.”―David Waldstreicher, The Graduate Center, City University of New York 
“A Great Sacrifice strives to explore and explain the impacts of the Civil War on Northern black soldiers and their families… readers will learn more about Northern black Americans in this era thanks to this book’s sweep and to the compelling letters of women who wrote as mothers, wives, sisters, and female family friends.” ―The Journal of American History 
“Vividly imagined, scrupulously researched, and almost disorienting in its authenticity . . . A historical classic . . . Nothing short of splendid.” ―The Philadelphia Inquirer 
“Janet Neary views nineteenth-century slave narratives through the lens of contemporary art. This innovative strategy enables her to bring into focus the visual work of slave narratives and their resistance to the conventions of authentication. This is an important book that demonstrates how literature participates in the concerns of visual culture and how nineteenth-century problems of race and representation persist in the present.” ―Shawn Michelle Smith, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
- The Princeton Fugitive Slave: The Trials of James Collins Johnson: Inniss, Lolita Buckner: 9780823294077: Amazon.com: Books
- Amazon.com: “Pretends to Be Free”: Runaway Slave Advertisements from Colonial and Revolutionary New York and New Jersey (9780823282159): Hodges, Graham Russell Gao, Brown, Alan Edward: Books
- From Slave Ship to Harvard: Yarrow Mamout and the History of an African American Family: Johnston, James H.: 9780823239511: Amazon.com: Books
- A Great Sacrifice: Northern Black Soldiers, Their Families, and the Experience of Civil War (The North’s Civil War): Mendez, James G.: 9780823282494: Amazon.com: Books
- Amazon.com: Fugitive Testimony: On the Visual Logic of Slave Narratives (9780823272907): Neary, Janet: Books