African-American Passages: Black Lives in the 19th Century

Explores the lives of three African Americans whose passages through the 19th-century are uniquely documented in the Library's manuscripts.

  • Audio Recording
    In Search of Adeline Henson In the Library of Congress’s Manuscript Collections are two photographs of an African-American woman named Adeline Henson. In the first photograph she is a young woman, probably still enslaved, and in the second, taken in 1913, she is now elderly. According to a letter that accompanies the photographs, Henson had been purchased by George and Mary Price of Baltimore to keep her from being…
    • Contributor: Martha Jones - Beverly Brannan - Adam Rothman
    • Date: 2019-02-26
  • Audio Recording
    Robert Pinn’s Left Hand In 1866, Medal of Honor winner Robert Pinn, a sergeant in the 5th United States Colored Troops, submitted an autobiographical essay to a left-handed penmanship competition organized by a newspaper editor to promote the cause of disabled veterans. Like many other soldiers, Sergeant Pinn had lost the use of his right arm during the Civil War. The podcast will explore Sergeant Pinn’s life story…
    • Contributor: Michelle Krowl - Chandra Manning - Adam Rothman
    • Date: 2019-02-19
  • Audio Recording
    The Long Journey of Omar Ibn Said This podcast will explore the remarkable story of an enslaved Muslim man named Omar ibn Said. His autobiography is one of the Library of Congress’s newest acquisitions. Written in Arabic in 1831, it is one of the very few memoirs written by an African-born man in the Americas. The podcast will trace Said’s life journey and the afterlife of his autobiography. The guests for…
    • Contributor: Adam Rothman - Sylviane Diouf - Mary-Jane Deeb
    • Date: 2019-02-12
  • Audio Recording
    Prologue This first episode of the African-American Passages series introduces the concept of the podcast, detailing the existence of documents related to Black Americans in Library collections. Rothman briefly previews the stories to be told in-depth in the later episodes.
    • Contributor: Adam Rothman
    • Date: 2019-02-05