Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II

I can remember Jim Crow, but some how missed this story from my history classes. Blackman has done a wonderful service to all Americans by placing the outcome of the Civil War in historical context.

Essentially, freedmen were jailed on (what we would term today) trumped charges. The authorities then leased those men (and the occasional woman) to commercial enterprises without recourse. They were, in essence Blackman suggests, expected to fulfill their "time served" under conditions not unlike they had known earlier under enslavement.

Blackman fills every chapter with stories illustrating the expriences of those held. They are all explicit and many brought tears to my eyes. There is some repetition or, rather, some of the descriptions are similar. However, the last sections of the book bring home the necessity of the narration presented before.

Blackman's writing is very good. The narration of Dennis Boutsikanis is outstanding. This is a book no American should miss.

Fills in a missing chapter in American history dealing with slavery. We hear a lot about slavery prior to the civil war and during the civil rights movement, but not during the period between them. How did we ever let these things happen?

New twist on US slave history. Mostly focused on AL and GA post Civil War slavery.
Well crafted.

Highly recommend this, and have done so many times since

Learning about overlooked real events, research in the minutest detail, and conveyed in an engaging way through the lives of principal individuals.

Very direct and well paced; never gets in the way of the narrative, only enhances it. Authoritative without sounding pedantic.

The South will never be the same.

The story is a book of passion and discovery by a well respected, objective, obsessively dedicated,

The information presented here is powerful, moving, and not well enough known. I would have liked more perspective about things such as the total number of black vs. white convicts, the total black population in areas under discussion, and so on. Still, the story is well told and hard to forget. The reader is okay, though he has a number of vocal ticks that increasingly grate (esp. a sort of Clintonesque yawn/purr, the sound equivalent of tilting your head). Also, someone should have prevented his comic pronunciation of Dubois (which he reads like Blanche Dubois) and Tuskegee.

This was my first Audible stab at non-fiction and I must say that I found the subject fascinating. The author tells of his thorough search into the depths of a murky subject that should come to light in this age of consciousness. His lists of names of souls and their individual demises, however, got a bit tedious and rather reminded me of the "begat" sections in Genesis and Exodus of the bible. I understand that he wanted to list the names of the victims though - to kind of honour their existence and the cruelties they suffered. Not a light subject, and, as a Canadian, I was totally oblivious of these atrocities that took place up until WWII.

The Race Beat

A fascinating and frightening chapter in US history that I knew nothing about.

The research effort behind it and the fairly impartial way it was presented

Many terrible accounts of slaves being greatly abused both physically and mentally. But balanced with some accounts of the circumstances that lead to these events.
Biggest impact for me was a greater appreciation for the value of conservative as opposed to radical change. Anybody who thinks that large problems can ever be solved with an overnight revolution or such should read this book and see what the emancipation of Negroes after the Civil war did to many in the African population.

This book tells about a piece of our nation's past that many people do not know about. The author puts the story together well, and it is well researched.

The narrator mispronounced too many words -- the most frustrating mispronunciation was that of W.E.B. DuBois -- he pronounced the name DuBwah. Every time I heard the name mispronounced, I cringed. Someone who is going to narrate a work of history should really check out how to pronounce the names of famous historical figures before he begins.

There already is a film coming out -- I will have to see what the tag line is.

This book is a very interesting and thorough overview of a very dark chapter in our history. Unfortunately, it is more proof that the federal government generally acts on behalf of the weak long after suffering and abuse has occurred.