matthew mckeon
Guest
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2005
Heather Andrea Williams has written a short, but densely written account about the most heart wrenching aspects of American slavery, the destruction of family by sale or other means. She had been doing research on the crop of African American newspapers that sprung up with the end of the Civil War and was struck, as many others have been, by the poignant personal ads seeking information about lost husbands, wives, parents and children. In Help Me Find My People she studies the sale of children or the sale of parents, then the sale of spouses, the experience of the auction block, the attempts to maintain contact, although separated, finally the search family members after the end of the war.