Song Yet Sung Library Resources

Fiction

• Kindred by Octavia Butler, Science Fiction
  A woman from the twentieth century, Dana is repeatedly brought back in time by her slave-owning ancestor Rufus when his life is endangered. She chooses to save him, knowing that because of her actions a free-born black woman will eventually become his slave and her own grandmother. When forced to live the life of a slave, Dana realizes she is not as strong as her ancestors.
  Available as: book, BCD and eAudio
• The Runaway Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini, Fiction
  Master quilter Sylvia Compson comes across an heirloom quilt that muddles her heritage. She's always believed her ancestors were active in the Underground Railroad-- but perhaps she's been mistaken.
  Available as: book and BCD
• Walk Through Darkness by David Anthony Durham, Historical Fiction
  The slave William barely survives the escape from his brutal owner in Virginia. He is searching for his pregnant wife, Dover, who has been taken to New York by her mistress. Both Dover and freedom await William--if he can reach that northern state.
  Available as: book and BCD
• Sweetsmoke by David Fuller, Historical Fiction
  Compromising his position as a favored slave in 1862 Virginia, talented carpenter Cassius investigates the murder of a close friend and finds an unexpected ally in field worker Quashee, an effort that earns the enmity of his master.
  Available as: book
• The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines, Historical Fiction
  Miss Jane Pittman is celebrating her 110th birthday. As the civil rights movement heats up, Miss Jane, a former slave, recounts her memories of the black experience from picking potatoes on a southern plantation to fetching water for soldier in the Civil War to her views on the current and turbulent equal rights movement.
  Available as: book, BCD and DVD
• The Known World by Edward P. Jones, Historical Fiction
  When a plantation proprietor and former slave--now possessing slaves of his own--dies, his household falls apart in the wake of a slave rebellion and corrupt underpaid patrollers who enable free black people to be sold into slavery.
  Available as: book, BCD, eBook and eAudio
• North Star Conspiracy by Miriam Grace Monfredo, Mystery
  While working for the Underground Railroad in Seneca Falls, New York, librarian Glynis Tryon is troubled by the suspicious death of a freed slave and uncovers a shocking secret about some of her fellow abolitionists.
  Available as: book
• A Mercy by Toni Morrison, Fiction
  Farmer and traderJacob Vaark is offered a slave woman, Florens, as payment for a debt. He considers accepting this slave "a mercy," for surely her life will be better with him, where she will be considered a servant rather than a slave. Morrison's luminous prose highlights the other conditions which amounted to alternate forms of "slavery" in those times, particularly those based in economics and class like indentured servitude.
  Available as: book and BCD
• Soul Catcher by Michael C. White, Historical Fiction
  Struggling to forget a war-marked past and a future compromised by poor choices and debt, slave tracker Augustus Cain is hired by a plantation owner to retrieve a runaway slave named Rosetta.
  Available as: book
• A Woman Called Moses, DVD Drama Woman
  The story of Harriet Tubman, who bought her freedom from slavery, founded the Underground Railroad, and helped lead hundreds of slaves to freedom before the Civil War.
  Available as: DVD

Non-Fiction

• Bound for Canaan: the Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America by Fergus M. Bordewich, 973.7115 Bordewich
  Offers insight into the Underground Railroad and the role played by westward expansion, the spiritual beliefs that motivated each side of the conflict, and the efforts of black and white citizens to save tens of thousands of lives.
  Available as: book, BCD and eAudio
• Let My People Go: the story of the underground railroad and the growth of the abolition movement by Henrietta Buckmaster, 973.7115 Buckmaster
  Examines the events and key figures behind the formation and operation of the Underground Railroad, the secretive and illegal organization that helped American slaves escape to freedom in the northern United States and Canada.
  Available as: book
• Forbidden fruit: love stories from the Underground Railroad by Betty De Ramus, 973.7115 Deramus
  Despite the risks, some American slaves partook of the "forbidden fruit" of marriage. And when the dreaded separation inevitably occurred, slave spouses deeply felt a sorrowful anguish and sometimes made Herculean efforts to re-unite.
  Available as: book and BCD
• Beyond the River: the Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad by Ann Hagedorn, 973.7115 Hagedorn
  Traces the story of John Rankin and the heroes of the Ripley, Ohio, line of the Underground Railroad, identifying the pre-Civil War conflicts between abolitionists and slave chasers along the Ohio River banks.
  Available as: book
• Escape on the Pearl: the Heroic Bid for Freedom on the Underground Railroad by Mary Kay Ricks, 973.7115 Ricks
  Traces the failed 1848 escape attempt of more than seventy slaves, an event that galvanized the debate over slavery in Congress, in an account that focuses on the freedom quest of teenage sisters Mary and Emily Edmonson.
  Available as: book
• I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land: a Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad by Karolyn Smardz Frost, 973.7115 Smardz
  Traces the heroic story of former slaves Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, who launched a daring and successful daylight escape from their slave masters in 1831, became the subjects of a first serious legal dispute between Canada and the United States regarding the Underground Railroad, sparked the Blackburn Riot of 1833, and worked with prominent abolitionists to provide shelter for runaways.
  Available as: book and BCD
• Hidden in Plain View: the Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad by Jacqueline Tobin, 973.7115 Tobin
  The authors reveal the secret codes woven by African-American slaves into quilts they used to navigate their escape on the Underground Railroad, part of a well-organized resistance movement that preceded the abolitionist crusade.
  Available as: book
• Hanging Captain Gordon: The Life and Trial of an American Slave Trader by Ron Soodalter, 921 Gordon
  Documents the 1862 trial and execution of Nathaniel Gordon, the only man in the history of the United States to be hanged for slave trading, in an account that sets the trial against a backdrop of the Civil War under newly elected president Lincoln and offers insight into why slave trading, although illegal, was previously overlooked.
  Available as: book
• Underground Railroad, DVD 973.7115 Underground
  This History Channel production traces the journey to freedom taken by countless slaves, showing how they were guided, protected and pursued along the way. The extraordinary story is told through historical documents, visits to important sites, interviews with the descendants of noted abolitionists and commentary from experts.
  Available as: DVD
• Whispers of angels: a Story of the Underground Railroad, DVD 973.7115 Whispers
  White Quaker Abolitionist Thomas Garrett and William Still, a free, black anti-slavery activist, "conducted" thousands of fugitives to freedom through the "corridor of courage," through Maryland's Eastern Shore to the streets of Philadelphia.
  Available as: DVD

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