A Slave No More

Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation

By: David W. Blight

Narrated by: Arthur Morey, Dominic Hoffman

Slave narratives are extremely rare. Of the 100 or so of these testimonies that survive, a mere handful are first-person accounts by slaves who ran away and freed themselves. Now, two newly uncovered narratives, and the biographies of the men who wrote them, join that exclusive group.

Wallace Turnage was a teenage field hand on an Alabama plantation, John Washington an urban slave in Virginia. They never met. But both men saw opportunity in the chaos of the Civil War, both escaped North, and both left us remarkable accounts of their flights to freedom. Handed down through family and friends, these narratives tell gripping stories of escape.

Working from an unusual abundance of genealogical material, historian David W. Blight has reconstructed Turnage's and Washington's childhoods as sons of White slaveholders and their climb to Black working-class stability in the North, where they reunited their families. In A Slave No More, the untold stories of two ordinary men take their place at the heart of the American experience.

©2007 David W. Blight (P)2007 Books on Tape

Critic reviews

"These powerful memoirs reveal poignant, heroic, painful and inspiring lives." ( Publishers Weekly)

Actual slave letters during the Civil War

Actual slave story diaries! Must must Listen! 2 runaway slave stories written by literate by literate ex slaves. And it all is shocking to listen to.

A Piece Of History

I have always been curious about this time in our Nation's history. Treasures like the two very interesting tales in A Slave No More. Help educate the American public to the mind set of the time.

Unbelievable stories of endurance

This was an amazing book and I am so glad that I chose it. What an amazing story of endurance and the desire to be free. Though afterwards they both experience different levels of freedom, and there was much poverty I understand the need to be free even if it is in poverty.

Awesome narrative,very intriguing and interesting

This book was very interesting and informative and gives a great depiction of the 2 men's lives and their detail of escaping slavery and their desire for freedom. they continue to push forward never giving up until they tasted freedom. They took emancipation into their own hands.

Reader Comments

This is an excellent history book on slavery. Being mulatto myself I highly recommend this book to every person that is of full or part African-American decent.