A slave no more

SPRINGFIELD - The author of a biography that traces the harrowing accounts of two runaway slaves will hold a book discussion and signing Saturday, December 8 at 7 p.m. in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum's Union Theater in downtown Springfield.

David W. Blight, author of A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom will discuss his compelling biography during the December 8 session. Free reservations for the evening may be made by calling (217) 558-8934. Copies of his book will be available for purchase in the Museum's book store.

Slave narratives, some of the most powerful records of our past, are extremely rare, with only 55 post-Civil War narratives surviving. A mere handful are first-person accounts by slaves who ran away and freed themselves. Two newly uncovered narratives and biographies of the men who wrote them are the basis of A Slave No More. Filled with the two men's humor, faith and joy, the book offers a rich, new answer to the question of how four million people moved from slavery to freedom, and tells the previously untold stories of two men who can now take their rightful place in American history.

Blight is the Director of Yale University's Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, and is also a professor of American history. His books have won the Frederick Douglass Prize, the Lincoln Prize, four awards from the Organization of American Historians, and the Bancroft Prize. He writes for The Washington Post and lectures around the country on slavery and the Civil War.