Sweet taste of liberty, a true story of slavery and restitution in America, W. Caleb McDaniel
Type
Label
Sweet taste of liberty, a true story of slavery and restitution in America, W. Caleb McDaniel
Language
eng
resource.accompanyingMatter
technical information on music
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not applicable
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Literary text for sound recordings
historybiography
Main title
Sweet taste of liberty
Music parts
not applicable
Oclc number
1153352093
Responsibility statement
W. Caleb McDaniel
Sub title
a true story of slavery and restitution in America
Summary
The unforgettable saga of one enslaved woman's fight for justice-and reparations 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. More important than the amount, though the largest ever awarded by an American court in restitution for slavery, was the fact that any money was awarded at all. McDaniel's book is an epic tale of a black woman who survived slavery twice and who achieved more than merely a moral victory over one of her oppressors. Above all, Sweet Taste of Liberty is a portrait of an extraordinary individual as well as a searing reminder of the lessons of her story, which establish beyond question the connections between slavery and the prison system that rose in its place
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