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Title details for I Can't Wait to Call You My Wife by Rita Roberts - Available

I Can't Wait to Call You My Wife

African American Letters of Love and Family in the Civil War Era

by Rita Roberts
Robin Miles
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
Against the backdrop of bloody battles and political maneuvering, thousands of African Americans spent the Civil War trying to hold their families together. Whether enslaved or free, they strove not only to survive but also to cultivate bonds of family, friendship, and community. This moving book illuminates that struggle through the letters exchanged by African Americans before, during, and just after the war. Despite harsh laws against literacy and brutal practices that broke apart black families, people found ways to write to each other against all odds. Their letters reveal humanity's ability to endure extraordinary hardship.
In these pages, readers will meet parents who are losing hope of ever seeing their children again and a husband who walks fifteen miles to visit his wife, enslaved on a different plantation. The collection also includes tender courtship letters exchanged between Lewis Henry Douglass and Helen Amelia Loguen, both children of noted abolitionists, and letters sent home by the young women who traveled south to teach literacy to escaped slaves.
The stories in these pages challenge the notion of a monolithic black experience during the Civil War era.
Thanks to Roberts' expert curation, readers may follow the fates of individuals and families while seeing the wider historical context. This book honors long-ignored voices and invites readers to engage viscerally and personally with the black historical experience.
This audiobook includes a special bonus lecture from the author discussing her research into the lived experiences of enslaved and free African-Americans during the U.S. Civil War era.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 30, 2023

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781705097564
      • File size: 336628 KB
      • Duration: 11:41:18

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 31, 2022
      Historian Roberts (Evangelicalism and the Politics of Reform in Northern Black Thought, 1776–1863) spotlights how free and enslaved African Americans “cultivated family amidst a precarious existence” in this illuminating collection of letters. Divided chronologically into the antebellum, Civil War, and postwar periods, each of the book’s three sections opens with an essay offering crucial historical context and background information on the letter writers. A few of the correspondents, including married couple Adam and Emily Plummer, appear in multiple sections, providing a sense of narrative continuity. Enslaved on nearby plantations in Maryland, Adam and Emily saw each other on weekends and managed to keep their family together until 1851, when Emily and three of their children were sold at auction. The collection’s love letters reflect “the resilience of the human spirit in the face of some of the most brutal ways humans can abuse one another,” Roberts writes, while other missives seek to keep tabs on separated family members or document harsh treatment by plantation owners. After the war, correspondents discussed their struggles to find employment and education and their quest for racial equality. Expertly curated and contextualized, these letters simmer with palpable longing and fierce determination. Readers will be riveted. Illus.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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