Slavery ended when Turner was a middle aged man. It was 1865, the American Civil War was over, and the era we call Reconstruction had begun. As a freedman, Turner joined the Republican Party and was elected tax collector of his county. In 1869 he won a seat on the Selma, Alabama town council. The following year he ran for the US House of Representatives on the Republican ticket. He won and served in Washington from 1871 to 1873. Like most incumbents, he hoped to be re-elected but another African American ran as an independent and split the Black vote, leaving victory to the fusion party white candidate. Turner returned to Selma. He resumed his life as a farmer and businessman but also kept a hand in politics including serving as a delegate to the 1880 Republican convention.
Authors Rosner and Gaillard made the wise decision of letting Turner narrate his story. This telling, in the first person, has a quiet but compelling quality. It is a voice that will appeal to youngsters reading the book, or having it read to them. The illustrations by Jordana Haggard are powerful but will not overwhelm young readers despite depicting the slave system. Throughout the book, the young and the mature Turner are painted as an individual of strength and dignity.
A longtime goal of the new social history has been to recapture and celebrate the lives of forgotten or undervalued individuals. With this new book Marti Tosner, an educator with an interest in curriculum, and Frye Gaillard, a journalist and historian of the South, have succeeded splendidly in bringing the difficult subject of a political life to young readers who may take up this book on their own. It is
accessible. But it is also a story to be read together by child and adult as there are concepts and institutions that beg further discussion beginning with how and why the United States allowed slavery and continuing on to Congressman Turner’s support of universal amnesty for members of the Confederacy.
The noted historian Eric Foner has challenged us not to forget Black legislators of the Reconstruction era. The Slave Who Went to Congress answers that challenge with the forceful telling of a remarkable life.
Start your own diversity library with a copy of this book, or start one for a youngster that you know.
©Jill Norgren for SeniorWomen.com
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