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Biography and Memoir August 2024 |
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Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War
by Edda L. Fields-Black
Most Americans know of Harriet Tubman's legendary life: escaping enslavement in 1849, she led more than 60 others out of bondage via the Underground Railroad, gave instructions on getting to freedom to scores more, and went on to live a lifetime fighting for change. Yet the many biographies, children's books, and films about Tubman omit a crucial chapter: during the Civil War, hired by the Union Army, she ventured into the heart of slave territory- Beaufort, South Carolina- to live, work, and gather intelligence for a daring raid up the Combahee River to attack the major plantations of Rice Country, the breadbasket of the Confederacy. When Tubman and the gunboats arrived and blew their steam whistles, many of those people clambered aboard, sailed to freedom, and were eventually reunited with their families. The able-bodied Black men freed in the Combahee River Raid enlisted in the Second South Carolina Volunteers and fought behind Confederate lines for the freedom of others still enslaved not just in South Carolina but Georgia and Florida.
After the war, many returned to the same rice plantations from which they had escaped, purchased land, married, and buried each other. These formerly enslaved peoples, together with those in the semi-urban port cities, and on rice plantations in the coastal plains, created the distinctly American Gullah Geechee dialect, culture, and identity- perhaps the most significant legacy of Harriet Tubman's Combahee River Raid.
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My Glorious Defeats: Hacktivist, Narcissist, Anonymous
by Barrett Brown
In this entertaining and enlightening book, an award-winning journalist, who served four years in prison for leaking intelligence documents, recounts exploits from a life shaped by an often self-destructive drive to speak truth to power, exposing the incompetence and injustices that plague media and politics.
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The Dragon From Chicago: The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany
by Pamela D. Toler
Drawing on extensive archival research, this captivating look at one of the earliest reporters to warn Americans of the growing dangers of Nazism shows how she exposed the Nazis for misreporting the news to their own people- a powerful example for how we can reclaim truth in an era of disinformation and “fake news.”
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JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography
by RoseMarie Terenzio
Sharing never-before-told stories and insights, JFK Jr.'s closest friends, confidantes, lovers, classmates, teachers and colleagues paint a vivid portrait of one of the most notable figures of the 20th century, revealing how the boy who saluted became the man America came to know and love who still captures public imagination 25 years after his tragic death.
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The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum
by Margalit Fox
In 1850, an impoverished twenty-five-year-old named Fredericka Mandelbaum came to New York in steerage and worked as a peddler on the streets of Lower Manhattan. By the 1870s she was a fixture of high society and an admired philanthropist. How was she able to ascend from tenement poverty to vast wealth? In the intervening years, "Marm" Mandelbaum had become the country's most notorious "fence" and a criminal mastermind. But Mrs. Mandelbaum wasn't just a successful crook: She was a business visionary. The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum paints a vivid portrait of Gilded Age New York straddling the line between underworld enterprise and "legitimate" commerce. Combining deep historical research with the narrative flair for which she is celebrated, Margalit Fox tells the unforgettable true story of a once-famous heroine whose life exemplifies America's cherished rags-to-riches narrative while simultaneously upending it entirely.
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Focus on: Olympic Athletes
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Running Sideways: The Olympic Champion Who Made Track and Field History
by Pauline Davis
The inspiring story of Pauline Davis, a Bahamian sprinter who fought through poverty, inequality, and racism to compete in five Olympic Games and become the first woman from the Caribbean to win Olympic gold. She would inspire an entire nation and go onto become the first Black woman elected to the international governing body of athletics.
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| Dear Black Girls: How to Be True to You by A'ja WilsonWNBA power forward and Olympic gold medalist A'ja Wilson's bestselling
blend of memoir and self-help offers an upbeat celebration of overcoming adversity, with each chapter serving as a letter written to young Black girls. Try this next: Coming Home by Brittney Griner. |
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The Making of a Miracle
by Mike Eruzione
The captain of the 1980 U.S. Men's Olympic Hockey team traces his blue-collar upbringing in Massachusetts, minor-league achievements and encounters with such individuals as Al Michaels, Herb Brooks and an elite array of Russian Hall of Famers.
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The Hard Parts: A Memoir of Courage and Triumph
by Oksana Masters
The United States' most decorated winter Paralympic or Olympic athlete tells how she overcame Chernobyl disaster-caused physical challenges through sheer determination and a drive to succeed to win the world's best in elite rowing, biathlon, cross-country skiing and road cycling competitions.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Michigan City Public Library
100 E. 4th Street
Michigan City, Indiana 46360
219-873-3044mclib.org/ |
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