Central Kansas Library System

Henry Shackleford is a young slave living in the Kansas Territory in 1857, when the region is a battleground between anti- and pro-slavery forces. When John Brown, the legendary abolitionist, arrives in the area, an argument between Brown and Henry's master quickly turns violent. Henry is forced to leave town - with Brown, who believes he's a girl. Over the ensuing months, Henry - whom Brown nicknames Little Onion - conceals his true identity as...

A gripping, radically intimate debut novel about a group of enslaved women staging a covert rebellion against their owners. On a struggling Texas plantation, six enslaved women slip from their sleeping quarters and gather in the woods under the cover of night. The Lucys--as they call the plantation owners, after Lucifer himself--have decided to turn around the farm's bleak financial prospects by making the women bear children. They have hired a "stockman"...

"Aaron Burr was a hero of the Revolution, a brilliant politician, lawyer, and very nearly president; a skillful survivor in a raw new country filled with constantly shifting loyalties. But there were dark whispers about him: that he was untrustworthy, a libertine, a man unafraid of claiming whatever he believed should be his. Sold into slavery as a child in India, Mary Emmons was brought to an America torn by war. Toughened by the experiences of her...

In a poignant meditation on love and loss, Sadie, the abandoned wife of the slave Jim from Mark Twain's the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn details her romance with Jim, an ambitious young slave. His decision to run away with a young white boy named Huck Finn, and the bleak repercussions of that decision for her and their children. A deeply moving recasting of one of the most controversial characters in American literature, Huckleberry Finn's Jim,...

Alex Haley's Roots, in which he traces his family's history from the mid-18th century when one of his ancestors was captured and sold into slavery. Follows the struggle for freedom that began with the boy's abduction to America and continued throughout the generations that followed.

Underground tells the story of American heroes and their harrowing journey from slavery to freedom, with the legendary Harriot Tubman blazing the trail.

Inspired by the legend of Shields 'Emperor' Green, a descendant of African kings turned outlaw slave in the pre-Civil War South. Seeking freedom for his family, Emperor fights his way north, joining the daring raid on Harper's Ferry and helping alter the course of American history.

Ethan Hawke stars as abolitionist John Brown in this Limited Event Series based on the award-winning novel. The story is told from the point of view of "Onion," a fictional enslaved boy who becomes a member of Brown's motley family of abolitionist soldiers battling slavery in Kansas, and eventually finds himself in the famous 1859 Army depot raid at Harpers Ferry, an inciting incident of the Civil War. It's a humorous and dramatic tale of Antebellum...