Join the Lehman Center for American History and the Columbia University and Slavery Project for a Book Talk and Discussion with Sarah Gronningsater, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania.

Gronningsater’s exhaustive archival research reveals the far-reaching impacts of the cradle-to-grave experiences of a generation of black New Yorkers. Born into precarious freedom after the American Revolution and reaching adulthood in the lead-up to the Civil War, this remarkable generation ultimately played an outsized role in political and legal conflicts over slavery’s future, influencing both the nation’s path to the Civil War and changes to the US Constitution.

The Rising Generation shows how, as the children of gradual abolition reached adulthood, they took the lessons of their youth into midcentury campaigns for legal equality, political inclusion, equitable common school education, and the expansion of freedom across the nation.