James Island: Stories from Slave Descendants

Today, James Island is a bustling community seven miles west of Charleston, South Carolina. But the island’s past was not always as sunny. Beginning in the eighteenth century, James Island was the destination for hundreds of slaves who were tortured with unimaginable hardships while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. In James Island: Stories From Slave Descendants, Eugene Frazier, Sr. compiles narrative interviews with slaves, slave descendents, and descendents of plantation owners. The stories he gathered give us a singular perspective on the lives of African Americans from 1732-1950, following the James Island community from more than 130 years of slavery to decades of sharecropping and farming while slavery’s long shadow survived in segregation. An excellent resource for historians, teachers or those interested in the journey from slavery to integration, James Island: Stories From Slave Descendants will be an enlightening and meaningful addition to any library.