A01=Tamika Y. Nunley
abolition
African American
antebellum schools
Author_Tamika Y. Nunley
black church
black codes
black girls
black women
black women enterprises
bondwomen
Category=JBS
Category=JBSF1
Category=JHBD
Category=NHK
Category=NHTS
Civil War
D.C.
District of Columbia
emancipation
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Federal City
freedmen's bureau
freedom
fugitives
identity
liberty
nation's capital
prostitution
resistance
runaway
slave law
slave trade
slavery
underground railroad
Union war
Washington
women
Product details
- ISBN 9781469662220
- Weight: 375g
- Dimensions: 195 x 233mm
- Publication Date: 22 Feb 2021
- Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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The capital city of a nation founded on the premise of liberty, nineteenth-century Washington, D.C., was both an entrepot of urban slavery and the target of abolitionist ferment. The growing slave trade and the enactment of Black codes placed the city's Black women within the rigid confines of a social hierarchy ordered by race and gender. At the Threshold of Liberty reveals how these women--enslaved, fugitive, and free--imagined new identities and lives beyond the oppressive restrictions intended to prevent them from ever experiencing liberty, self-respect, and power.
Consulting newspapers, government documents, letters, abolitionist records, legislation, and memoirs, Tamika Y. Nunley traces how Black women navigated social and legal proscriptions to develop their own ideas about liberty as they escaped from slavery, initiated freedom suits, created entrepreneurial economies, pursued education, and participated in political work. In telling these stories, Nunley places Black women at the vanguard of the history of Washington, D.C., and the momentous transformations of nineteenth-century America.
Consulting newspapers, government documents, letters, abolitionist records, legislation, and memoirs, Tamika Y. Nunley traces how Black women navigated social and legal proscriptions to develop their own ideas about liberty as they escaped from slavery, initiated freedom suits, created entrepreneurial economies, pursued education, and participated in political work. In telling these stories, Nunley places Black women at the vanguard of the history of Washington, D.C., and the momentous transformations of nineteenth-century America.
Tamika Y. Nunley is assistant professor of history and comparative American studies at Oberlin College.
