This saga opens with the enslavement of a woman from Senegambia, and then traces her family s quest, across five generations, for lives of dignity and equality. The story of Rosalie and her descendants unfolds against the background of three great antiracist struggles: the Haitian Revolution, the French Revolution of 1848, and the U.S. Civil War."

Rebecca J. Scott is Charles Gibson Distinguished University Professor of History and Professor of Law at the University of Michigan.