Benjamin Banneker and Us
Eleven Generations of an American Family
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Benjamin Banneker and Us
Buy for $17.57
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Rachel Jamison Webster
-
By:
-
Rachel Webster
About this listen
A family reunion gives way to an unforgettable genealogical quest as relatives reconnect across lines of color, culture, and time, putting the past into urgent conversation with the present.
In 1791, Thomas Jefferson hired a Black man to help survey Washington, DC. That man was Benjamin Banneker, an African American mathematician, a writer of almanacs, and one of the greatest astronomers of his generation. Banneker then wrote what would become a famous letter to Jefferson, imploring the new president to examine his hypocrisy, as someone who claimed to love liberty yet was an enslaver. More than two centuries later, Rachel Jamison Webster, an ostensibly white woman, learns that this groundbreaking Black forefather is also her distant relative.
Acting as a storyteller, Webster draws on oral history and conversations with her DNA cousins to imagine the lives of their shared ancestors across eleven generations, among them Banneker’s grandparents, an interracial couple who broke the law to marry when America was still a conglomerate of colonies under British rule. These stories shed light on the legal construction of race and display the brilliance and resistance of early African Americans in the face of increasingly unjust laws, some of which are still in effect in the present day.
©2023 Rachel Jamison Webster (P)2023 Blackstone PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
-
Master Slave Husband Wife
- An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom
- By: Ilyon Woo
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Leon Nixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 460
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 389
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 388
In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Necessary story well told!
- By Marc W Rhoades on 01-19-23
By: Ilyon Woo
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 8,885
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,768
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7,756
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
The Grimkes
- The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family
- By: Kerri K. Greenidge
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 22
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 22
The Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina, have been highly revered figures in American history, lauded for leaving behind their lives as elite slave-owning women on a plantation in South Carolina to become firebrand abolitionists in the North. Yet the focus on their story has obscured the experiences of their Black relatives, the progeny of their brother, Henry, and one of the enslaved people he owned, a woman named Nancy Weston.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Before you read The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd read The Grimkes first.
- By Sherri Harris on 01-03-23
-
Hello Beautiful
- A Novel
- By: Ann Napolitano
- Narrated by: Maura Tierney
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,105
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,440
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,438
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Book was great, performance terrible
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-23
By: Ann Napolitano
-
The 272
- The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church
- By: Rachel L. Swarns
- Narrated by: Karen Murray
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
In 1838, a group of America’s most prominent Catholic priests sold 272 enslaved people to save their largest mission project, what is now Georgetown University. In this groundbreaking account, journalist, author, and professor Rachel L. Swarns follows one family through nearly two centuries of indentured servitude and enslavement to uncover the harrowing origin story of the Catholic Church in the United States. Through the saga of the Mahoney family, Swarns illustrates how the Church relied on slave labor and slave sales to sustain its operations and to help finance its expansion.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Not surprising…
- By NW P on 06-16-23
By: Rachel L. Swarns
-
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
- A Novel
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 9,721
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 9,035
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 9,033
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Multiple Stories Obfuscate Narrative
- By Stephnsea on 08-12-23
By: James McBride
-
Master Slave Husband Wife
- An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom
- By: Ilyon Woo
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Leon Nixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 460
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 389
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 388
In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Necessary story well told!
- By Marc W Rhoades on 01-19-23
By: Ilyon Woo
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 8,885
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,768
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7,756
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
The Grimkes
- The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family
- By: Kerri K. Greenidge
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 22
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 22
The Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina, have been highly revered figures in American history, lauded for leaving behind their lives as elite slave-owning women on a plantation in South Carolina to become firebrand abolitionists in the North. Yet the focus on their story has obscured the experiences of their Black relatives, the progeny of their brother, Henry, and one of the enslaved people he owned, a woman named Nancy Weston.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Before you read The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd read The Grimkes first.
- By Sherri Harris on 01-03-23
-
Hello Beautiful
- A Novel
- By: Ann Napolitano
- Narrated by: Maura Tierney
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,105
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,440
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,438
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Book was great, performance terrible
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-23
By: Ann Napolitano
-
The 272
- The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church
- By: Rachel L. Swarns
- Narrated by: Karen Murray
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
In 1838, a group of America’s most prominent Catholic priests sold 272 enslaved people to save their largest mission project, what is now Georgetown University. In this groundbreaking account, journalist, author, and professor Rachel L. Swarns follows one family through nearly two centuries of indentured servitude and enslavement to uncover the harrowing origin story of the Catholic Church in the United States. Through the saga of the Mahoney family, Swarns illustrates how the Church relied on slave labor and slave sales to sustain its operations and to help finance its expansion.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Not surprising…
- By NW P on 06-16-23
By: Rachel L. Swarns
-
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
- A Novel
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 9,721
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 9,035
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 9,033
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Multiple Stories Obfuscate Narrative
- By Stephnsea on 08-12-23
By: James McBride
-
The House Is on Fire
- By: Rachel Beanland
- Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Andi Arndt, Michael Crouch, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 208
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 181
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 181
Richmond, Virginia 1811. It’s the height of the winter social season, the General Assembly is in session, and many of Virginia’s gentleman planters, along with their wives and children, have made the journey to the capital. On the night after Christmas, the city's only theater is packed with holiday revelers. In the middle of a performance, the theater goes up in flames. Based on the true story of Richmond’s theater fire, The House Is on Fire offers proof that sometimes, in the midst of great tragedy, we are offered our most precious—and fleeting—chances at redemption.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I learned a lot
- By Jane Perkins on 04-24-23
By: Rachel Beanland
-
A Fever in the Heartland
- The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
- By: Timothy Egan
- Narrated by: Timothy Egan
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 1,148
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,032
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 1,031
The Roaring Twenties—the Jazz Age—has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This is a must read!
- By V. Richmond on 04-14-23
By: Timothy Egan
-
How the Word Is Passed
- A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
- By: Clint Smith
- Narrated by: Clint Smith
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 3,580
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 3,203
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 3,189
Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the listener on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Sincerely grateful read
- By Kelvin Dixon on 06-08-21
By: Clint Smith
-
South to America
- A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
- By: Imani Perry
- Narrated by: Imani Perry
- Length: 16 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 434
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 381
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 380
We all think we know the South. Even those who have never lived there can rattle off a list of signifiers: the Civil War, Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan, plantations, football, Jim Crow, slavery. But the idiosyncrasies, dispositions, and habits of the region are stranger and more complex than much of the country tends to acknowledge. In South to America, Imani Perry shows that the meaning of American is inextricably linked with the South, and that our understanding of its history and culture is the key to understanding the nation as a whole.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An incredible achievement
- By Tom on 02-16-22
By: Imani Perry
-
I Saw Death Coming
- A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction
- By: Kidada E. Williams
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 25
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 22
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 22
In I Saw Death Coming, Kidada E. Williams offers a breakthrough account of the much-debated Reconstruction period, transporting listeners into the daily existence of formerly enslaved people building hope-filled new lives.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Underrepresented piece of history
- By James O'Hanlon on 07-05-23
-
Poverty, by America
- By: Matthew Desmond
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 857
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 756
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 755
The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A testimonial based on facts and witness
- By Alonzo Nightjar on 03-27-23
By: Matthew Desmond
-
Up Home
- One Girl's Journey
- By: Ruth J. Simmons
- Narrated by: Ruth J. Simmons
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 113
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 104
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 104
Born in 1945, Ruth J. Simmons grew up the twelfth child of sharecroppers. Her first home had no running water, no electricity, no books to read. Yet despite this—or, in her words, because of it—Simmons would become the first Black president of an Ivy League university. The former president of Smith College, Brown University, and Prairie View A&M, Texas’s oldest HBCU, Simmons has inspired generations of students as she herself made history.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
BORING
- By jacer on 11-02-24
By: Ruth J. Simmons
-
Madame Restell
- The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist
- By: Jennifer Wright
- Narrated by: Mara Wilson
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 72
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 65
Madame Restell is a sharp, witty Gilded Age medical history which introduces us to an iconic, yet tragically overlooked, feminist heroine: a glamorous women’s healthcare provider in Manhattan, known to the world as Madame Restell. A celebrity in her day with a flair for high fashion and public, petty beefs, Restell was a self-made woman and single mother who used her wit, her compassion, and her knowledge of family medicine to become one of the most in-demand medical workers in New York.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Every woman should listen to this book!
- By Ruth Aston on 06-18-23
By: Jennifer Wright
-
The Postcard
- By: Anne Berest, Tina Kover - translator
- Narrated by: Barrie Kealoha
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 303
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 259
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 259
January, 2003. Together with the usual holiday cards, an anonymous postcard is delivered to the Berest family home. On the front, a photo of the Opéra Garnier in Paris. On the back, the names of Anne Berest’s maternal great-grandparents, Ephraïm and Emma, and their children, Noémie and Jacques—all killed at Auschwitz. Fifteen years after the postcard is delivered, Anne, the heroine of this novel, is moved to discover who sent it and why.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
The author’s words deserve a better narrator
- By TK on 05-22-23
By: Anne Berest, and others
-
King: A Life
- By: Jonathan Eig
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 644
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 551
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 550
Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig’s King: A Life is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.—and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
My Time
- By Susan on 06-18-23
By: Jonathan Eig
-
Wandering in Strange Lands
- A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots
- By: Morgan Jerkins
- Narrated by: Morgan Jerkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 80
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
From the acclaimed cultural critic and New York Times best-selling author of This Will Be My Undoing - a writer whom Roxane Gay has hailed as “a force to be reckoned with” - comes this powerful story of her journey to understand her Northern and Southern roots, the Great Migration, and the displacement of black people across America.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Not Just Black History -- It's All Of Our History
- By Ardee on 08-22-20
By: Morgan Jerkins
-
Slaves in the Family
- By: Edward Ball
- Narrated by: Edward Ball
- Length: 20 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 180
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 159
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 159
The Ball family hails from South Carolina - Charleston and thereabouts. Their plantations were among the oldest and longest-standing plantations in the South. Between 1698 and 1865, close to 4,000 Black people were born into slavery under the Balls or were bought by them. In Slaves in the Family, Edward Ball recounts his efforts to track down and meet the descendants of his family's slaves.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Gives a good insight for moving forward today
- By Wendy Wood on 05-05-19
By: Edward Ball
Related to this topic
-
Wandering in Strange Lands
- A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots
- By: Morgan Jerkins
- Narrated by: Morgan Jerkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 80
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
From the acclaimed cultural critic and New York Times best-selling author of This Will Be My Undoing - a writer whom Roxane Gay has hailed as “a force to be reckoned with” - comes this powerful story of her journey to understand her Northern and Southern roots, the Great Migration, and the displacement of black people across America.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Not Just Black History -- It's All Of Our History
- By Ardee on 08-22-20
By: Morgan Jerkins
-
The Other Madisons
- The Lost History of a President's Black Family
- By: Bettye Kearse
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
In The Other Madisons, Bettye Kearse - a descendant of a slave named Coreen and, according to oral tradition, President James Madison - finally shares her family story, exploring legacy, race, and the powerful consequences of telling the whole truth.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Enlightening
- By D C on 08-24-20
By: Bettye Kearse
-
How the Word Is Passed
- A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
- By: Clint Smith
- Narrated by: Clint Smith
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 3,580
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 3,203
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 3,189
Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the listener on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Sincerely grateful read
- By Kelvin Dixon on 06-08-21
By: Clint Smith
-
In Search of Our Roots
- How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past
- By: Henry Louis Gates Jr.
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 34
Most African Americans, in tracing their family’s past, encounter a series of daunting obstacles. Slavery was a brutally efficient nullifier of identity, willfully denying Black men and women even their names. Here, scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., backed by an elite team of geneticists and researchers, takes 19 extraordinary African Americans on a once unimaginable journey, tracing family sagas through US history and back to Africa.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Amazing
- By Placeholder on 04-17-19
-
We Are Each Other's Harvest
- Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy
- By: Natalie Baszile
- Narrated by: Tina Lifford
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 41
In this impressive anthology, Natalie Baszile brings together essays, poems, quotes, conversations, and first-person stories to examine Black people’s connection to the American land from Emancipation to today. We Are Each Other’s Harvest elevates the voices and stories of Black farmers and people of color, celebrating their perseverance and resilience, while spotlighting the challenges they continue to face. Luminous and eye-opening, this eclectic collection helps people and communities of color today reimagine what it means to be dedicated to the soil.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Various Voices
- By Peggy Sweeney on 11-06-21
By: Natalie Baszile
-
White like Her
- By: Gail Lukasik PhD, Kenyatta D. Berry - foreword
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 587
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 520
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 519
In the historical context of the Jim Crow South, Gail explores her mother's decision to pass, how she hid her secret even from her own husband, and the price she paid for choosing whiteness. Haunted by her mother's fear and shame, Gail embarks on a quest to uncover her mother's racial lineage, tracing her family back to 18th-century colonial Louisiana. In coming to terms with her decision to publicly out her mother, Gail changed how she looks at race and heritage.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Disappointed
- By Yoli on 06-06-18
By: Gail Lukasik PhD, and others
-
Wandering in Strange Lands
- A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots
- By: Morgan Jerkins
- Narrated by: Morgan Jerkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 80
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
From the acclaimed cultural critic and New York Times best-selling author of This Will Be My Undoing - a writer whom Roxane Gay has hailed as “a force to be reckoned with” - comes this powerful story of her journey to understand her Northern and Southern roots, the Great Migration, and the displacement of black people across America.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Not Just Black History -- It's All Of Our History
- By Ardee on 08-22-20
By: Morgan Jerkins
-
The Other Madisons
- The Lost History of a President's Black Family
- By: Bettye Kearse
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
In The Other Madisons, Bettye Kearse - a descendant of a slave named Coreen and, according to oral tradition, President James Madison - finally shares her family story, exploring legacy, race, and the powerful consequences of telling the whole truth.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Enlightening
- By D C on 08-24-20
By: Bettye Kearse
-
How the Word Is Passed
- A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
- By: Clint Smith
- Narrated by: Clint Smith
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 3,580
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 3,203
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 3,189
Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the listener on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Sincerely grateful read
- By Kelvin Dixon on 06-08-21
By: Clint Smith
-
In Search of Our Roots
- How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past
- By: Henry Louis Gates Jr.
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 34
Most African Americans, in tracing their family’s past, encounter a series of daunting obstacles. Slavery was a brutally efficient nullifier of identity, willfully denying Black men and women even their names. Here, scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., backed by an elite team of geneticists and researchers, takes 19 extraordinary African Americans on a once unimaginable journey, tracing family sagas through US history and back to Africa.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Amazing
- By Placeholder on 04-17-19
-
We Are Each Other's Harvest
- Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy
- By: Natalie Baszile
- Narrated by: Tina Lifford
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 41
In this impressive anthology, Natalie Baszile brings together essays, poems, quotes, conversations, and first-person stories to examine Black people’s connection to the American land from Emancipation to today. We Are Each Other’s Harvest elevates the voices and stories of Black farmers and people of color, celebrating their perseverance and resilience, while spotlighting the challenges they continue to face. Luminous and eye-opening, this eclectic collection helps people and communities of color today reimagine what it means to be dedicated to the soil.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Various Voices
- By Peggy Sweeney on 11-06-21
By: Natalie Baszile
-
White like Her
- By: Gail Lukasik PhD, Kenyatta D. Berry - foreword
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 587
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 520
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 519
In the historical context of the Jim Crow South, Gail explores her mother's decision to pass, how she hid her secret even from her own husband, and the price she paid for choosing whiteness. Haunted by her mother's fear and shame, Gail embarks on a quest to uncover her mother's racial lineage, tracing her family back to 18th-century colonial Louisiana. In coming to terms with her decision to publicly out her mother, Gail changed how she looks at race and heritage.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Disappointed
- By Yoli on 06-06-18
By: Gail Lukasik PhD, and others
-
Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All
- A New Zealand Story
- By: Christina Thompson
- Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 67
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 56
Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All is the story of the cultural collision between Westerners and the Maoris of New Zealand, told partly as a history of the complex and bloody period of contact between Europeans and the Maoris in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and partly as the story of Christina Thompson's marriage to a Maori man.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
a beautiful story
- By Pumpkin99 on 12-24-22
-
Finding Samuel Lowe
- China, Jamaica, Harlem
- By: Paula Williams Madison
- Narrated by: Paula Williams Madison
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 24
Thanks to her spiteful, jealous Jamaican mother, Nell Vera Lowe was cut off from her Chinese father, Samuel, when she was just a baby, after he announced that he was taking a Chinese bride. By the time Nell was old enough to travel to her father's shop in St. Anne's Bay, he'd taken his family back to China, never learning what became of his eldest daughter. Bereft, Nell left Jamaica for New York to start a new life.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating
- By ayodele higgs on 01-27-16
-
Master Slave Husband Wife
- An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom
- By: Ilyon Woo
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Leon Nixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 460
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 389
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 388
In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Necessary story well told!
- By Marc W Rhoades on 01-19-23
By: Ilyon Woo
-
On Juneteenth
- By: Annette Gordon-Reed
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 3 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 594
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 533
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 530
Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth provides a historian’s view of the country’s long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African Americans have endured in the century since, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and beyond.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
A short but compelling combination of history and
- By BK on 05-18-21
-
Lose Your Mother
- A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route
- By: Saidiya Hartman
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 32
In Lose Your Mother, Saidiya Hartman traces the history of the Atlantic slave trade by recounting a journey she took along a slave route in Ghana. Following the trail of captives from the hinterland to the Atlantic coast, she reckons with the blank slate of her own genealogy and vividly dramatizes the effects of slavery on three centuries of African and African American history.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Outstanding!!
- By eric lewis on 02-19-24
By: Saidiya Hartman
-
The Fire This Time
- A New Generation Speaks About Race
- By: Jesmyn Ward
- Narrated by: Cherise Boothe, Michael Early, Kevin R. Free, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 245
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 208
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 206
National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward takes James Baldwin's 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time, as a jumping-off point for this groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race from the most important voices of her generation and our time.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Delusion shattering
- By Matthew A. Burnett on 06-12-20
By: Jesmyn Ward
-
Twelve Years a Slave
- By: Solomon Northup
- Narrated by: Stephen L. Vernon
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 535
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 468
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 467
Twelve Years a Slave is an account of actual events that took place in the life of Solomon Northup, during the pre-Civil War era of the 1840s. It follows the trials and tribulations of an educated African American man that was born into freedom and later kidnapped, taken away from his family, and forced into slavery.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
What a great book!!!
- By Andrew Robbin on 09-07-14
By: Solomon Northup
-
Dreams of Africa in Alabama
- The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America
- By: Sylviane A. Diouf
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
In the summer of 1860, more than 50 years after the United States legally abolished the international slave trade, 110 men, women, and children from Benin and Nigeria were brought ashore in Alabama under cover of night. They were the last recorded group of Africans deported to the United States as slaves. This book reconstructs the lives of the people in West Africa, recounts their capture and passage in the slave pen in Ouidah, and describes their experience of slavery alongside American-born enslaved men and women.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Should be required reading in all schools.
- By Anonymous User on 12-31-21
-
Slaves in the Family
- By: Edward Ball
- Narrated by: Edward Ball
- Length: 20 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 180
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 159
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 159
The Ball family hails from South Carolina - Charleston and thereabouts. Their plantations were among the oldest and longest-standing plantations in the South. Between 1698 and 1865, close to 4,000 Black people were born into slavery under the Balls or were bought by them. In Slaves in the Family, Edward Ball recounts his efforts to track down and meet the descendants of his family's slaves.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Gives a good insight for moving forward today
- By Wendy Wood on 05-05-19
By: Edward Ball
-
Life Beyond Measure
- Letters to My Great-Granddaughter
- By: Sidney Poitier
- Narrated by: Sidney Poitier
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 108
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 78
Sidney Poitier is one of the most revered actors in the history of Hollywood. He has overcome enormous obstacles in extraordinary times and is a role model for many Americans because of his convictions, bravery, and grace. Poitier reflects on his amazing life in Life Beyond Measure, offering inspirational advice and personal stories in the form of extended letters to his great-granddaughter.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Mix of family history and life advice.
- By Adam Shields on 10-31-19
By: Sidney Poitier
-
Reclamation
- Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant's Search for Her Family's Lasting Legacy
- By: Gayle Jessup White
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
A Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings’ family explores America’s racial reckoning through the prism of her ancestors - both the enslaver and the enslaved.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Slow start, eventually a worthwhile story
- By ChocolateDweller on 12-17-21
-
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- By: Frederick Douglass
- Narrated by: Walter Covell
- Length: 3 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 488
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 409
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 407
Frederick Douglass was an American abolitionist, women's suffragist, editor, orator, author, statesman and reformer. He was called both "The Sage of Anacostia" and "The Lion of Anacostia" and is one of the most prominent figures in African-American history and United States history.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great Book!
- By Mama C on 03-05-11
What listeners say about Benjamin Banneker and Us
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story4 out of 5 stars
- Susannah H.
- 11-23-23
A unique story read by a beautiful storyteller
I loved this book so much. It’s part autobiographical, part non-fiction, part historical fiction, part poetic prose. What a wonderful way to tell a family’s journey through the centuries and across the landscapes of America.
You should read this book. It will warm your heart and inform your mind.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!