A compelling reconstruction of the life of a black suffragist, Adella Hunt Logan, blending family lore, historical research, and literary imagination. Born during the Civil War into a slaveholding family that included black, white, and Cherokee forebears, Adella Hunt Logan dedicated herself to advancing political and educational opportunities for the African American community. She taught at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute but also joined the segregated woman suffrage movement, passing for white in order to fight for the rights of people of color. Her determination--as a wife, mother, scholar, and activist--to challenge the draconian restraints of race and gender generated conflicts that precipitated her tragic demise.
Historian Adele Logan Alexander--Adella Hunt Logan's granddaughter--portrays Adella, her family, and contemporaries such as Booker T. Washington, Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver, Theodore Roosevelt, and W. E. B. Du Bois. Alexander bridges the chasms that frustrate efforts to document the lives of those who traditionally have been silenced, weaving together family lore, historical research, and literary imagination into a riveting, multigenerational family saga.
About the Author :
Adele Logan Alexander taught for many years at George Washington University. She is the author of Ambiguous Lives: Free Women of Color in Rural Georgia, 1789-1879 and Homelands and Waterways: The American Journey of the Bond Family, 1846--1926. Allyson Johnson began her entertainment career in her hometown of Chicago as an Emmy Award-winning child news anchor. A graduate of Brown University, she is a working actress, singer, and audiobook narrator in the New York City metropolitan area.
Review :
"Absorbing."
--New Yorker "New Yorker"
"Allyson Johnson...skillfully employs a multitude of Southern and Northern accents and inflections for the host of characters who were important in her time...Johnson captures her passion in sharp tones that shift to a somewhat ponderous intonation for letters and articles. Note: This work faithfully reproduces the racist language and attitudes of its setting."
--AudioFile "AudioFile"
"Both a definitive rendering of a life and a remarkable study of the interplay of race and gender in an America whose shadows still haunt us today."
--Henry Louis Gates, Jr., New York Times bestselling author "Henry Louis Gates, Jr., New York Times bestselling author"
"If you combine the pleasures of a seductive novel, discovering a real American heroine, and learning the multiracial history of this country that wasn't in our textbooks, you will have an idea of the great gift that Adele Logan Alexander has given us in Princess of the Hither Isles. By writing about her own grandmother, she helps us discover our own country."
--Gloria Steinem, New York Times bestselling author "Gloria Steinem, New York Times bestselling author"
