The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White
Sep 2020 · Macmillan + ORM
Ebook
599
Pages
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Eligible
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About this ebook
This “lovingly detailed history” chronicles the largest slaveholding family in the Old South, as its descendants—white and Black—grapple with its legacy (The Dallas Morning News).
A National Book Critics Circle Award Winner
Spanning two centuries of one family’s history, The Hairstons tells the extraordinary story of the Hairston clan, once the wealthiest family in the Old South and the largest slaveholder in America. With several thousand black and white members, the Hairstons of today share a complex and compelling history: divided in the time of slavery, they have come to embrace their past as one family.
For seven years, journalist Henry Wiencek combed the far-reaching branches of the Hairston family tree to piece together the experiences of both plantation owners and their slaves. Crisscrossing the old plantation country of Virginia, North Carolina, and Mississippi, The Hairstons reconstructs the triumphant rise of the remarkable children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the enslaved as they fought to take their rightful place in mainstream America. It also follows the white descendants through the decline and fall of the Old South, and uncovers the hidden history of slavery’s curse—and how that curse followed slaveholders for generations.
A National Book Critics Circle Award Winner
Spanning two centuries of one family’s history, The Hairstons tells the extraordinary story of the Hairston clan, once the wealthiest family in the Old South and the largest slaveholder in America. With several thousand black and white members, the Hairstons of today share a complex and compelling history: divided in the time of slavery, they have come to embrace their past as one family.
For seven years, journalist Henry Wiencek combed the far-reaching branches of the Hairston family tree to piece together the experiences of both plantation owners and their slaves. Crisscrossing the old plantation country of Virginia, North Carolina, and Mississippi, The Hairstons reconstructs the triumphant rise of the remarkable children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the enslaved as they fought to take their rightful place in mainstream America. It also follows the white descendants through the decline and fall of the Old South, and uncovers the hidden history of slavery’s curse—and how that curse followed slaveholders for generations.
About the author
HenryWiencek, a nationally prominent historian and writer, and a Fellow at Virginia
Humanities, is the author of numerous books, including OldHouses, The Hairstons: An American
Family in Black and White, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves. He has appeared on BookTV, 60MinutesII, CBS SundayMorning, and FreshAirWithTerryGross.
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