Parallel Communities

Download or read book Parallel Communities written by Dennis C. Rizzo and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2008-10-23 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true story of the small African American communities that formed in southern New Jersey during the era of slavery—includes photos. For slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad, names like Springtown and Snow Hill promised sanctuary and salvation. Under the pressures of racial prejudice, many free blacks, runaway slaves, and even Native Americans formed island communities on the periphery of South Jersey towns. While Lawnside and others continue to thrive today, others, like Marshalltown and Timbuctoo, now exist only in memory. In this discussion of these primarily African American communities, Dennis Rizzo validates their role in the preservation of tradition, definition of extended family, and creation of a social bond between diverse peoples; together they formed parallel communities based on, but independent of, the larger towns and villages familiar to residents of the Garden State.