True Story

When  I taught US History one of the most uncomfortable things to teach was slavery.  To the modern mind it seems inconceivable that such evil could have been so prevalent during the founding and well into the development of this nation.  We tend to skim over it or even worse compress it into technical facts and ignore the great human cost.  Judith and Dennis Fradin's Stolen Into Slavery makes the horrors of slavery real-and that is important.

Stolen Into Slavery tells the story of, what some argue to be, one of the greatest evils of slavery.  Free black men and women were kidnapped from norther free states and sold into slavery.  This book tells the true story of one such slave, Solomon Northup.  Solomon travels south playing his violin with some companions, when they drug him and sell him to a salve pen.

The Fradin's main source was Northup's own autobiography Twelve Years a Slave (that probably sounds familiar because it was recently made a movie).  This gives them access to Solomon's thoughts and feelings and brings the book to life.

I am a huge fan of cross-curricular work and I think this book should be required reading for all students of US History (or if you are an older student Northup's autobiography).

Learning the truth...that's kids stuff.