PRAISE FOR ROWING TO FREEDOM
"
Rowing to Freedom is a remarkable and rare volume. We are fortunate that David Blight, a foremost authority on the slave narrative, has applied his considerable skills as historian and detective to these extraordinary stories of 'ordinary' men. As if their own stories of slavery and the flight to freedom were not fascinating enough, Blight has filled in the details of their lives after slavery in a way that re-creates both the turbulence and nearly unfathomable joy of emancipation. The narratives of Turnage and Washington will surely take their place among the most moving and instructive examples of the genre." –Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
"Together, Blight's meticulous research and the previously unknown autobiographical writings of these two men bring to life with unprecedented power the human dimensions of slavery and emancipation." –Eric Foner
"
Rowing to Freedom presents two of the most significant finds in the entire genre of slave narratives and of the primary material from the Civil War." –David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of
W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919 "David Blight combines the authority of a great historian with the humanistic zeal of a novelist . . .
Rowing to Freedom is a compelling account of two men of remarkable courage who, by writing down their stories, sought to make themselves visible. Neither man could have wished for a more sympathetic or knowledgeable interpreter than David Blight." –Caryl Phillips, author of
A Distant Shore
