"This is a Borzoi Book"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-295) and index.

Historian Berry resurrects the forgotten life of courageous pioneering activist Callie House (1861-1928), ex-slave, widowed Nashville washerwoman and mother of five who, seventy years before the civil rights movement, headed a demand for ex-slave reparations. House was born into slavery in 1861 and sought African-American pensions based on those offered Union soldiers, targeting taxes on seized rebel cotton (over $1.2 billion in 2005 dollars) and demanding it as repayment for centuries of unpaid labor. The Justice Department banned the activities of her town organizers and falsely accused her of mail fraud; the federal officials had the post office open the mail of almost all African-Americans, denying delivery on the smallest pretext. Though African-American newspapers, most of which preached meekness toward whites, ignored or derided Mrs. House's Ex-Slave Association, the movement flourished until she was imprisoned; deprived of her spirit, leadership and ferocity, the first national grassroots African-American movement fell apart.--From publisher description.

BSLW RECAT 2023