Syracuse Public Library’s Adult Book Club will get on board for Indiana’s One State, One Story choice: “All That She Carried” by Tiya Miles.
In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag for her with a few items, and, soon after, the 9-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the sack in spare, haunting language.
Historian Tiya Miles carefully traces these women’s faint presence in archival records, and, where archives fall short, she turns to objects, art, and the environment to write a singular history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward, in the United States.
A discussion will occur at 1 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 26, in the library’s downstairs meeting room. Copies are available at the library. Digital copies may be available on Libby.
For information, email Emilia at elayne@syracuse.lib.in.us.
Please RSVP for this program so we can provide enough food!