From Slavery to Freedom: 2026 Release ISE

1 Ancestral Africa (circa 500 b.c.e – 1600)

2 Africans in the Atlantic World (1471–1800)

3 Establishing North American Slavery (1528–1750)

4 Enslavement in Eighteenth-Century America (1700–1775)

5 Give Me Liberty (1763–1788)

6 Building Communities in the Early Republic (1790–1830)

7 Southern Slavery (1790–1860)

8 Antebellum Free Blacks (1830–1860)

9 Abolitionism in Black and White (1820–1860)

10 Civil War (1861–1865)

11 Promises and Pitfalls of Reconstruction (1863–1877)

12 The Color Line (1877–1917)

13 The Era of Self-Help (1880–1922)

14 In Pursuit of Democracy (1914–1919)

15 Voices of Protest (1910–1928)

16 The Arts at Home and Abroad (1920–1938)

17 The New Deal Era (1929–1945)

18 Double V for Victory (1941–1945)

19 American Dilemmas (1935–1955)

20 We Shall Overcome (1947–1968)

21 Black Power (1955–1980)

22 Progress and Poverty (1980–2000)

23 The Zigzag of History (since 2000)

Since its first edition in 1947, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans has inserted the black experience squarely into American history, a narrative that previously denied black contribution or at best dismissed its importance. An ever-growing mountain of scholarship on African Americans informs the book's discussion of key topics, from the development of metallurgy in ancient African civilizations to the story of black life in the British colonies to the emergence of social movements and activism in communities across the United States in the mid-twentieth century. The breadth of historical actors, including the role of women throughout history, particularly in slavery, abolitionism, the Jim Crow era, and the civil rights/black power movement is explored.