Library Journal (October 15, 2007)
John Washington (1838-1918) was born a slave in Virginia. Wallace Turnage (1846-1916) was born a slave in North Carolina. Blight tags the men as "ordinary," yet his detection and re-creation of their lives belie the label. Both Washington and Turnage wrote autobiographies, discovered by this award-winning Yale historian (Race and Reunion) and director of the university’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, and his finds add fresh dimensions to the genre usually mislabeled "slave narratives." Blight offers insightful and instructive explanations of place and time, but this work does more than contextualize the two men’s writings of how they liberated themselves. As a whole, it evokes a treasury of experience and impression of African American slavery and emancipation. Washington’s "Memorys of the Past" and poignant note on the death of his son and Turnage’s "Journal" powerfully depict a too often shrouded past.
Required reading for scholars or even casual students, this signal contribution is essential for any collection on slavery, emancipation, or African American or U.S. history and literature.
— Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe