Acclaimed historian Mary Frances Berry resurrects the remarkable story of ex-slave Callie House who, seventy years before the civil-rights movement, demanded reparations for ex-slaves. A widowed Nashville washerwoman and mother of five, House (1861-1928) went on to fight for African American pensions based on those offered to Union soldiers, brilliantly targeting $68 million in taxes on seized rebel cotton and demanding it as repayment for centuries of unpaid labor. Here is the fascinating story of a forgotten civil rights crusader: a woman who emerges as a courageous pioneering activist, a forerunner of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
- ISBN10 0307277054
- ISBN13 9780307277053
- Publish Date 10 October 2006 (first published 6 September 2005)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Random House USA Inc
- Imprint Vintage Books
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 336
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780307277053