Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana

·
· Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Gary Tiedemann
Audiobook
9 hr 52 min
Unabridged
Eligible
Ratings and reviews aren’t verified  Learn More
Want a 59 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline. 
Add

About this audiobook

How did Africans become "blacks" in the Americas? Becoming Free, Becoming Black tells the story of enslaved and free people of color who used the law to claim freedom and citizenship for themselves and their loved ones. Their communities challenged slaveholders' efforts to make blackness synonymous with slavery. Looking closely at three slave societies-Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana-Alejandro de la Fuente and Ariela J. Gross demonstrate that the law of freedom-not slavery-established the meaning of blackness in law. Contests over freedom determined whether and how it was possible to move from slave to free status, and whether claims to citizenship would be tied to racial identity. Laws regulating the lives and institutions of free people of color created the boundaries between black and white, the rights reserved to white people, and the degradations imposed only on black people.

About the author

Alejandro de la Fuente is the Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics, professor of African and African American studies, and the director of the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Harvard University, Massachusetts.

Ariela J. Gross is the John B. and Alice R. Sharp Professor of Law and History and the codirector of the Center for Law, History, and Culture at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. She is the author of What Blood Won't Tell and Double Character.

Gary Tiedemann is a Florida and New York-based narrator, but learned how to act in Chicago's improv, sketch-comedy, and theater scene. He came to audiobook narration after voicing countless commercials and videos over a twenty-year voice-over career.

Rate this audiobook

Tell us what you think.

Listening information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.