Kate Clifford Larson

The revelatory, poignantstory of Rosemary Kennedy, the eldest and eventually secreted-away Kennedy daughter, and how her life transformed her family, its women especially, and an entire nation"

The Hidden Kennedy Daughter

Rosemary

A definitive biography of Harriet Tubman draws on extensive genealogical resources and new archives and materials to capture the complex life and personality of an important historical figure--fugitive slave, conductor on the Underground Railroad, and Civil War spy, nurse, and soldier--revealing her personal life, accomplishments, and influence. Reprint. 14,000 first printing.

Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero

Bound for the Promised Land

She was born the 20th child in a family that had lived in the Mississippi Delta for generations, first as enslaved people and then as sharecroppers. She left school at 12 to pick cotton, as those before her had done, in a world in which white supremacy was an unassailable citadel. She was subjected without her consent to an operation that deprived her of children. And she was denied the most basic of all rights in America--the right to cast a ballot--in a state in which Blacks constituted nearly half the population. And so Fannie Lou Hamer lifted up her voice. Starting in the early 1960s and until her death in 1977, she was an irresistible force, not merely joining the swelling wave of change brought by civil rights but keeping it in motion. Working with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which recruited her to help with voter-registration drives, Hamer became a community organizer, women's rights activist, and co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. She summoned and used what she had against the citadel--her anger, her courage, her faith in the Bible, and her conviction that hearts could be won over and injustice overcome. She used her brutal beating at the hands of Mississippi police, an ordeal from which she never fully recovered, as the basis of a televised speech at the 1964 Democratic Convention, a speech that the mainstream party--including its standard-bearer, President Lyndon Johnson--tried to contain. But Fannie Lou Hamer would not be held back. For those whose lives she touched and transformed, for those who heard and followed her voice, she was the embodiment of protest, perseverance, and, most of all, the potential for revolutionary change. Kate Clifford Larson's biography of Fannie Lou Hamer is the most complete ever written, drawing on recently declassified sources on both Hamer and the civil rights movement, including unredacted FBI and Department of Justice files. It also makes full use of interviews with Civil Rights activists conducted by the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress, and Democratic National Committee archives, in addition to extensive conversations with Hamer's family and with those with whom she worked most closely. Stirring, immersive, and authoritative, Walk with Me does justice to Fannie Lou Hamer's life, capturing in full the spirit, and the voice, that led the fight for freedom and equality in America at its critical moment.

A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer

Walk with Me

Basic Books Staff

A critical study of Mary Surratt, executed by the federal government for her role in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, describes the complex workings of the Lincoln conspiracy from the perspective of its only female participant, drawing on long-lost interviews, court testimony, and confessions to reveal the truth about her actions and their repercussions. 20,000 first printing.

Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln

The Assassin's Accomplice

In The Assassin's Accomplice, historian Kate Clifford Larson tells the gripping story of Mary Surratt, a little-known participant in the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln, and the first woman ever to be executed by the federal government of the United States. Surratt, a Confederate sympathizer, ran the boarding house in Washington where the conspirators-including her rebel son, John Surratt-met to plan the assassination. When a military tribunal convicted her for her crimes and sentenced her to death, five of the nine commissioners petitioned President Andrew Johnson to show mercy on Surratt because of her sex and age. Unmoved, Johnson refused-Surratt, he said, “kept the nest that hatched the egg.” Set against the backdrop of the Civil War, The Assassin's Accomplice tells the intricate story of the Lincoln conspiracy through the eyes of its only female participant. Based on long-lost interviews, confessions, and court testimony, the text explores how Mary's actions defied nineteenth-century norms of femininity, piety, and motherhood, leaving her vulnerable to deadly punishment historically reserved for men. A riveting narrative account of sex, espionage, and murder cloaked in the enchantments of Southern womanhood, The Assassin's Accomplice offers a fresh perspective on America's most famous murder.

The Assassin's Accomplice, movie tie-in

A Library Journal Best Reference Book of 2022 Harriet Ross Tubman, born enslaved in Maryland emerged from the most oppressive of conditions to lead others to freedom along the Underground Railroad and then continue her fight against slavery on the battlefields of the Civil War. During the last fifty years of her life in New York she campaigned for voting and civil rights, became an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, community organizer and leader. Harriet Tubman: A Reference Guide to Her Life and Works captures her life, her works, and legacy. It features a chronology, an introduction offers a brief account of her life, a dictionary section lists entries on people, places, and events central to Tubman’s life as an enslaved person, liberator, abolitionist, soldier, spy, wife, mother, and public figure, and includes the most recent research findings and the latest efforts to memorialize her.

A Reference Guide to Her Life and Works

Harriet Tubman

In The Assassin's Accomplice, historian Kate Clifford Larson tells the gripping story of Mary Surratt, a little-known participant in the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln, and the first woman ever to be executed by the federal government of the United States. Surratt, a Confederate sympathizer, ran the boarding house in Washington where the conspirators-including her rebel son, John Surratt-met to plan the assassination. When a military tribunal convicted her for her crimes and sentenced her to death, five of the nine commissioners petitioned President Andrew Johnson to show mercy on Surratt because of her sex and age. Unmoved, Johnson refused-Surratt, he said, "kept the nest that hatched the egg." Set against the backdrop of the Civil War, The Assassin's Accomplice tells the intricate story of the Lincoln conspiracy through the eyes of its only female participant. Based on long-lost interviews, confessions, and court testimony, the text explores how Mary's actions defied nineteenth-century norms of femininity, piety, and motherhood, leaving her vulnerable to deadly punishment historically reserved for men. A riveting narrative account of sex, espionage, and murder cloaked in the enchantments of Southern womanhood, The Assassin's Accomplice offers a fresh perspective on America's most famous murder.

Kate Clifford Larson

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