BETWEEN FREEDOM AND EQUALITY The History of an African American Family in Washington, DC

L. Malaika Cooper narrates the story of Captain George Pointer and his descendants with a touch of intimacy that draws listeners in. Authors Barbara Boyle Torrey and Clara Myrick Green go beyond the records, showing how racial laws and increasing prejudice affected free Blacks. Cooper's personal touch makes listeners feel the indignity of having to prove free status or the fear that came with the violence of white mobs. The history goes from Captain Pointer's work as a superintendent engineer with George Washington's Potomac Company to the 1928 eminent domain sale of Dry Meadows, the farm Pointer's descendants owned near Washington, DC. Listeners intrigued by tracing ancestry will find help in an appendix, and a surviving letter from Pointer is included in full. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2021]