About the Author

James Oliver Horton is the Benjamin Banneker Professor of American Studies and History at the George Washington University, directs the African-American Communities Project at the Smithsonian Institution, and is the author of Free People of Color: Inside the African American Community.

Lois E. Horton is Professor of Sociology and American Studies at George Mason University and the co-author of Black Bostonians: Family Life and Community Struggles in the Antebellum North.

Reviews

"James and Lois Horton have used superb scholarship to pierce the mists shrouding the first generations of blacks on these shores and have delivered a sharp portrait of some of the earliest and strongest Americans. This is a profound work of the utmost importance to anyone who wants to understand the United States and her people."--Roger Wilkins, George Mason University
"This elegantly crafted narrative by James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton illuminates the burgeoning voice and visibility of the northern free black American community in the two centuries preceding the Civil War....At the core of this work are chapters on culture, race, and class in the colonial North; the evolution of family and household; culture, politics, and the issue of African-American identity; and sustaining and serving the community....The elegance
of its conception, language, and general presentation are to be commended."--American Historical Review
"A thorough and monumental text! I am thrilled to use this in my courses in African American history. The Hortons must be commended for their superior work in the field."--Lynn M. Hudson, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
"James and Lois Horton have used superb scholarship to pierce the mists shrouding the first generations of blacks on these shores and have delivered a sharp portrait of some of the earliest and strongest Americans. This is a profound work of the utmost importance to anyone who wants to understand the United States and her people."--Roger Wilkins, Clarence J. Robinson Professor of History and American Culture, George Mason University
"This is really a fascinating study. On one level, it is a superb synthesis of three decades of scholarship on Northern Blacks in slavery and freedom. If that were all the book was, it would be a valuable contribution to the field. However, the Hortons take their study much further, pulling together material from many disciplines to illuminate the lives of Northern men and women of color. We have the chance, however briefly, to enter into the lives of these
people, and see through their eyes their struggle to be free, to achieve personal fulfillment, to be part of a community, and to carve out for themselves and their children a place in a society that was
never reconciled to their presence."--Julie Winch, History Department, University of Massachusetts, Boston
"In Hope of Liberty is a stunning achievement of research, insight, and an inclusive historical vision. The Hortons give us the free black experience from 1700 to the Civil War in what will become the standard, synthetic work on the subject. Told with an artful combination of irony, economy, and original description of people and events, this story of the origin and persistence of black communities richly demonstrates how much black history belongs in
the central narrative of American history. This book will surprise and enlighten a broad readership."--David W. Blight, Associate Professor of History, Amherst College
"This important book is first-rate and tells great stories of the first group of free African Americans, people known and unknown, who struggled mightily to bridge cultures. It reads very well, and it covers both a large chronology, from the colonial period into the Civil War, and a large area, the North of the United States. In Hope of Liberty is destined to take its place among a pantheon of illustrious works on race relations."--Orville Vernon
Burton, Professor of History and Sociology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
"In Hope of Liberty presents an excellent examination of northern free black life from the early arrivals in the transatlantic slave trade to the coming of the Civil War. The studies of various individuals and of the roles of family, church, and antislavery activities demonstrate the accomplishments of blacks in circumstances of racial injustice. This is an important contribution to the study of black and American history."--Stanley L. Engerman,
Professor of Economics and History, University of Rochester
"In their latest collaboration, [the Hortons] integrate a voluminous body of scholarship with their own analytic insights to produce a valuable study of northern free blacks before the Civil War....[T]he Hortons utilize naming patterns, religious practices, language behavior, and musical traditions to show the vitality of Africanisms in their unique variant of American culture....[A]n engaging, thought-provoking book that will benefit generalists and
specialists alike. It should become the new standard work on the subject."--The Journal of American History
"This ambitious work is much more than a narrative of the experiences of free blacks in the North...should be read by specialists in both African American history and the history of early America because of its success in integrating black history into the larger framework of the American past. It also will be useful as a teaching tool."--Mitch Kachun, Southeast Community College
"...the Hortons present a compelling analysis of the African background....[they] remind us that throughout this process of social and cultural adaptation, U.S. blacks remained connected to Africans of the homeland and the diaspora."--American Studies International
"...an engaging, thought-provoking book that will benefit generalists and specialists alike. It should become the new standard work on this subject."--The Journal of American History
"In Hope of Liberty should be read by specialists in both African-American history and the history of early America because of its success in integrating black history into the larger framework of the American past. It also will be useful as a teaching tool....It is accessible for undergraduates (as well as a broad nonacademic readership), yet contains some provocative ideas that are sure to generate discussion in graduate seminars. James and Lois
Horton offer a profound interpretation of an emergent multiracial society that until recently has refused to see itself as such. More works like this one are needed to refine, or redefine, out understanding of
just what sort of nation America is and how it came to be that way."--H-SHEAR
"Beautifully researched and rich history of an important but sometimes neglected dimension of African-American history."--Dan O'Bryan, Sierra Nevada College